Deposition of hexagonal boron nitride thin films on silver nanoparticle substrates and surface enhanced infrared absorption

Silver nanoparticle thin films with different average particle diameters are grown on silicon substrates. Boron nitride thin films are then deposited on the silver nanoparticle interlayers by radio frequency （RF） magnetron sputtering. The boron nitride thin films are characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectra. The average particle diameters of silver nanoparticle thin films are 126.6, 78.4, and 178.8 nm. The results show that the sizes of the silver nanoparticles have effects on the intensities of infrared spectra of boron nitride thin films. An enhanced infrared absorption is detected for boron nitride thin film grown on silver nanoparticle thin film. This result is helpful to study the growth mechanism of boron nitride thin film.     

High density gas state at water/graphite interface studied by molecular dynamics simulation

In this paper molecular dynamics simulations are performed to study the accumulation behaviour of N2 and H2 at water/graphite interface under ambient temperature and pressure. It finds that both N2 and H2 molecules can accumulate at the interface and form one of two states according to the ratio of gas molecules number to square of graphite surface from our simulation results： gas films （pancake-like） for a larger ratio and nanobubbles for a smaller ratio. In addition, we discuss the stabilities of nanobubbles at different environment temperatures. Surprisingly, it is found that the density of both kinds of gas states can be greatly increased, even comparable with that of the liquid N2 and liquid H2. The present results are expected to be helpful for the understanding of the stable existence of gas film （pancake-like） and nanobubbles.     

A multicomponent multiphase lattice Boltzmann model with large liquid–gas density ratios for simulations of wetting phenomena

A multicomponent multiphase(MCMP) pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann(LB) model with large liquid–gas density ratios is proposed for simulating the wetting phenomena. In the proposed model, two layers of neighboring nodes are adopted to calculate the fluid–fluid cohesion force with higher isotropy order. In addition, the different-time-step method is employed to calculate the processes of particle propagation and collision for the two fluid components with a large pseudoparticle mass contrast. It is found that the spurious current is remarkably reduced by employing the higher isotropy order calculation of the fluid–fluid cohesion force. The maximum spurious current appearing at the phase interfaces is evidently influenced by the magnitudes of fluid–fluid and fluid–solid interaction strengths, but weakly affected by the time step ratio.The density ratio analyses show that the liquid–gas density ratio is dependent on both the fluid–fluid interaction strength and the time step ratio. For the liquid–gas flow simulations without solid phase, the maximum liquid–gas density ratio achieved by the present model is higher than 1000:1. However, the obtainable maximum liquid–gas density ratio in the solid–liquid–gas system is lower. Wetting phenomena of droplets contacting smooth/rough solid surfaces and the dynamic process of liquid movement in a capillary tube are simulated to validate the proposed model in different solid–liquid–gas coexisting systems. It is shown that the simulated intrinsic contact angles of droplets on smooth surfaces are in good agreement with those predicted by the constructed LB formula that is related to Young's equation. The apparent contact angles of droplets on rough surfaces compare reasonably well with the predictions of Cassie's law. For the simulation of liquid movement in a capillary tube, the linear relation between the liquid–gas interface position and simulation time is observed, which is identical to the analytical prediction. The simulation results regarding the wetting phenomena of droplets on smooth/rough surfaces and the dynamic process of liquid movement in the capillary tube demonstrate the quantitative capability of the proposed model.     

Effect of Substrates on CuInSe2 Nanoparticle Thin Films by Radio Frequency Reactive Sputtering

CuInSe2(CIS) nanoparticle thin films have been prepared by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering from compound ternary fan-shaped targets on low-temperature substrates with pure argon gas as the atmosphere.The stoichiometry of the ternary compound semiconductor quantum dots can easily be controlled by the ratios of the ternary elements and sputtering parameters.CIS nanoparticle thin films regularly shaped and distributed reasonably uniform in size on substrates of 7059 glass etc can be grown in this way.The average particle diameter can be varied between 40-80 nm by an appropriate choice of the substrate temperature,power density and total CIS coverage.the optical and electrical properties of the CIS films have also been studied.     

