Dielectric constants of binary mixtures of propylene carbonate with dimethyl carbonate and ethylene carbonate from molecular dynamics simulation: comparison between non-polarizable and polarizable force fields

Using non-polarizable and polarizable molecular dynamics simulations, binary mixtures of propylene carbonate?+?dimethyl carbonate and propylene carbonate?+?ethylene carbonate with various compositions were investigated. The polarizable model produces more reasonable estimation of dielectric constants than the non-polarizable model; however, combining the electronic continuum model with the non-polarizable MD improves the comparison between the two models. Fair agreement was found between the results from these simulations and available experimental data. In addition, for a better understanding of the mixing behaviour, the excess dielectric constants over the entire composition were calculated. By comparison of the two mixtures in various mole fractions, distinctive mixing behaviours of propylene carbonate?+?dimethyl carbonate (poorly symmetric mixture) and propylene carbonate?+?ethylene carbonate (highly symmetric mixture) were observed.     

铁电移相器优值研究

基于双周期性电容加载共面波导传输线的移相器结构,系统研究了温度变化对铁电薄膜移相器移相能力、传输损耗的影响.调整温度可以在一定的范围内实现对移相器性能指标的微调.给出了加载因子对移相能力的示意曲线图,并在实验上,借助氩离子刻蚀技术,改变加载因子的大小,使得移相器的优值从原来的13degree/dB提升到23degree/dB.     

Analytical formulas for complex permittivity of periodic composites. Estimation of gain and loss enhancement in active and passive composites

ABSTRACT

The asymptotic homogenization method is applied to complex dielectric periodic composites. An equivalence to coupled dielectric problems with real coefficients is shown. This is similar to a piezoelectric problem: an out-plane mechanical displacement and an in-plane electric potential establishing a correspondence principle. Closed-form formulas for the complex dielectric effective tensor in the case of a square array of circular inclusions embedded in a matrix are given. These formulas are written in terms of a real and symmetric matrix which facilitates the implementation of the computational scheme. We also get similar formulas for multilayered complex dielectric composites. The real closed-form formulas are advantageous for estimating gain and loss enhancement properties of active and passive composites in certain volume fraction intervals. Numerical computations are performed and the results are compared with other approaches showing the usefulness of the obtained formulas. This may be of interest in the context of metamaterials.     

Orientation dependence of void growth at triple junction of grain boundaries in nanoscale tricrystal nickel film subjected to uniaxial tensile loading

Molecular dynamics simulation was performed in order to investigate the dependence of void growth on crystallographic orientation at the triple junction of grain boundaries in nanoscale tricrystal nickel film subjected to uniaxial tensile loading. The nucleation, the emission and the transmission of Shockley partial dislocations play a predominant role in the growth of void at the triple junction of grain boundaries. The orientation factors of various slip systems are calculated according to Schmid law. The slip systems activated in a grain of tricrystal nickel film basically conform to Schmid law which is completely suitable for a single crystal. The activated slip systems play an important role in plastic deformation of nanoscale tricrystal nickel film subjected to uniaxial tensile loading. The slip directions exhibit great difference among the activated slip systems such that the void is caused to be subjected to various stress conditions, which further leads to the difference in void growth among the tricrystal nickel films with different orientation distributions. It can be concluded that the grain orientation distribution has a significant influence on void growth at the triple junction of grain boundaries.     

Comparative study of optical analysis methods for thin films

Three popular optical analysis methods (the transfer-matrix method, the Tinkham formula, and Beer's law) have been used for analyzing the optical spectra of thin films. While the transfer-matrix method is an accurate method, the Tinkham formula and Beer's law are approximate methods. Here we investigated the three methods using measured transmittance spectra of insulating transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) thin films on a quartz substrate. Three different semiconducting 2H-TMD systems (MoS₂, MoSe₂, and MoTe₂) were measured and analyzed. The optical conductivities obtained from the measured transmittance spectra using the transfer-matrix method and Tinkham formula and the absorption coefficients obtained using the transfer-matrix method and Beer's law were compared. The comparisons show some discrepancies. The reasons for the discrepancies between the results obtained via the two different methods were examined and the application limitations of the Tinkham formula and Beer's law were discussed.     

