National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

The influence of target-substrate distance during pulsed laser deposition of indium zinc oxide (IZO), indium tin oxide (ITO) and aluminium-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films grown on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates was investigated. It was found that the properties of such flexible transparent conductive oxide (TCO)/PET electrodes critically depend on this parameter. The TCO films that were deposited at distances of 6 and 8 cm exhibited an optical transmittance higher than 90% in the visible range and electrical resistivities around 5 x 10(-4) Omega cm. In addition to these excellent electrical and optical characteristics the films grown at 8 cm distance were homogenous, smooth, adherent, and without cracks or any other extended defects, being suitable for opto-electronic device applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

We review, based on our results, the problems and solutions for the growth of thin films and composite heterostructures emphasizing the general growth aspects and principles vs specifics for each material or heterostructure. The materials used in our examples are Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10, Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8, YBa2Cu3O7, (Sr, Ca)CuO2, (Ba, Ca) CuO2, and Bi4Ti3O12. The growth method was metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The presented thin films or heterostructures have c- and non-c-axis orientations. We discuss the implications of the film-substrate lattice relationships, paying attention to film-substrate lattice mismatch anisotropy and to film-film lattice mismatch, which has a significant influence on the quality of the non-c-axis heterostructures. We also present growth control through the use of vicinal substrates and two-temperature (template) and interrupted growth routes allowing significant quality improvements or optimization. Other key aspects of the growth mechanism, that is, roughness, morphology, and interdiffusion, are addressed. It is concluded that the requirements for the growth of non-c-axis heterostructures are more severe than those for the c-axis ones. (C) 2012 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

The occurrence of the second peak (SP) on the dc magnetization curves of iron pnictide and chalcogenide single crystals (the 'fishtail' effect) has been interpreted in surprisingly different ways, involving, for example, a thermally induced square-to-rhombic vortex lattice transition, a crossover between single vortex pinning in the low magnetic field range and pinning of interacting vortices at higher fields, or has been treated similarly to the peak effect close to the upper critical magnetic field. Here we show that the SP in FeSe1-xTex single crystals is related to the well documented order-disorder transition in the vortex system, and its evolution in the low-temperature T domain is described by a dynamic energy balance relation. The main argument supporting this approach is the observed strong increase of the field for the onset of the SP with decreasing T down to 2 K, with an inflection-like point located between 3 and 4 K, in agreement with the two-band superconductivity reported for FeSe1-xTex.

Mixtures of MgB2 and metal or oxide additions with starting compositions of (MgB2)(M2O3)(x), x = 0.0025, 0.005, 0.015, and (MgB2)(M)(y), y = 0.01, M = Bi, Sb, were processed by spark plasma sintering (SPS). As-obtained samples are composites with high density exceeding 94% of the theoretical values. Secondary phases indicate similar reactions for samples with Bi- or Sb-based additions. However, samples show very different superconducting characteristics depending on the addition type and amount. A direct correlation with the melting temperature of the addition could not be revealed, although some aspects will be discussed. From the critical current density (J(c)) and irreversibility field (H-irr) enhancement viewpoints, optimum additions are oxides for x = 0.0025; 0.005. Both oxides improve Jc at high fields, but Sb2O3 is effective up to 10 K, whereas Bi2O3 is effective up to 30 K. Metal additions decrease J(c) and H-irr when compared with a pristine MgB2 sample. (C) 2012 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

High permittivity materials allow good miniaturization of microwave components, but the dielectric resonator antenna using these materials has the drawback of a reduced bandwidth. To overcome this disadvantage we wanted to obtain a relatively wideband high permittivity DRA using the superior modes. Using HFSS simulations, we identified some of the superior modes that appear in cylindrical DRAs situated on a conductor ground plane and excited by a symmetric rectangular slot made in the ground plane. We identified seven superior modes and, for all of them, the measured and theoretically calculated resonant frequencies did not differ by more than 6%. Knowing the possible excited modes in the antenna and the relations for their resonant frequencies, one can predict the operating frequencies of a cylindrical DRA excited by a central rectangular slot.

