Tunable surface-plasmon-resonance wavelength of silver island films

This paper experimentally and theoretically investigates the effect of the underlayer medium on tuning of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) wavelength of silver island films,and the effect of substrate temperature on the morphologies and optical properties of the films.From the absorption spectra of single Ag with various thickness and overcoated (Ag/TiO 2) films deposited on glass substrates at various substrate temperatures by RF magnetron sputtering,we demonstrate that the surface plasmon resonance wavelength can be made tunable by changing the underlayer medium,the thickness of metal layer and the substrate temperature.By varying substrate temperatures,the interparticle coupling effects on plasmon resonances of nanosilver particles enhance as the spacing between the particles reduces.When the substrate temperature is up to 500 C,the absorption peak decreases sharply and shifts to shorter wavelength side due to the severe coalescence between silver islands in the film.     

Enhanced photoluminescence of CdSe quantum dots by the coupling of Ag nanocube and Ag film

The coupling of local surface plasmon(LSP) of nanoparticle and surface plasmon(SP) mode produced by metal film can lead to the enhanced electromagnetic field, which has an important application in enhancing the fluorescence of quantum dots(QDs). Herein, the Ag nanocube and Ag film are used to enhance the fluorescence of CdSe QDs. The enhancement is found to relate to the sizes of the Ag nanocube and the thickness of the Ag film. Moreover, we also present the fluorescence enhancement caused by only SP. The result shows that the coupling between metal nanoparticles and metal film can realize larger field enhancement. Numerical simulation verifies that a nanocube can localize a strong electric field around its corner. All the results indicate that the fluorescence of QDs can be efficiently improved by optimizing the parameters of Ag film and Ag cubes.     

Effect of substrate temperature on microstructure and optical properties of single-phased Ag20 film deposited by using radio-frequency reactive magnetron sputtering method

Using a radio-frequency reactive magnetron sputtering technique, a series of the single-phased Ag20 films are deposited in a mixture of oxygen and argon gas with a flow ratio of 2：3 by changing substrate temperature （Ts）. Effects of the Ts on the microstructure and optical properties of the films are investigated by using X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy and spectrophotometry. The single-phased Ag20 films deposited at values of Ts below 200℃ are （111） preferentially oriented, which may be due to the smallest free energy of the （111） crystalline face. The film crystallization becomes poor as the value of Ts increases from 100℃ to 225℃. In particular, the Ag20 film deposited at Ts=225℃ loses the （111） preferential orientation. Correspondingly, the film surface morphology obviously evolves from a uniform and compact surface structure to a loose and gullied surface structure. With the increase of Ts value, the transmissivity and the reflectivity of the films in the transparent region are gradually reduced, while the absorptivity gradually increases, which may be attributed to an evolution of the crystalline structure and the surface morphology of the films.     

Effect of substrate temperature on microstructure and optical properties of single-phased Ag2O film deposited by using radio-frequency reactive magnetron sputtering method

Using a radio-frequency reactive magnetron sputtering technique,a series of the single-phased Ag2O films are deposited in a mixture of oxygen and argon gas with a flow ratio of 2:3 by changing substrate temperature(T s).Effects of the T s on the microstructure and optical properties of the films are investigated by using X-ray diffractometry,scanning electron microscopy and spectrophotometry.The single-phased Ag2O films deposited at values of T s below 200℃ are(111) preferentially oriented,which may be due to the smallest free energy of the(111) crystalline face.The film crystallization becomes poor as the value of T s increases from 100℃ to 225℃.In particular,the Ag2O film deposited at T s = 225℃ loses the 111 preferential orientation.Correspondingly,the film surface morphology obviously evolves from a uniform and compact surface structure to a loose and gullied surface structure.With the increase of T s value,the transmissivity and the reflectivity of the films in the transparent region are gradually reduced,while the absorptivity gradually increases,which may be attributed to an evolution of the crystalline structure and the surface morphology of the films.     

Effect of Trimethyl Aluminium Surface Pretreatment on Atomic Layer Deposition Al2O3 Ultra-Thin Film on Si Substrate

Ultra-thin Al2O3 dielectric films have been deposited on Si substrates by using trimethyl aluminium （TMA） and water as precursors in an atomic layer deposition （ALD） system. Growth of the interracial layer between ultra-thin Al2O3 and the Si substrate is effectively suppressed by a long-time TMA surface pretreatment of the Si substrate prior to A1203 atomic layer deposition. High resolution transmission electron microscopy （TEM） images show that the thickness of the interracial layer is reduced to be 0.5nm for the sample with TMA pretreatment lasting 3600s. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results indicate that the A1203 film deposited on the TMApretreated Si surface exhibits very good thermal stability. However, a hysteresis of about 50mV is observed in the C- V curve of the samples with the TMA pretreatment.     

