National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

The goal of this work is to prepare doped PZT-type materials with improved radial piezoelectric properties. Ceramic materials were obtained by solid-state reaction at different sintering temperatures. SAED, bright field TEM and HRTEM methods were used for the microstructure studies. The influence of the composition and nanostructure on the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of the materials is discussed. One of the materials with high coupling constant was used in the construction of a miniature flexural ventilator. Designated to function at an emf of 220 V/50 Hz, this device is characterized by high efficiency, reliability and low energy consumption. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We review our experimental data obtained by Raman spectroscopy on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). We focused on the study of the dependence of the SERS spectra of SWNTs on both the rough metallic substrate type and the film thickness. In particular, we show that degradation of the nanotubes, mainly metallic, occurs for very thin films with the formation of graphitic, fullerene-like or amorphous carbon particles. We show also that SWNTs reacting with H2SO4 form a salt of the hydrogensulfate type similar to that resulting from graphite-H2SO4 interaction. SWNTs exhibit a complicated spectroelectrochemical behavior in aqueous and non-aqueous H2SO4 solutions that depends also on the sweep potential range. We demonstrate that the oxidation-reduction processes have a quasi-reversible or irreversible character. Finally, SERS studies on compressed SWNTs in different host matrices, inorganic and organic, reveal nanotube breaking and that tube fragments may react or not with the host matrix used. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The paper presents the photoluminescence of nanocrystalline porous silicon. Two maxima were observed for rather fresh samples, one located at the infrared edge of the visible range and the other one in red. After ageing, the first maximum vanishes, suggesting its relation with the surface states, while the red one undergoes a significant blue shift. A simple quantum confinement model allows to correlate the photon energy of the red maximum with a transition between two confinement levels and to interpret the blue shift in terms of size reduction by oxidation. These results are in good agreement with previous microstructure measurements.

Powders of barium titanate (BT) and lead zirconate-titanate (PZT) were mixed together to form solid solutions in the ceramic system (1 - x)BT (.) xPZT, where 0 <= x <= 1. The mixed compounds were synthesized by sintering pressed samples of the mixed powders at high temperatures between 1100-1400 degrees C, for 3 hours. Dielectric and piezoelectric properties of the sintered samples were investigated at room temperature. X-ray diffractograms showed that monophase ceramics with perovskite structure were formed along the whole compositional range. The dielectric permittivity epsilon(r) increased with increasing amount of PZT, reaching a maximum value of about 6900 for composition with x = 0.6, and then suddenly decreases up to lower values of less than 2000. The piezoelectric properties (electromechanical coupling coefficient k(p), voltage and charge constants g and d respectively) behave as follows: at first there is a slight decrease of their values for all compositions with x <= 0.6 and then suddenly, and rather constantly, their values increase by more than 100 % for compositions with x >= 0.6. Such a behavior could possible be explained in terms of the structural changes brought about by the incorporation of PZT phase into BT one. The mechanical mixture of BT and PZT particles of similar dimensions gives rise to both new compositions as well as to distinct particles of BT or PZT of different dimensions under the influence of temperature, whose properties may differ from the initial ones so that their properties can be either the result of a size effect or the compositional one, but most probably the combination of both.

Superconductivity at about 8 K was observed in the metal-rich Li-Pd-B ternary system. Structural, microstructural, electrical, and magnetic investigations for various compositions proved that the Li2Pd3B compound, which has an antiperovskite cubic structure composed of distorted Pd6B octahedrons, is responsible for the superconductivity. This is the first observation of superconductivity in metal-rich ternary borides containing alkaline metal and Pd as a late transition metal. The compound prepared by arc melting has a high density and is relatively stable in the air. The upper critical fields H-c2(0) estimated by linear extrapolation and the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg theory are 6.2 and 4.8 T, respectively.

UV-VIS transmission and fluorescence spectroscopy have been used to study some intrinsic properties of crystalline films of pure metadinitrobenzene (m-DNB) and, pure and doped benzil. We have evaluated the band gap energy, E-g = 2.92 eV, emphasising the near classical semiconductor behaviour of m-DNB. The two bands split of the (n, pi*) level is assumed to be the origin the two edges absorption in benzil films with the energetic thresholds at E-g1 = 2.84 eV and E-g2 = 3.55 eV. The red shift of the emission peak in m-DNB films has been correlated with the process of self-absorption of the emitted radiation in the thicker film. The effect of the impurities on the shape and position of the emission peaks in benzil has been investigated and we have observed no significant shift of the absorption peak situated at 3.25 eV. We also have identified a three steps process for the relaxation of the excited crystalline lattice of benzil involving the geometrical change of the (S-1) excited state, the intersystem crossing and the radiative decay by phosphorescence with a peak at 2.30 eV. The small blue shift of this emission peak in benzil highly doped with sodium has been attributed to the modification of the molecular geometry of benzil as a result of the change in the trans-planar molecular configuration induced by the chemical reaction between the atoms of alkali metal and the carbonyl groups. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.

NiMnSb is expected to be a ferromagnetic half metal, an expectation that is based in part on band structure calculations. Here we report optical conductivity studies of the band structure for a film prepared by pulsed laser deposition onto a Si substrate held at a relatively low temperature as is required for some device applications-films which are susceptible to site disorder associated with the vacant site in this half-Heusler compound. We demonstrate that the direct interband transitions are essentially unshifted in comparison with bulk material, though they are somewhat broadened. Below the direct-transition absorption edge we report the presence of indirect spin-reversing transitions between the Fermi energy (E-f) and the extrema of the minority-spin valence and conduction bands, providing a measure of the band edge energies. Both of these edges appear closer to E-f than is seen in well-ordered bulk NiMnSb, with the conduction-band minimum showing weight at only 200 cm(-1) above E-f, close enough to have substantial occupation at ambient temperature. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.

Manganese and copper doped CdS nanowires were obtained by the template technique in a two step process. In the first step metallic alloy CdMnCu nano and microwires were electrodeposited in ion track membranes with pore diameters in the range 150 nm-2 mum. In the following step the resulted nanowires were anodized in a sodium sulphide alkaline solution. Electron microscopy results show participation of the whole metallic wire in the anodization process; manganese and copper doped CdS wires are obtained The composition of micro and nanowires was determined by energy dispersive X-ray analysis.

Magnetic properties of sintered Eu0.7Sm0.3Ba2Cu3O7-delta were investigated both in dc and ac magnetic fields. The dc response reflects the interplay between the rare earth ion paramagnetic and the superconducting charge carrier subsystems, respectively. The harmonic susceptibilities exhibit special features: the second harmonic is anomalously high and the third harmonic in zero dc-field has reversed temperature dependence with respect to the theoretical models. The magnetic relaxation at low fields is monotonous and occurs as a two-stage relaxation, each stage obeying logarithmical time dependence with different rates. At high fields, the relaxation is nonmonotonous with a peak at intermediate time suggesting a temporary re-entrance of irreversibility when the flux-line density increases in the center of the sample because of the redistribution of the vortices toward that region.