National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

(Ba1-xSrx)TiO3 solid solution (BST), with different molar compositions (x = 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 0.9) Were prepared by conventional solid-state reaction from raw materials. Structural parameters, crystallite sizes and bulk densities were determined. Perovskite type polycrystalline structure of the BST ceramics was revealed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) data. The dependence of permittivity and losses at low frequency (1 kHz) was analyzed. The microwave investigations at room temperature revealed dielectric constant around 1000 and loss smaller than 1% at 1.1 GHz. The results indicate that some BST dielectric ceramics are suitable in paraelectric phase for microwave devices. The dielectric constant can be adjusted by using a DC-bias field and such materials are appropriate for manufacturing electric field controlled components such as resonators, phase shifters etc.

As-grown 4H-SiC epitaxial layers were investigated by deep-level transient spectroscopy to study the formation of the well-known Z(1,2) defect with energy levels normally detected at about E-C-0.7 eV. Chemical vapor deposition, applying various nitrogen-doping concentrations and C/Si ratios (1.2-3) in the gas phase, was used to prepare the samples. The Z(1,2) defect concentration was observed to increase with the incorporated nitrogen concentration. The dependence was linear for medium C/Si ratios (1.5-2.5). The highest and lowest applied C/Si ratios (3 and 1.2) enhanced and suppressed the Z(1,2) defect formation, respectively. This behavior tentatively suggests a complex of nitrogen with interstitial carbon atoms or, less probably, silicon vacancies. In particular, the correlation between the Z(1,2) defect formation and the nitrogen incorporation was clearly shown in the present investigation, in contradiction to conclusions of other authors. Previously reported negative-U properties of the Z(1,2) deep-level defects could be confirmed. A 1:1 relation between the concentrations of Z(1) and Z(2) was obtained for the present as-grown epitaxial layers. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

A survey of the main NDT methods used to evaluate the quality and properties of wood and wooden structures is given. Among the most important ones there arc visual inspection, sonic and ultrasonic stress wave. Some other methods include: deflection, electrical, isotope and Xray methods. The ultrasonic methods seem to be the most suitable ones in many cases especially for quality control purposes, but these methods depend on the quality of the piezoelectric transducers. Consequently, the construction and characteristics of a new type of piezoelectric transducer are reported. The new transducer is a composite type transducer, consisting of a sandwich type piezoactive element and a steel cylinder glued together. The sandwich piezoactive element was made of five thinner discs of 20 mm diameter and 2 mm thickness. The whole construction has the resonant frequency at 60 kHz, proper to wood investigation. The transducer can be successfully used for NDT of wood, either in the trough transmission or pulse-echo arrangements. The transducers were tested for sound velocity measurements in different wood samples.