Long-range surface plasmon polaritons with subwavelength mode expansion in an asymmetrical system

Long-range surface plasmon polariton (LRSPP) modes in an asymmetrical system, in which the thin metal film is sandwiched between a semi-infinite substrate and a high permittivity polymer film with a finite thickness, are theoretically calculated and analyzed. Due to the high permittivity of the polymer film, at proper polymer film thicknesses, the index-matching condition of the dielectrics at both sides of the metal can be satisfied for supporting LRSPP modes, and the electromagnetic field above the metal can be localized well. It is found that these LRSPP modes have both long propagation lengths and subwavelength mode expansion above the metal at the optimal polymer film thicknesses. Furthermore, the requirements on the refractive index and the thickness of the polymer film to support LRSPP modes at the optimal thicknesses are found to be not critical.     

Thick c-BN films deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering in argon/nitrogen gas mixture with additional hydrogen gas

The excellent physical and chemical properties of cubic boron nitride(c-BN) film make it a promising candidate for various industry applications. However, the c-BN film thickness restricts its practical applications in many cases. Thus, it is indispensable to develop an economic, simple and environment-friend way to synthesize high-quality thick, stable c-BN films. High-cubic-content BN films are prepared on silicon(100) substrates by radio frequency(RF) magnetron sputtering from an h-BN target at low substrate temperature. Adhesions of the c-BN films are greatly improved by adding hydrogen to the argon/nitrogen gas mixture, allowing the deposition of a film up to 5-μm thick. The compositions and the microstructure morphologies of the c-BN films grown at different substrate temperatures are systematically investigated with respect to the ratio of H_2 gas content to total working gas. In addition, a primary mechanism for the deposition of thick c-BN film is proposed.     

Effective dielectric constant model of electromagnetic backscattering from stratified air–sea surface film–sea water medium

Studies of surface film medium on the sea surface are carried out in this paper for developing the technology to automatically detect and classify sea surface films, and an effective dielectric constant model of electromagnetic backscattering from a stratified air–ocean interface. Numerical results of the new model show the characteristics of effective dielectric constants for the air–sea surface film–sea water medium as follows. The effective dielectric constants decrease with increasing relative dielectric constants of the sea surface films. The effective dielectric constants decrease in horizontal polarization(abbr. HH polarization) and increase in VV vertical polarization(abbr. VV polarization) with increasing radar incident angle. Effective dielectric constants vary with relative sea surface film thickness as a cosinusoidal function of sea surface film thickness. Effective dielectric constant of VV polarization is larger than that of HH polarization. Two potential applications are found with our model, i.e., the retrieval of dielectric constants from the sea surface film, and the film thickness retrieval with our model. Our model has a highly significant influence on improving the technology related to the remote sensing of sea surface films.     

High quality NbTiN films fabrication and rapid thermal annealing investigation

NbTiN thin films are good candidates for applications including single-photon detector, kinetic inductance detector, hot electron bolometer, and superconducting quantum computing circuits because of their favorable characteristics,such as good superconducting properties and easy fabrication.In this work, we systematically investigated the growth of high-quality NbTiN films with different thicknesses on Si substrates by reactive DC-magnetron sputtering method.After optimizing the growth conditions, such as the gas pressure, Ar/N_2 mixture ratio, and sputtering power, we obtained films with excellent superconducting properties.A high superconducting transition temperature of 15.5 K with narrow transition width of 0.03 K was obtained in a film of 300 nm thickness with surface roughness of less than 0.2 nm.In an ultra-thin film of 5 nm thick, we still obtained a transition temperature of 7.6 K.In addition, rapid thermal annealing(RTA) in atmosphere of nitrogen or nitrogen and hydrogen mixture was studied to improve the film quality.The results showed that Tc and crystal size of the NbTiN films were remarkably increased by RTA.For ultrathin films, the annealing in N_2/H_2 mixture had better effect than that in pure N2.The T_c of 10 nm films improved from 9.6 K to 10.3 K after RTA in N_2/H_2 mixture at 450℃.     

Controlling the surface buckling wrinkles by patterning the material system of hard-nano-film/soft-matter-substrate

Wrinkling and buckling of nano-films on the compliant substrate are always induced due to thermal deformation mismatch.This paper proposes effective means to control the surface wrinkling of thin film on the compliant substrate,which exploits the curvatures of the curve cracks designed on the stiff film.The procedures of the method are summarized as:1)curve patterns are fabricated on the surface of PDMS(Polydimethylsiloxane)substrate and then the aluminum film with the thickness of several hundred nano-meters is deposited on the substrate;2)the curve patterns are transferred onto the aluminum film and lead to cracking of the film along the curves.The cracking redistributes the stress in the compressed film on the substrate;3)on the concave side of the curve,the wrinkling of the film surface is suppressed to be identified as shielding effect and on the convex side the wrinkling of the film surface is induced to be identified as inductive effect.The shielding and inductive effects make the dis-ordered wrinkling and buckling controllable.This phenomenon provides a potential application in the fabrication of flexible electronic devices.