National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

Leakage currents determine bumps in the capacitance-voltage characteristics of metal-oxide-semiconductor-type heterostructures with capacitance values larger than the insulator capacitance. A nearly parallel shift with frequency is also observed. These aspects are connected with the presence of a high density of interface states. We illustrate these effects for the case of nano-PbS/SiO2/Si heterostructures. The phenomena were simulated and we propose a method to quickly estimate the interface state density level of a heterostructure when leakage channels are present. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

The nano-crystalline PbS/n-Si heterostructure was studied using photocurrent spectra, I-V and C-V characteristics and admittance spectroscopy. The frequency dependent junction capacitance and conductance measurements show the presence of two contributions: first, a defect related mechanism which we attribute to a deep trap level with a large cross-section in nano-crystals with smaller sizes around 5 nm at the interface with Si and a second mechanism with an activation energy of about 250 meV, attributed to carrier transport in relatively large PbS grains of about 15 nm in size. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All fights reserved.

High dielectric materials have gained an important position in microwave electronics by reducing the size and cost of components for a wide range of applications from mobile telephony to spatial communications. Ba(Zn1/3Ta2/3)O-3 (BZT) is an A(B'B '')O-3 type perovskite material, showing ultra high values of the quality factor Q. Ceramic-based BZT dielectric materials were prepared by solid state reaction. The samples were sintered at temperatures in the range 1400 divided by 1600 degrees C for 4 h. Compositional, structural and morphological characterization were performed by using XRD, SEM and EDX analysis. The dielectric properties were measured in the microwave range (6 divided by 7 GHz). An additional annealing at 1400 degrees C for 10 h has improved some dielectric parameters. For samples sintered at temperatures higher than 1500 degrees C, the permittivity values were obtained in the interval 30 divided by 35 and almost do not change the value after the annealing. The Q x f product substantially increases up to about 135,000 GHz, exhibiting a low temperature coefficient of the resonant frequency (tau(f)) in microwaves. The best parameters were obtained for the samples sintered at 1600 degrees C with additional annealing. The achieved high values of the Q x f product recommend these materials for microwave and millimeter wave applications. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In hydrogenated high-purity Si, the vacancy-oxygen (VO) center is shown to anneal already at temperatures below 200 degrees C and is replaced by a center, identified as a vacancy-oxygen-hydrogen complex, with an energy level 0.37 eV below the conduction-band edge and a rather low thermal stability. At long annealing times, the process is reversed and the concentration of the latter defect is reduced, while the VO center partly recovers. The divacancy (V-2) center anneals in parallel with the initial annealing of the VO center, and the loss in V-2 exhibits a one-to-one proportionality with the appearance of a hole trap 0.23 eV above the valence-band edge attributed to a divacancy-hydrogen (V2H) center.

Self assembled InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots (QD) have a great potential for high performance optoelectronic devices such as low threshold laser diodes, infrared detectors, modulators, memories. In order to characterize the behavior of the QD system, we use two p(+)-n structures grown epitaxially on GaAs under similar conditions. The first structure acts as reference while in the second structure a single QD self-assembled layer is introduced in the middle of the n-GaAs matrix layer. The structure is designed such that for OV applied bias the QD layer lies outside the depleted region. When the reverse bias is increased, the charge from the QD system is removed and the depletion layer moves further into the GaAs matrix material. The electronic structure of the QD is investigated using two methods: photoluminescence, in order to characterize the transition energies between electron and hole levels in the QD system and capacitance spectroscopy in order to study the electron levels in the conduction band only. In addition, admittance spectroscopy spectra are measured in order to characterize the carrier transport mechanism. There is no evident step in the capacitance versus frequency behavior at room temperature in the range 1 Hz-1 MHz, indicating a large carrier cross section caption and/or a low activation energy for the carrier transport between the dot system and the wetting layer and GaAs barriers. The plateau in the C-V behavior, due to charging or discharging of the QD system is modeled using the solution of a Poisson equation and the resulting energy of the electron states within the conduction band and QD size distribution are correlated with results from photoluminescence studies, which involve transitions between energy levels both from the conduction and valence bands.

