Raman scattering of polycrystalline GaSb thin films grownby co-evapouration process

<正>This paper reports that GaSb thin films have been co-deposited on soda-lime glass substrates.The GaSb thin film structural properties are characterized by Raman spectroscopy.The Sb-A_1g/GaSb-TO ratio decreases rapidly with the increase of substrate temperature,which suggests a small amount of crystalline Sb in the GaSb thin film and suggests that Sb atoms in the thin film decrease.In Raman spectra,the transverse optical（TO） mode intensity is stronger than that of the longitudinal optical（LO） mode,which indicates that all the samples are disordered.The LO/TO intensity ratio increases with increasing substrate temperature which suggests the improved polycrystalline quality of the GaSb thin film.A downshift of the TO and LO frequencies of the polycrystalline GaSb thin film to single crystalline bulk GaSb Raman spectra is also observed.The uniaxial stress in GaSb thin film is calculated and the value is around 1.0 GPa.The uniaxial stress decreases with increasing substrate temperature.These results suggest that a higher substrate temperature is beneficial in relaxing the stress in GaSb thin film.     

Effect of annealing atmosphere on ferromagnetism in Mn doped ZnO films

This paper reports that Zn_0.97Mn_0.03O thin films have been prepared by radio-frequency sputtering technology followed by rapid thermal processing in nitrogen and oxygen ambient respectively. Magnetic property investigation indicates that the films are ferromagnetic and that the Curie temperature (T_c) is over room temperature. It is observed that the saturation magnetization of the films increases after annealing in nitrogen ambience but decreases after annealing in oxygen. Room temperature photoluminescence spectra indicate that the amount of defects in the films differs after annealing in the different ambiences. This suggests that the ferromagnetism in Zn_0.97Mn_0.03O films is strongly related to the defects in the films.     

Monolithic epitaxy and optoelectronic properties of single-crystalline γ-In2Se3 thin films on mica

The growth of γ-In₂Se₃ thin films on mica by molecular beam epitaxy is studied. Single-crystalline γ-In₂Se₃ is achieved at a relatively low growth temperature. An ultrathin β-In₂Se₃ buffer layer is observed to nucleate and grow through a process of self-organization at initial deposition, which facilitates subsequent monolithic epitaxy of single-crystallineγ-In₂Se₃ at low temperature. Strong room-temperature photoluminescence and moderate optoelectronic response are observed in the achieved γ-In₂Se₃ thin films.     

Enhancing the thermal conductivity of polymer-assisted deposited Al2O3 film by nitrogen doping

<正>Polymer-assisted deposition technique has been used to deposit Al₂O₃ and N-doped Al₂O₃（AlON） thin films on Si（100） substrates.The chemical compositions,crystallinity,and thermal conductivity of the as-grown films have been characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）,X-ray diffraction（XRD）,and 3-omega method,respectively. Amorphous and polycrystalline Al₂O₃ and AlON thin films have been formed at 700℃and 1000℃.The thermal conductivity results indicated that the effect of nitrogen doping on the thermal conductivity is determined by the competition of the increase of Al-N bonding and the suppression of crystallinity.A 67%enhancement in thermal conductivity has been achieved for the samples grown at 700℃,demonstrating that the nitrogen doping is an effective way to improve the thermal performance of polymer-assisted-deposited Al₂O₃ thin films at a relatively low growth temperature.     

First-principles calculations on the elastic and thermodynamic properties of NbN

<正>The elastic and thermodynamic properties of NbN at high pressures and high temperatures are investigated by the plane-wave pseudopotential density functional theory（DFT）.The generalized gradient approximation（GGA） with the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof（PBE） method is used to describe the exchange-correlation energy in the present work.The calculated equilibrium lattice constant a₀,bulk modulus B₀,and the pressure derivative of bulk modulus B₀’ of NbN with rocksalt structure are in good agreement with numerous experimental and theoretical data.The elastic properties over a range of pressures from 0 to 80.4 GPa are obtained.Isotropic wave velocities and anisotropic elasticity of NbN are studied in detail.It is indicated that NbN is highly anisotropic in both longitudinal and shear-wave velocities. According to the quasi-harmonic Debye model,in which the phononic effect is considered,the relations of（V-V₀）/V₀ to the temperature and the pressure,and the relations of the heat capacity C_V and the thermal expansion coefficientαto temperature are discussed in a pressure range from 0 to 80.4 GPa and a temperature range from 0 to 2500 K.At low temperature,C_V is proportional to T³ and tends to the Dulong-Petit limit at higher temperature.We predict that the thermal expansion coefficientαof NbN is about 4.20×10^-6/K at 300 K and 0 GPa.     

