Narrow Results

The Cd${}_x$Zn${}_{1-x}$O thin films have been deposited on glass and Si substrates at room-temperature with different Cd contents (x = 0, 2%, 4% and 6 wt.%) by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses evidenced that the films possess polycrystalline and a hexagonal ZnO crystal structure for x = 0, 2% and 4% with a preferred orientation in the a-axis (101) direction, while films with a mixed hexagonal and cubic structure was revealed for x = 6 wt.%. Electrical measurement presented that the resistivity decreased with increased temperature and concentration of Cd. The deliberated activation energy was reduced was from 0.224 to 0.113 eV with increase doping concentration. Current–voltage (I–V) and capacitance–voltage (C–V) characteristics of the fabricated Cd${}_x$Zn${}_{1-x}$O/p-Si heterojunction varied with the applied bias and the Cd concentration. The results of the values of built-in potential (V${}_{\mathrm{\text{bi}}}$) and the ideality factor (n) increased with raising Cd concentration.

This paper reports on the successful deposition of boron (B)-doped p-type (p-C:B) and phosphorus (P)-doped n-type (p-C:P) carbon (C) films, and the fabrication of p-C:B on silicon (Si) substrate (p-C:B/n-Si) and n-C:P/p-Si cells by a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique using a graphite target at room temperature. The boron and phosphorus atoms incorporated in the films were determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to be in the range of 0.2–1.75 and 0.22–1.77 atomic percentages, respectively. The cells performances have been given in the dark I–V rectifying curve and I–V working curve under illumination when exposed to AM 1.5 illumination conditions (100 mW/cm², 25°C). The open circuit voltage (V_oc) and short circuit current density (J_sc) for p-C:B/n-Si are observed to vary from 230 to 250 mV and from 1.5 to 2.2 mA/cm², respectively; they vary from 215 to 265 mV and from 7.5 to 10.5 mA/cm², respectively, for n-C:P/p-Si cells. The p-C:B/n-Si cell fabricated using the target with the amount of boron by 3 weight percentages (Bwt%) showed the highest energy conversion efficiency, η = 0.20% and fill factor, FF = 45%. The n-C:P/p-Si cell fabricated using the target with the amount of 7 Pwt% showed the highest η = 1.14% and FF = 41%. The quantum efficiency (QE) of the p-C:B/n-Si and n-C:P/p-Si cells were observed to improve with Bwt% and Pwt%, respectively. The contribution of QE in the lower wavelength region (below 750 nm) may be due to photon absorption by the carbon layer, in the higher wavelength region it was due to the Si substrates. In this paper, the dependence of the boron and phosphorus content on the electrical and optical properties of the deposited films and the photovoltaic characteristics of the respective p-C:B/n-Si and n-C:P/p-Si heterojunction solar cells are discussed.

Amorphous carbon nitride (a-CN_x) films have been deposited by pulsed laser deposition at 0.8 Torr nitrogen gas ambient with varying substrate temperature from 20 to 500°C. The effects of the substrate temperature and ambient nitrogen gas pressure on the surface morphology, composition, nitrogen content, structure, and electrical properties of the a-CN_x thin films have been investigated. The deposited a-CN_x films were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV-Visible transmittance, and four-probe resistance measurement. It is found that the amorphous structure of a-CN_x films can be changed by the substrate temperature (ST) and the a-CN_x films with high nitrogen content have relatively high electrical resistivity. Also, graphitization is found to cause the reduction of nitrogen content and changes in the bonding structure of nitrogen atoms in the films.

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) exhibits unique advantages for the preparation of functional thin films which are widely used in microelectronics, photoelectrons, integrate circuits, superconductors and biomedical fields. The principle of and the characteristics of PLD are introduced, its applications in ferroelectrics, high-temperature superconductors, diamond-like and superlattices. The future application trend is reviewed.

Based on a hexagonal lattice which includes deposition, dissociation, and diffusion, we performed a kinetic Monte Carlo model to explore thin film growth via pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) within the submonolayer regime. First and second nearest-neighbor interactions calculated by the Morse potential are taken into account in this case. These simulations show that thin film deposition by PLD is markedly different from that by MBE. With PLD, as pulse duration decreases, the island density increases and the island size decreases. Similarly, at temperature T = 550 K, the scaling function for MBE is rather similar to that of the analytical prediction for a critical island size of i = 2, while the scaling function for PLD changes from an i = 1 behavior to an i = 0 behavior with the decrease in pulse duration.

Bi₂FeCrO₆ thin films were epitaxially grown by pulsed laser deposition on (100)-oriented LaAlO₃, (LaAlO₃)_0.3(Sr₂LaTaO₆)_0.7 and SrTiO₃ single crystalline substrates with and without epitaxial CaRuO₃ buffered layer. The in-plane compressive strain induces monoclinic distortion of the Bi₂FeCrO₆ lattice cell. The strain originates from lattice mismatch between CaRuO₃ and single crystal substrates. The similar crystal structure of the substrate and the layer lead to coherent epitaxial growth of the heterostructures and avoid strain relaxation in particular for BFCO films deposited on LaAlO₃ substrates. The ferroelectric character is demonstrated for all grown BFCO films. The residual in-plane strain weakly affects the effective piezoelectric coefficient of BFCO layers.