Influence of reaction gas flows on the properties of SiGe:H thin film prepared by plasma assisted reactive thermal chemical vapour deposition

A new preparing technology, very high frequency plasma assisted reactive thermal chemical vapour deposition （VHFPA-RTCVD）, is introduced to prepare SiGe：H thin films on substrate kept at a lower temperature. In the previous work, reactive thermal chemical vapour deposition （I~TCVD） technology was successfully used to prepare SiGe：H thin films, but the temperature of the substrate needed to exceed 400℃. In this work, very high frequency plasma method is used to assist RTCVD technology in reducing the temperature of substrate by largely enhancing the temperature of reacting gases on the surface of the substrate. The growth rate, structural properties, surface morphology, photo- conductivity and dark-conductivity of SiGe：H thin films prepared by this new technology are investigated for films with different germanium concentrations, and the experimental results are discussed.     

Compositional and Structural Properties of TiO2-xNx Thin Films Deposited by Radio-Frequency Magnetron Sputtering

TiO2-xNx thin films are deposited onto Si（100） and quartz substrates by arf magnetron sputtering method using a titanium metal disc as a target in Ar, N2, and 02 atmospheres. The substrate temperature is kept at 300℃. The O2 and Ar gas flow rates are kept to be constants and the N gas flow rate is varied. TiO2-xNx films with different N contents are characterized by x-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results indicate that the TiO2-xNx thin films can be obtained at 13% N and 15% N contents in the film, and the films with mixed TiO2 and TiN crystal can be obtained at 13% N and 15% N contents in the film. In terms of the results of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, N ls of β-N （396 eV） is the main component in the TiO2-xNx thin films. Because the energy level of β-N is positioned above the valence-band maximum of TiO2, an effective optical-energy gap decreases from 2.8 eV （for pure TiO2 film deposited by the same rf sputtering system） to 2.3 eV, which is verified by the optical-absorption spectra.     

Morphology and Wettability of [Bmim][PF6] Ionic Liquid on HOPG Substrate

We investigate the morphology and wettability of [Bmira][PF6] ionic liquid （IL） on a highly oriented pyrolitic graphite （HOPG） substrate using atomic force microscopy. Thin films, nanometer-sized droplets, and ＂drop-onlayer＂ structures of the IL are found on the substrate. Films with a thickness of up to 2nm （about 4 IL layers） show the solid-like behavior. In contrast, a dewetting phenomenon is observed for thicker IL films, indicating that the IL films retain liquid properties. The contact angle of a buck IL droplet on the HOPG is measured to be about 35°. The wettability of the bulk IL droplet on the HOPG is found to be quite different from that of IL films. These results indicate that the IL molecules can be organized into various micro-morphologies when they are confined to a solid substrate and show characteristic behavior at nanometer scales.     

Influences of Interface States on Resistive Switching Properties of TiOx with Different Electrodes

Different TiOx thin films prepared by graded or sufficient oxidization of Ti are applied with Pt or Ag electrode in metal？insulator-metal （MIM） structures for studying the properties and mechanisms of resistive switching. The differences on the mobile oxygen vacancies in TiOx films and different work functions of the electrode films result in different insulator-metal interface states, which are displayed as ohmic-like or non-ohmic contact. Based on the interface states, the electrical models for MIM devices are analyzed and extracted. The electrode-limited effect and the bulk-limited effect can be unified to explain the mechanisms for resistive switching behavior as the dominant effect respectively in various conditions. All the current-voltage curves of the four kinds of specimens measured in the experiments can be explained and proved in accordance with the theory.     

Thermalization time of thin metal film heated by short pulse laser

Based on the hyperbolic two-step heat conduction model, using the Laplace transform and numerical inverse transform method (Riemann-sum approximation method), the thermal behaviour of thin metal films has been studied during femtosecond pulse laser heating. Also the thermalization time, which is the time for the electron gas and solid lattice to reach thermal balance, has been studied in detail. The values of thermalization time for silver (Ag), gold (Au), copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) are obtained. The effects of material parameters of the thin metal film on the thermalization time are considered for the four kinds of metals by changing one of the parameters and regarding the other parameters as constant. For a typical metal material, the order of the thermalization time is of the order of hundreds of picoseconds. The thermalization time decays exponentially with the increase of phonon－electron coupling factor or electron gas thermal conductivity, and it increases linearly with the increase of the ratio of lattice heat capacity to electron gas heat capacity. However, the relaxation time of the electron gas has very little effect on the thermalization time.     