An iterative method is presented for the characterization of lossy piezoelectric materials in the radial resonant mode, which provides a new formula to calculate the frequencies at which the electrical admittance is to be measured. This new method considerably reduces the measurement time by separating the programs for data acquisition and for calculus. The accuracies of the material constants for several soft and hard piezoceramic materials, covering a wide range of values of the planar coupling factor and mechanical quality factor, were tested and it was evidenced that they depended on the type of the piezoelectric material. The new method proved to be as accurate as, or in some cases even more accurate than, the other iterative methods. This new method can also be applied whenever the standard method does not allow the determination of the material constants. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of 1-4 wt.% excess PbO, added to the calcined powder, on the structure and dielectric and piezoelectric properties of Bi-doped lead titanate ceramics was investigated. The ceramics containing 4, 6 and 8 mol% Bi were prepared by the usual ceramic technique, using high purity oxides. The calcined powder of each composition was next intimately mixed with 1, 2, 3 and 4 wt.% PbO and then sintered at 1200-1300 degreesC for 3 h. The dielectric piezoelectric and electromechanical properties were determined as a function of excess PbO. Addition of PbO up to 2 wt.% was found to improve the densification, by the presence of the PbO liquid phase during sintering. For all Bi doping levels, the dielectric constant and the thickness coupling factor reach maxima (representing an increase of 2.5-8% for dielectric constant and 7-8% for thickness coupling factor) at about 2 wt.% PbO addition. The planar coupling factor is very low, less than 0.01, regardless the PbO content. The disipation factor slightly decreases with increasing PbO content and the mechanical quality factor of the thickness mode was about 300. The experimental results were discussed in terms of the mechanisms of densification in the presence of the liquid phase and of lead vacancy concentration. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The deep level transient spectroscopy method was applied on standard and oxygenated float-zone silicon detectors exposed to high doses of Co-60-gamma irradiation. We have detected and characterized a close to midgap trapping level having an ionization energy of E-C-(0.545+/-0.005) eV and electron/hole capture cross sections of sigma(n)=(1.7+/-0.2)x10(-15) cm(2)/sigma(p)=(9+/-1)x10(-14) cm(2) respectively. This level has a strong impact on the detector performance being responsible for more than 90% of the change in the effective doping concentration. The defect is strongly oxygen related and a possible connection with the V2O complex is discussed. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Lead sulfide (PbS) thin films were deposited from a chemical bath onto SiO2/Si (n-type) substrates. Pseudo-metal-oxide-semiconductor devices were obtained by evaporating source and drain gold electrodes on a PbS surface and aluminum gate electrode on a Si substrate. Field-effect-assisted photoconductivity in the PbS layer was investigated at room temperature, in the 800-2700-nm-wavelength domain for different values and polarities of the drain and gate voltages. The best results were obtained for a positive gate, when both semiconductors are in depletion. An enhancement of about 25% of the photoconductive signal is obtained compared with the case when the gate electrode is absent or is not used. A simple model is proposed that explains the behavior of the dark current and photoconductive signal in PbS film with changing the gate voltage. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Advanced electroceramics have played a critical role in the development of new and modem technologies such as computers, telecomunications and aerospace and they will continue to play the leading role in the technology of the future. The present report presents and discusses a number of advanced electroceramic materials with special references to their specific properties that make them indispensable in a large area of applications. The materials discussed include cobalt-mangan oxides used as negative temperature coefficient thermistors, semiconducting doped barium titanate used for positive temperature coefficient thermistors with large applications in thermal protections and piezoelectric electroceramics of PZT type, which find new application as ceramic transducers and sensors in biomedical and aerospace industries or as simply buzzers, filters, igniters, ultrasonic cleaners, towed array sonars, medical imaging system, ink-jet printing heads, camera shuttlers, positioners for optical systems, micromotors and actuators. Such advanced electroceramic materials are extremely useful for the future sophisticated technologies such as heads for magnetic recording, scanning tunneling microscope, sensors for antilock braking systems, ultrasonic bone-healing devices and some other biomedical applications.

A barium titanate precursor with a barium:titanium ratio of 1:4 was prepared by controlled coprecipitation of mixed barium and titanium species with an ammonium oxalate aqueous solution at pH 7. The results of thermal analysis and IR measurement show that the obtained precursor is a mixture of BaC2O4.0.5H(2)O and TiO(OH)(2).1.5H(2)O in a molar ratio of 1:4. Crystallized BaTi4O9 was obtained by the thermal decomposition of a precipitate precursor at 1300degreesC for 2 h in air. The dimensions of the powder calcined at 1000degreesC are between 100 and 300 nm. The grain dimensions of the sintered sample for 2 h at 1300degreesC are of the order of 10 to 30 mum. Dielectric properties of disk-shaped sintered specimens in the microwave frequency region were measured using the TE011 mode. Excellent microwave characteristics for BaTi4O9-epsilon = 38 +/- 0.5, Q = 3800-4000 at 6-7 GHz and tau(f) = 11 +/- 0.7 ppm/degreesC-were found.

We propose an improved method for the analysis of Thermally Stimulated Currents (TSC) measured on highly irradiated silicon diodes. The proposed TSC formula for the evaluation of a set of TSC spectra obtained with different reverse biases leads not only to the concentration of electron and hole traps visible in the spectra but also gives an estimation for the concentration of defects which not give rise to a peak in the 30-220 K TSC temperature range (very shallow or very deep levels). The method is applied to a diode irradiated with a neutron fluence of phi(n) = 1.82 x 10(13) n/cm(2). (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.