Perovskite ferroelectric BaTiO₃ material showed promising application in the photovoltaic field due to its positive polarization enhanced open voltage with ferroelectric modulation. Achieving perfect interfaces between the multi-layers based on BTO film was still unresolved. Therefore, we developed the bottom buffer layers SrTiO₃/Ti${}_{2.5}$O₃ films deposited on GaAs for reducing the lattice mismatch between the epitaxial oxide (BTO) GaAs via PLD system. The out-of-plane epitaxial relationship of this heterostructure was [110]BaTiO₃//[110]SrTiO₃//[010]Ti${}_{2.5}$O₃//[001]GaAs and the in-plane epitaxial relationship was determined to be [110]BaTiO₃//[110]SrTiO₃//[100]Ti${}_{2.5}$O₃//[110]GaAs from RHEED and XRD results. In addition, we found that the inter-diffusions of Ga and As atoms from GaAs substrate to oxides films were prevented greatly by the SrTiO₃/Ti${}_{2.5}$O₃ passivation layer. Using the Gibbs free energies of formations equations, we explained that the Ga atoms couldn’t diffuse through Ti-oxides at Ti${}_{2.5}$O₃/GaAs interface. Our work provided an effective measurement to develop the BTO application in the photovoltaic field.

Decreasing the scale of vanadium dioxide (VO₂) structures is one of the ways to enhance the switching speed of the material. We study the properties of VO₂ films of altered thicknesses in the range of 20–170nm prepared on c-sapphire substrates with a TiO₂ sublayer by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. The synthesis regime to design a TiO₂ film was preliminarily optimized based on XRD data. XRD patterns reveal an epitaxial growth of the VO₂ films with distortion of the monoclinic cell to hexagonal symmetry. The positions of the lattice vibration modes in Raman spectra are similar to those in bulk VO₂ when the film thickness is greater than $\sim 30$nm. For VO₂ films thicker that $\sim 20$nm, a lattice strain results in the modes’ positions and intensity change. However, the electrically triggered transition in a $\sim 50$nm thick VO₂ film reveals forward and reverse switching times as short as 20ns and 400ns, correspondingly.

Lithium niobate (LiNbO₃, LN) thin films have been extensively studied for applications in acoustic and photonic devices, due to their outstanding piezoelectric, ferroelectric and electro-optical properties. With the increasing demand for high speed and low latency wireless communication, LN thin films with high electromechanical coupling coefficients are very attractive to improve the performance of acoustic resonators for radio frequency filters. The current bottleneck for LN-based devices is the synthesis of high-quality LN thin films, which is typically fabricated by expensive and inefficient process of ion slicing and layer transfer from bulk single crystals. This review paper focuses on the direct growth of high-quality LN thin films, which has the potential to scale up and lower the cost of LN thin films. We first introduce the crystal structure and piezoelectric properties of LN, followed by an overview of the state-of-the-art LN acoustic resonators. After a summary of the challenges in the fabrication of LN thin films, we review the direct growth of LN thin films by sputtering, pulsed laser deposition, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition and molecular beam epitaxy. With the progress in optimizing the crystallinity and surface roughness, the quality of the LN thin films synthesized by direct growth has been greatly improved. As a result of the fast-growing industrial interests, we believe that the research works in direct growth of LN thin films will increase exponentially to achieve the same quality of the LN thin films as the bulk single crystals.a

Lithium niobate (LiNbO3, LN) thin films have been extensively studied for applications in acoustic and photonic devices, due to their outstanding piezoelectric, ferroelectric and electro-optical properties. With the increasing demand for high speed and low latency wireless communication, LN thin films with high electromechanical coupling coefficients are very attractive to improve the performance of acoustic resonators for radio frequency filters. The current bottleneck for LN-based devices is the synthesis of high-quality LN thin films, which is typically fabricated by expensive and inefficient process of ion slicing and layer transfer from bulk single crystals. This review paper focuses on the direct growth of high-quality LN thin films, which has the potential to scale up and lower the cost of LN thin films. We first introduce the crystal structure and piezoelectric properties of LN, followed by an overview of the state-of-the-art LN acoustic resonators. After a summary of the challenges in the fabrication of LN thin films, we review the direct growth of LN thin films by sputtering, pulsed laser deposition, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition and molecular beam epitaxy. With the progress in optimizing the crystallinity and surface roughness, the quality of the LN thin films synthesized by direct growth has been greatly improved. As a result of the fast-growing industrial interests, we believe that the research works in direct growth of LN thin films will increase exponentially to achieve the same quality of the LN thin films as the bulk single crystals.