Influence of substrate surface roughness on light scattering of TiO2 optical thin films

Optical thin films are used in many optical elements; however, light scattering can be problematic. We investigate the effect of substrate surface roughness on the light scattering of optical thin films. The substrates are classified according to their surface roughness, from fine to very rough, and coated with a single TiO2 layer or a SiO2/TiO2 multilayer. The light scattering intensity increases as the substrate roughness increases. Scanning electron microscopy reveals that the number of nodules formed in the optical thin films increases with the substrate roughness, which affects the light scattering properties.     

Analysis of heating effect on the process of high deposition rate microcrystalline silicon

A possible heating effect on the process of high deposition rate microcrystalline silicon has been studied.It includes the discharge time-accumulating heating effect,discharge power,inter-electrode distance,and total gas flow rate induced heating effect.It is found that the heating effects mentioned above are in some ways quite similar to and in other ways very different from each other.However,all of them will directly or indirectly cause the increase of the substrate surface temperature during the process of depositing microcrystalline silicon thin films,which will affect the properties of the materials with increasing time.This phenomenon is very serious for the high deposition rate of microcrystalline silicon thin films because of the high input power and the relatively small inter-electrode distance needed.Through analysis of the heating effects occurring in the process of depositing microcrystalline silicon,it is proposed that the discharge power and the heating temperature should be as low as possible,and the total gas flow rate and the inter-electrode distance should be suitable so that device-grade high quality deposition rate microcrystalline silicon thin films can be fabricated.     

Variable Energy Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy of GaN Grown on Sapphire Substrates with MOCVD

Depth profiled Doppler broadening of positron annihilation spectroscopy (DBPAS), which is also called the variable energy positron annihilation spectroscopy (VEPAS), is used in characterization of GaN grown on sapphire substrates with metal-organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). The GaN film and the film/substrate interface are investigated. The VEPFIT (variable energy positron fit) software was used for analysing the data,and the positron diffusion length of the sapphire is obtained. The results suggest that there is a highly defected region near the GaN/sapphire interface. This thin dislocated region is generated at the film/substrate interface to relieve the strain. Effects of implantation dose on defect formation, for the GaN/Sapphire samples, which implanted by Al^ ions, are also investigated. Studies on AI implanted GaN films (not including the interface and sapphire) have revealed that there are two different regions of implantation damage. For the low Al^ implantation dose samples, in the region close to the surface, defects are mainly composed of vacancy pairs with small amount of vacancy clusters, and in the interior region of the film the positron traps are vacancy clusters without micro-voids. For the highest dose sample, however, some positron trap centres are in the form of micro-voids in the second region.     

Grain size and its distribution in NiTi thin films sputter-deposited on heated substrates

Grain size and its distribution in NiTi thin films sputter-deposited on a heated substrate have been investigated using the small angle x-ray scattering technique. The crystalline particles have a small size and are distributed over a small range of sizes for the films grown at substrate temperatures 370 and 420℃. The results show that the sizes of crystalline particles are about the same. From the x-ray diffraction profiles, the sizes of crystalline particles obtained were 2.40nm and 2.81nm at substrate temperatures of 350 and 420℃, respectively. The morphology of NiTi thin films deposited at different substrate temperatures has been studied by atomic force microscopy. The root mean square roughness calculated for the film deposited at ambient temperature and 420℃ are 1.42 and 2.75nm, respectively.     

Electron beam evaporation deposition of cadmium sulphide and cadmium telluride thin films： Solar cell applications7

Cadmium sulphide （CdS） and cadmium telluride （CdTe） thin films are deposited by electron beam evaporation. Atomic force microscopy （AFM） reveals that the root mean square （RMS） roughness values of the CdS films increase as substrate temperature increases. The optical band gap values of CdS films increase slightly with the increase in the substrate temperature, in a range of 2.42-2.48 eV. The result of Hall effect measurement suggests that the carrier concentration decreases as the substrate temperature increases, making the resistivity of the CdS films increase. CdTe films annealed at 300 ℃ show that their lowest transmittances are due to their largest packing densities. The electrical characteristics of CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells are investigated in dark conditions and under illumination. Typical rectifying and photovoltaic properties are obtained.     

