The effects of a thin film dopant precursor on the structure and properties of femtosecond-laser irradiated silicon

Femtosecond (fs) laser irradiation of a silicon substrate coated with a thin film is a flexible approach to producing metastable alloys with unique properties, including near-unity sub-band gap absorptance extending into the infrared. However, dopant incorporation from a thin film during fs-laser irradiation is not well understood. We study the thin film femtosecond-laser doping process through optical and structural characterization of silicon fs-laser doped using a selenium thin film, and compare the resulting microstructure and dopant distribution to fs-laser doping with sulfur from a gaseous precursor. We show that a thin film dopant precursor significantly changes the laser-material interactions, modifying both the surface structuring and dopant incorporation processes and in turn affecting p–n diode behavior.     

Numerical ranges of weighted composition operators

The operator that takes the function f   to ψf°φ$\psi f°\phi$ is a weighted composition operator. We study numerical ranges of some classes of weighted composition operators on H²$H^2$, the Hardy–Hilbert space of the unit disc. We consider the case where φ is a rotation of the unit disc and identify a class of convexoid operators. In the case of isometric weighted composition operators we give a complete classification of their numerical ranges. We also consider the inclusion of zero in the interior of the numerical range.     

A sufficient condition for the existence of a principal eigenvalue for nonlocal diffusion equations with applications

Considerable work has gone into studying the properties of nonlocal diffusion equations. The existence of a principal eigenvalue has been a significant portion of this work. While there are good results for the existence of a principal eigenvalue equations on a bounded domain, few results exist for unbounded domains. On bounded domains, the Krein–Rutman theorem on Banach spaces is a common tool for showing existence. This article shows that generalized Krein–Rutman can be used on unbounded domains and that the theory of positive operators can serve as a powerful tool in the analysis of nonlocal diffusion equations. In particular, a useful sufficient condition for the existence of a principal eigenvalue is given.     

Facile synthesis of core‐surface crosslinked nanoparticles by interblock RAFT polymerization

A new, efficient method for synthesizing stable nanoparticles with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) functionalities on the core surface, in which the micellization and crosslinking reactions occur in one pot, has been developed. First, amphiphilic PEO‐b‐PS copolymers were synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) radical polymerization of styrene using (PEO)‐based trithiocarbonate as a macro‐RAFT agent. The low molecular weight PEO‐b‐PS copolymer was dissolved in isopropyl alcohol where the block copolymer self‐assembled as core‐shell micelles, and then the core‐shell interface crosslink was performed using divinylbenzene as a crosslinking agent and 2,2′‐azobisisobutyronitrile as an initiator. The design of the amphiphilic RAFT agent is critical for the successful preparation of core‐shell interface crosslinked micellar nanoparticles, because of RAFT functional groups interconnect PEO and polystyrene blocks. The PEO functionality of the nanoparticles surface was confirmed by ¹H NMR and FTIR. The size and morphology of the nanoparticles was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and dynamic laser light scattering analysis. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2010     

Dynamic non-linear optical processes in semiconductors

In this article active non-linear optical effects in semiconductors are reviewed. These processes arise because of the dynamics of excited populations of charge carriers temporarily created in otherwise empty states when a beam of laser radiation is incident on the material. A large number of different effects have been observed in different semiconductor materials recently and the non-linearities cover a wide range of magnitudes both in time-scale and size of non-linearity. The theory and physical concepts relevant to these processes are described and experimental observations using both high power pulsed and low power c.w. lasers are reviewed. Applications in optical bistability, phase conjugation, optical gating and optoelectronic gating are discussed.