The electrical, optical properties of AlSb polycrystalline thin films deposited by magnetron co-sputtering without annealing

In order to fabricate AlSb polycrystalline thin films without post annealing, this paper studies a technology of magnetron co-sputtering onto intentionally heated substrate. It compares the structural characteristics and electrical properties of AlSb films which are deposited at different substrate temperatures. It finds that the films prepared at a substrate temperature of 450 oC exhibit an enhanced grain growth with an average grain size of 21 nm and the lattice constant is 0.61562 nm that goes well with unstained lattice constant (0.61355 nm). The ln(σ_dark) ～1/T curves show that the conductivity activation energy is about 0.38 eV when the film is deposited at 450 oC without an annealing. The transmittance and reflectance spectra show that the film deposited at 450 oC has an optical band gap of 1.6 eV. These results indicate that we have prepared AlSb polycrystalline films which do not need a post annealing.     

Metal-Element-Incorporation Induced Superconducting Hydrogen Clathrate Structure at High Pressure

The recent observation of high critical temperature T_c in lanthanum and Yttrium hydrides confirms the key role of hydrogen cage(H-cage)in determining high superconductivity.Here,we present a new class of metastable H₁₂ clathrate structures based on the icosahedral cI 24-Na that can be stabilized by incorporation of metal elements.Analysis shows that the charge transfer from metal atoms to H atoms contributes to forming the H₁₂ clathrate.Nine dynamically stable structures are identified to exhibit superconductivity,and a maximum T_c of 28K is found in voids-doped Mo₆H₂₄.Calculations reveal that the low T_c is attributed to the weak interaction between H atoms in each cage due to the long H–H distance.The current results provide a possible route to design H-cage containing superconductors.     

First-Principles Study of Hole-Doped Superconductors RNiO2（R=Nd,La, and Pr）

Recent experiments have found that in contrast to the nonsuperconducting bulk RNiO₂（R=Nd,La,and Pr）,the strontium-doped R_1-xSr_xNiO₂ thin films show superconductivity with the critical temperature T_c of 9–15 K at x=0.2,whose origin of superconductivity deserves further investigation.Based on first-principles calculations,we study the electronic structure,lattice dynamics,and electron–phonon coupling （EPC） of the undoped and doped RNiO₂     

A study on the microwave responses of YBCO and TBCCO thin films by coplanar resonator technique

YBa₂Cu₃O₇(YBCO) thin films have been prepared by thermal coevaporation on LaAlO₃(LAO) substrates, and Tl₂Ba₂CaCu₂O₈(TBCCO) thin films are synthesized by magnetron sputtering method on LAO substrates. The transition temperature T_c is 90\,K for YBCO/LAO and 104\,K for TBCCO/LAO. Microwave responses of the films are studied systematically by coplanar resonator technique. Energy gaps of the films obtained are {\it\Delta}₀=1.04k_BT_c for YBCO films and ${\it\Delta}_0=0.84k_BT_c for TBCCO films by analysing the temperature dependence of resonant frequencies of coplanar resonator. Penetration depth at 0\,K \lambda ₀=198nm for YBCO films and \lambda₀ =200nm for TBCCO films could also be obtained by using the weak coupling theory and two fluid theory. Results of penetration depth and energy gap confirm the weak coupling properties of the films. In addition, microwave surface resistances R_s of YBCO/LAO and TBCCO/LAO are also investigated by analysing the quality factor and insert loss of the coplanar resonator. Surface resistance of TBCCO/LAO is less than that of YBCO/LAO, so that TBCCO/LAO films may have more potential applications.     

Room-Temperature Ferromagnetism in Zn1-xMnxO Thin Films Deposited by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Zn1-xMnxO （x = O.Olq3.1） thin films with a Curie temperature above 300K are deposited on Al2O3 （0001） substrates by pulsed laser deposition. X-ray diffraction （XRD）, ultraviolet （UV）-visible transmission and Raman spectroscopy are employed to characterize the microstructural properties of these films. Room temperature ferromagnetism is observed by superconducting quantum interference device （SQUID）. The results indicate that Mn doping introduces the incorporation of Mn^2＋ ions into the ZnO host matrix and the insertion of Mn^2＋ ions increases the lattice defects, which is correlated with the ferromagnetism of the obtained films. The doping concentration is also proven to be a crucial factor for obtaining highly ferromagnetic Zn1-xMnxO films.     