Dielectric materials with a high permittivity (epsilon(r)), a high quality factor (Q) and a low temperature coefficient of the resonant frequency (tau(f)) have become very important for the miniaturization of microwave devices, such as filters or antennas. In this work, Ba(Zn1/3Ta2/3)O-3 (BZT) ceramics doped with Nb2O5, MnO2 or V2O3 were obtained by the conventional solid-state reaction method. We report on the compositional, structural and morphological characterization of BZT resonators, as well as on the influence of the dopant (type and quantity) and sintering temperature on their dielectric properties. The best microwave dielectric properties (epsilon(r) similar to 28.4 and Q x f similar to 236 THz) were achieved in the case of 1% V2O3 doping and 1600 C sintering temperature. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Carbon nanowalls were synthesised by downstream deposition in an expanding radiofrequency argon plasma beam discharge injected with acetylene and hydrogen. The obtained layers have been investigated by Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy, Selected Area Electron Diffraction, and Raman Spectroscopy. We present the influence of the substrate type on the material characteristics and report on the possibility to obtain free standing carbon nanowall layers. Also, the importance of pressure values and argon carrier mass flow rate during the deposition process is discussed in relation to the quality of the nanostructured material. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper we investigate the quantum phase transition from magnetic Bose Glass to magnetic Bose-Einstein condensation induced by amagnetic field in NiCl2 center dot 4SC(NH2)(2) (dichloro-tetrakis-thiourea-nickel, or DTN), doped with Br (Br-DTN) or site diluted. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations for the quantum phase transition of the model Hamiltonian for Br-DTN, as well as for site-diluted DTN, are consistent with conventional scaling at the quantum critical point and with a critical exponent z verifying the prediction z = d; moreover the correlation length exponent is found to be nu = 0.75(10), and the order parameter exponent to be beta = 0.95(10). We investigate the low-temperature thermodynamics at the quantum critical field of Br-DTN both numerically and experimentally, and extract the power-law behavior of the magnetization and of the specific heat. Our results for the exponents of the power laws, as well as previous results for the scaling of the critical temperature to magnetic ordering with the applied field, are incompatible with the conventional crossover-scaling Ansatz proposed by Fisher et al. [Phys. Rev. B 40, 546 (1989)]. However they can all be reconciled within a phenomenological Ansatz in the presence of a dangerously irrelevant operator.

The aim of this study was to obtain saccharide (dextran and sucrose)-coated maghemite nanoparticles with antibacterial activity. The polysaccharide-coated maghemite nanoparticles were synthesized by an adapted coprecipitation method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies demonstrate that the obtained polysaccharide-coated maghemite nanoparticles can be indexed into the spinel cubic lattice with a lattice parameter of 8.35 angstrom. The refinement of XRD spectra indicated that no other phases except the maghemite are detectable. The characterization of the polysaccharide-coated maghemite nanoparticles by various techniques is described. The antibacterial activity of these polysaccharide-coated maghemite nanoparticles (NPs) was tested against Pseudomonas aeruginosa 1397, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212, Candida krusei 963, and Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 and was found to be dependent on the polysaccharide type. The antibacterial activity of dextran-coated maghemite was significantly higher than that of sucrose-coated maghemite. The antibacterial studies showed the potential of dextran-coated iron oxide NPs to be used in a wide range of medical infections.

The usual experimental set-up for measuring the wave function phase shift of electrons tunneling through a quantum dot (QD) embedded in a ring (i.e., the transmittance phase) is the so-called 'open' interferometer as first proposed by Schuster et al. in 1997, in which the electrons back-scattered at source and the drain contacts are absorbed by additional leads in order to exclude multiple interference. While in this case one can conveniently use a simple two-path interference formula to extract the QD transmittance phase, the open interferometer has also a number of draw-backs, such as a reduced signal and some uncertainty regarding the effects of the extra leads. Here we present a meaningful theoretical study of the QD transmittance phase in 'closed' interferometers (i.e., connected only to source and drain leads). By putting together data from existing literature and giving some new proofs, we show both analytically and by numerical simulations that the existence of phase lapses between consecutive resonances of the 'bare' QD is related to the signs of the corresponding Fano parameters - of the QD + ring system. More precisely, if the Fano parameters have the same sign, the transmittance phase of the QD exhibits a I lapse. Therefore, closed mesoscopic interferometers can be used to address the 'universal phase lapse' problem. Moreover, the data from already existing Fano interference experiments from Kobayashi et al. in 2003 can be used to infer the phase lapses.