The temperature dependence of the ferroelectric hysteresis and capacitance in PbZrO3 epitaxial films with (120)(O) and (001)(O) orientations was investigated in the 4.2-400 K temperature range. It was found that the films with (120)(O) orientation show a mixture of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric phases on the entire temperature range up to room temperature, with the ferroelectric phase more stable at low temperatures. Above room temperature the (120)(O) oriented films seem to behave only as an antiferroelectric material. By contrast, films with (001)(O) orientation show only ferroelectric behavior up to a temperature of about 60 K when the single hysteresis loop splits into a double loop characteristic for antiferroelectrics. Above this temperature the (001)(O) oriented films show only antiferroelectric behavior up to 400 K. The temperature dependence of capacitance and loss tangent clearly shows a maximum at around 16 K in the case of the (001)(O) oriented film. This might be associated with a low temperature ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase transition. However, this transition is not visible in the (120)(O) oriented films. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

The capacitance of PbZrO(3)-Pb(Zr(0.8)TiO(0.2))O(3) epitaxial multilayers is significantly enhanced as the number of interfaces increases at the same total thickness of the structure. A possible explanation for this enhancement can be the increase of the dielectric susceptibility due to the presence of some interfacial polarization related, for instance, to trapped charges at the multilayer interfaces. The presented results suggest that capacitance tuning is achievable in antiferroelectric-ferroelectric epitaxial multilayers.

Cluster related defects were investigated by the thermally stimulated current (TSC) method in neutron irradiated n-type Si diodes during 80 degrees C annealing. Three hole traps labeled H (116 K), H (140 K), and H (152 K) proved to have an electric-field-enhanced emission characteristic of Coulombic wells. Their zero field emission rates were deduced describing the TSC peaks with the three-dimensional Poole-Frenkel formalism when accounting for the electric field distribution. As acceptors in the lower half of the gap, these centers have a direct impact on the effective doping of the n-type diodes. They are revealed as causing the long term annealing effects. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Ba(Zn1/3Ta2/3)O-3 (BZT) dielectric materials were prepared by solid state reaction. The samples were sintered at temperatures in the range 1550 divided by 1650 degrees C for 2 h. XRD, SEM and EDX were employed for compositional, structural and morphological characterization. An additional annealing at 410 degrees C for 10 hours was performed in order to improve the dielectric parameters. The dielectric constant and quality factor of BZT dielectric resonators measured by using Hakki-Coleman method around 6 GHz was between 25 and 29. The temperature coefficient of the resonance frequency exhibits positive values less than 6 ppm/degrees C. The best parameters of BZT dielectric resonators were achieved for the samples sintered at 1650 degrees C with additional thermal treatment (square(r) = 29, Q x f = 100 THz).

The displacement devices using piezoceramic sensors play an important role in many fields. Soft type piezoelectric materials used for such sensors arc more appealing because of their lower coercive field, relatively low modulus of elasticity, high electromechanical coupling factors and piezoelectric strain coefficients. We designed a PZT type material doped with niobium and nickel to increase the strain coefficient and still retaining a high coupling coefficient. The chemical formula was Pb0.9Ba0.08Nb0.03Ni0.06Zr0.46Ti0.40O3. The main piezoelectric parameters were: d(33)=680 pm/V. d(31)=-235 pm/V, k(p)=0.64 and k(31)=0.42. A unimorph transducer was made from a thin sheet of such a piezoceramic material, tightly bonded on a thin optically polished glass plate and mounted as a cantilever. The performance of this transducer was evaluated by means of a new optical method which makes use of the Moire deflectometry and provides high precision. The method is rather simply and consists mainly in the following: the Moire fringes rotate when the bimorph bends under the influence of the electric field and by measuring the rotating angle of the fringes one can easily determine the bimorph curvature and the free end displacement.