Electric and magnetic screenings of gluons in a model with a dimension-2 gluon condensate

Electric and magnetic screenings of thermal gluons are studied using the background expansion method in a gluodynamic model with a gauge invariant dimension-2 gluon condensate at zero momentum. At low temperature, the electric and magnetic gluons are degenerate. With the increase of temperature, it is found that the electric and magnetic gluons start to split at a certain temperature T₀ . The electric screening mass changes rapidly with temperature when T >T₀ , and the Polyakov loop expectation value rises sharply around T₀ from zero in the vacuum to a value around 0.8 at a high temperature. This suggests that the color electric deconfinement phase transition is driven by electric gluons. It is also observed that the magnetic screening mass remains almost the same as its vacuum value, which manifests that the magnetic gluons remain confined. Both the screening masses and the Polyakov loop results are qualitatively in agreement with the Lattice calculations.     

Sr-doping effects on conductivity,charge transport,and ferroelectricity of Ba0.7La0.3TiO3 epitaxial thin films

Sr-doped Ba_0.7La_0.3TiO₃(BSLTO)thin films are deposited by pulsed laser deposition,and their microstructure,conductivity,carrier transport mechanism,and ferroelectricity are systematically investigated.The x-ray diffraction measurements demonstrate that Sr-doping reduces the lattice constant of BSLTO thin films,resulting in the enhanced phonon energy in the films as evidenced by the Raman measurements.Resistivity-temperature and Hall effect measurements demonstrate that Sr can gradually reduce electrical resistivity while the electron concentration remains almost unchanged at high temperatures.For the films with semiconducting behavior,the charge transport model transforms from variable range hopping to small polaron hopping as the measurement temperature increases.The metalic conductive behaviors in the films with Sr=0.30,0.40 conform to thermal phonon scattering mode.The difference in charge transport behavior dependent on the A-site cation doping,is clarified.It is revealed that the increasing of phonon energy by Sr doping is responsible for lower activation energy of small polaron hopping,higher carrier mobility,and lower electrical resistivity.Interestingly,the piezoelectric force microscopy(PFM)results demonstrate that all the BSLTO films can exhibit ferroelectricity,especially for the room temperature metallic conduction film with Sr=0.40.These results imply that Sr-doping could be a potential way to explore ferroelectric metal materials for other perovskite oxides.     

Optoelectronic characterization of ZnS/PS systems

ZnS thin films are deposited on porous silicon （PS） substrates with different porosities by pulsed laser deposition （PLD）. The photoluminescence （PL） spectra of the samples are measured at room temperature. The results show that the PL intensity of PS after deposition of ZnS increases and is associated with a blue shift. With the increase of PS porosity, a green emission at about 550 nm is observed in the PL spectra of ZnS/PS systems, which may be ascribed to the defect-center luminescence of ZnS films. Junction current- voltage （I-V） characteristics were studied. The rectifying behavior of I-V characteristics indicates the formation of ZnS/PS heterojunctions, and the forward current is seen to increase when the PS porosity is increased.     

Tunable Anisotropic Absorption of Ag-Embedded SiO2 Thin Films by Oblique Angle Deposition

Ag-embedded SiO2 thin films are prepared by oblique angle deposition. Through field emission scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, an orientated slanted columnar structure is observed. Energy-dispersive x-ray （EDX） analysis shows the Ag concentration is about 3% in the anisotropic SiO2 matrix. Anisotropic surface plasma resonance （SPR） absorption is observed in the Ag-embedded SiO2 thin films, which is dependent on polarization state and incidence angle of two orthogonal polarized lights and the deposition angle. This means that optical properties and anisotropic SPR absorption can be tunable in Ag-embedded SiO2 thin films. Broadband polarization splitting is also observed and the transmission ratio Tp/Ts between p- and s-polarized lights is up to 2.7 for thin films deposited at a = 70°, which means that Ag-embedded SiO2 thin films are a promising candidate for thin film polarizers.     

Improvement of dielectric （Ba,Sr）TiO3 thin tunability and loss tangent of films with K doping

Ba0.6Sr0.4 TiO3 thin films doped with K were deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2 /Si substrates by the chemical solution deposition method. The structure, surface morphology and the dielectric and tunable properties of Ba0.6Sr0.4 TiO 3 thin films have been studied in detail. The K content in Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 thin films has a strong influence on the material’s properties including surface morphology and the dielectric and tunable properties. It was found that the Curie temperature of K-doped Ba0.6Sr0.4 TiO3 films shifts to a higher value compared with that of undoped Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 thin films, which leads to a dielectric enhancement of K-doped Ba0.6Sr0.4 TiO3 films at room temperature. At the optimized content of 0.02 mol, the dielectric loss tangent is reduced significantly from 0.057 to 0.020. Meanwhile, the tunability is enhanced obviously from 26% to 48% at the measured frequency of 1 MHz and the maximum value of the figure of merit is 23.8. This suggests that such films have potential applications for tunable devices.     