Microstructure evolution of room-temperature-sputtered ITO films suitable for silicon heterojunction solar cells

Thickness influence on structural, optical and electrical properties of sputtered indium tin oxide (ITO) with thickness ranging from 60 up to 430 nm films has been studied. At the increase of the film thickness crystallinity degree and grain size increased, whereas tensile structural distortion as well as resistivity decreased. It was observed that a microstructure evolution takes place: the initial amorphous layer evolved in polycrystalline phase, with a grain–subgrain surface morphology. Carrier concentration increased at the increase of the film thickness and a general relationship between electrical characteristics and structural distortion has been found. In thinner films larger tensile distortion allowed to include larger amount of interstitial O and/or Sn atoms in the lattice. An appreciable impact of the thickness was also observed on electro-optical properties in terms of changes in energy gap, resistivity and optical absorption. Silicon heterojunction solar cells have been produced and J_sc as high as 33.0 mA/cm² has been obtained.     

有耗介质层上多导体传输线的电磁耦合时域分析方法

目前,针对空间电磁场作用有耗介质层上传输线的电磁耦合,仍缺乏有效的数值分析方法.因此,本文提出一种高效的时域混合算法,很好地解决了有耗介质层上传输线电磁耦合建模难的问题.首先,对经典传输线方程进行改进,推导了适用于有耗介质层上多导体传输线电磁耦合分析的修正传输线方程.然后,结合时域有限差分方法和相应插值技术,求解修正传输线方程,获得多导线及其端接负载上的电压和电流响应,并实现空间电磁场辐射与多导线瞬态响应的同步计算.最后,通过相应计算实例的数值模拟,与CST软件的仿真结果进行对比,验证了时域混合算法的正确性和高效性.     

Gate driven adiabatic quantum pumping in graphene

We propose a new type of quantum pump made out of graphene, adiabatically driven by oscillating voltages applied to two back gates. From a practical point of view, graphene-based quantum pumps present advantages as compared to normal pumps, like enhanced robustness against thermal effects and a wider adiabatic range in driving frequency. From a fundamental point of view, apart from conventional pumping through propagating modes, graphene pumps can tap into evanescent modes, which penetrate deeply into the device as a consequence of chirality. At the Dirac point the evanescent modes dominate pumping and give rise to a universal response under weak driving for short and wide pumps, even though the charge per unit cycle is not quantized.     

Lead-free ferroelectric BaTiO3 doped-(Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3 thin films processed by pulsed laser deposition technique

The difficulties in synthesizing phase pure BaTiO₃ doped-(Na_0.5Bi_0.5)TiO₃ are known. In this work, we reporting the optimized pulsed laser deposition (PLD) conditions for obtaining pure phase 0.92(Na_0.5Bi_0.5)TiO₃-0.08BaTiO₃, (BNT-BT_0.08), thin films. Dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of BNT-BT_0.08, thin films deposited by PLD on Pt/TiO₂/SiO₂/Si substrates are investigated in this paper. Perovskite structure of BNT-BT_0.08 thin films with random orientation of nanocrystallites has been obtained by deposition at 600 °C. The relative dielectric constant and loss tangent at 100 kHz, of BNT-BT_0.08 thin film with 530 nm thickness, were 820 and 0.13, respectively. Ferroelectric hysteresis measurements indicated a remnant polarization value of 22 μC/cm² and a coercive field of 120 kV/cm. The piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) data showed that most of the grains seem to be constituted of single ferroelectric domain. The as-deposited BNT-BT_0.08 thin film is ferroelectric at the nanoscale level and piezoelectric.