Electron beam evaporation deposition of cadmium sulphide and cadmium telluride thin films: Solar cell applications

Cadmium sulphide (CdS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin films are deposited by electron beam evaporation. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) reveals that the root mean square (RMS) roughness values of the CdS films increase as substrate temperature increases. The optical band gap values of CdS films increase slightly with the increase in the substrate temperature, in a range of 2.42-2.48 eV. The result of Hall effect measurement suggests that the carrier concentration decreases as the substrate temperature increases, making the resistivity of the CdS films increase. CdTe films annealed at 300℃ show that their lowest transmittances are due to their largest packing densities. The electrical characteristics of CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells are investigated in dark conditions and under illumination. Typical rectifying and photovoltaic properties are obtained.     

NiSi Film Synthesized by Isochronal Annealing in a Magnetron Sputtering System

By repeatedly pre-cleaning the sputtering chamber with Ar gas and in-situ isochronal annealing samples, NiSi films are successfully prepared on Si （100） substrates in a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering system. A comparison between the obtained NiSi and excess oxygen-contaminated Ni/Si films has been performed by EDX analysis of oxygen atomic content in both the films. Focused ion beam milling technology is employed to make the cross-sections of the samples for characterizing the NiSi film thickness and NiSi/Si interface roughness. The influences of nickel film thickness on the NiSi-film morphology and on the NiSi/Si interface roughness are studied.     

A New Method to Prepare Boron Nitride Thin Films

We report a new method to prepare boron nitride (BN) thin films on Si (100) substrates in an Ar-N2-BCl3-H2 gas system by magnetron arc enhanced plasma chemical vapour deposition. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) are used to characterize the films. The FTIR spectra show that the deposited boron nitride films experienced a transition from pure h-BN phase to a cubic-containing phase with the variation of arc current ranging from IOA to 18A. The BN film with 42% c-BN was obtained without substrate bias voltage. In the gas system of Ar-N2-BCl3-H2, h-BN can be preferentially etched by chlorine. The chemical etching effect of chlorine allows the formation of c-BN without substrate bias voltage, which may develop a new perspective for the deposition of high quality c-BN film with low stress.     

Influence of Different Substrates on Laser Induced Damage Thresholds at 1064nm of Ta2O5 Films

Ta2O5 films are prepared on Si, BK7, fused silica, antireflection （AR） and high reflector （HR） substrates by electron beam evaporation method, respectively. Both the optical property and laser induced damage thresholds （LIDTs） at 1064 nm of Ta2O5 films on different substrates are investigated before and after annealing at 673 K for 12 h. It is shown that annealing increases the refractive index and decreases the extinction index, and improves the O/Ta ratio of the Ta2O5 films from 2.42 to 2.50. Moreover, the results show that the LIDTs of the Ta2O5 films are mainly correlated with three parameters： substrate property, substoichiometry defect in the films and impurity defect at the interface between the substrate and the films. Details of the laser induced damage models in different cases are discussed.     

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.     

Effects of post-annealing on crystalline and transport properties of Bi_2Te_3 thin films

A well-established method is highly desirable for growing topological insulator thin films with low carrier density on a wafer-level scale. Here, we present a simple, scalable method based on magnetron sputtering to obtain high-quality Bi_2 Te_3 films with the carrier density down to 4.0 × 10~(13) cm~(-2). In contrast to the most-used method of high substrate temperature growth, we firstly sputtered Bi_2 Te_3 thin films at room temperature and then applied post-annealing. It enables the growth of highly-oriented Bi_2 Te_3 thin films with larger grain size and smoother interface. The results of electrical transport show that it has a lower carrier density as well as a larger coherent length(～ 228 nm, 2 K). Our studies pave the way toward large-scale, cost-effective production of Bi_2 Te_3 thin films to be integrated with other materials in wafer-level scale for electronic and spintronic applications.