Effects of growing conditions on the electric and magnetic properties of strained La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 thin films

We investigate the growing condition dependences of magnetic and electric properties of the La_2/3Sr_1/3MnO₃ thin films grown on SrTiO₃（001） substrates.With reducing the film thickness and growth pressure,the Curie temperature（T_c）drops off,and the magnetism and metallicity are suppressed.At an appropriate deposition temperature,we can obtain the best texture and remarkably enhance the magnetic and electrical properties.However,the resistivity of film cannot be modulated by changing the dc current and green light intensity.This result may be induced by the coherent strains in the epitaxially grown film due to its lattice mismatching that of the SrTiO₃ substrate.Furthermore,we show that the relations between the magnetism and the resistivity for the typical films with different thickness values.For the 13.4-nm-thick film,the R-T curve presents two transition behaviors:insulator-to-metal and metal-to-insulator in the cooling process:the former corresponds to magnetic transition,and the later correlates with thermal excitation conduction.     

The electric and magnetic properties of epitaxially grown A0.5-xLaxSr0.5MnO3 （A=Pr, Nd） thin film

The epitaxial （single crystal-like） Pr0.4La0.1Sr0.5MnO3 （PLSMO） and Nd0.35La0.15Sr0.5MnO3 （NLSMO） thin films are prepared and characterized, and the electric and magnetic properties are examined. We find that both PLSMO and NLSMO have their own optimum deposition temperature （To） in their growing into epitaxial thin films. When the deposition temperature is higher than To, a c-axis oriented but polycrystalline thin film grows; when the deposition temperature is lower than To, the thin film tends to be a-axis oriented and also polycrystalline. The most important point is that for the epitaxial PLSMO and NLSMO thin films the electronic phase transitions are closely consistent with the magnetic phase transitions, i.e. an antiferromagnetic phase corresponds to an insulating state, a ferromagnetic phase corresponds to a metallic state and a paramagnetic phase corresponds to a semiconducting state, while for the polycrystalline thin films the electronic phase transitions are always not consistent with the magnetic transitions.     

Investigation of the inhomogeneous barrier height of an Au/Bi4Ti3O12/n-Si structure through Gaussian distribution of barrier height

<正>A Au/Bi₄Ti₃O₁₂/n-Si structure is fabricated in order to investigate its current-voltage（I-V） characteristics in a temperature range of 300 K-400 K.Obtained I-V data are evaluated by the thermionic emission（TE） theory.Zero-bias barrier height(Φ_B0) and ideality factor（n） calculated from I-V characteristics,are found to be temperature-dependent such thatΦ_B0 increases with temperature increasing,whereas n decreases.The obtained temperature dependence ofΦ_B0 and linearity inΦ_B0 versus the n plot,together with a lower barrier height and Richardson constant values obtained from the Richardson plot,indicate that the barrier height of the structure is inhomogeneous in nature.Therefore,I-V characteristics are explained on the basis of Gaussian distribution of barrier height.     

Anomalous magnetic properties of an iron film system deposited on fracture surfaces of α-Al2O3 ceramics

An iron film percolation system is fabricated by vapour-phase deposition on fracture surfaces of α-Al2O3 ceramics. The zero-field-cooled （ZFC） and field-cooled （FC） magnetization measurement reveals that the magnetic phase of the film samples evolve from a high-temperature ferromagnetic state to a low-temperature spin-glass-like state, which is also demonstrated by the temperature-dependent ac susceptibility of the iron films. The temperature dependence of the exchange bias field He of the iron film exhibits a minimum peak around the temperature T=5 K, which is independent of the magnitude of the cooling field Hcf. However, for T 〉 10K, （1） He is always negative when Hcf=2kOe and （2） for Hcf= 20 kOe （1Oe≈80 A/m）, He changes from negative to positive values as T increases. Our experimental results show that the anomalous hysteresis properties mainly result from the oxide surfaces of the films with spin-glass-like phase.     

Effects of Annealing on Microstructure and Optical Properties of TiO2 Sculptured Thin Films

The evolution of microstructure and optical properties of TiO2 sculptured thin films under thermal annealing is reported. XRD, field emission SEM, UV-Vis-NIR spectra are employed to characterize the microstructural and optical properties. It is found that the optimum annealing temperature for linear birefringence is 500℃. The maximum of transmission difference for linear birefringence is up to 18%, which is more than twice of that in as-deposited thin films. In addition, the sample annealed at 500℃ has a minimum of column angle about 12℃. The competitive process between the microstructural and optical properties is discussed in detail. Post-annealing is a useful method to improve the linear birefringence in sculptured thin films for practical applications.