Gallium nitride ~GaN! thin films with a wurtzite structure were grown on fused silica ~FS! substrates by pulsed laser ablation of a liquid gallium target in the presence of ammonia gas. X-ray diffraction measurement shows a single c-axis orientation for the GaN film grown with a thin ~,1000 Å! zinc oxide ~ZnO! film as an alignment layer. There is a great improvement in the surface morphology as...

Recently, there have been intense efforts in searching for new topological insulator materials. Based on first-principles calculations, we find that all the ultrathin Bi (111) films are characterized by a nontrivial Z(2) number independent of the film thickness, without the odd-even oscillation of topological triviality as commonly perceived. The stable nontrivial Z(2) topology is retained by t...

This paper is a proposal for PhD level research into brain controlled film. I place brain computer interfaces (BCI) in a historic and then an artistic context before exploring instances of research where film and BCI overlap. I then define what has not been covered by research and propose a way to contribute to that gap in knowledge. I explain my interest in the subject, and the methodologies I...

We locally investigate the electronic transport through individual tunnel junctions containing a 10 nm thin film of vanadium dioxide (VO2) across its thermally induced phase transition. The insulator-to-metal phase transition in the VO2 film collapses the Hubbard gap (experimentally determined to be 0.4 ± 0.07 V), leading to several orders of magnitude change in tunnel conductance. We quantitat...

We report that phonon-polaritonic thin films with a periodic array of subwavelength holes allow nearcomplete transmission in the polariton gap where a homogeneous film completely suppresses transmission. We find that both propagating modes inside the subwavelength holes and surface resonances on the film interfaces play a crucial role in the transmission behavior. In the frequency range where b...

We report the complex optical conductivity of a superconducting thin film of Nb 0.5 Ti 0.5 N in an external magnetic field. The field was applied parallel to the film surface and the conductivity extracted from far-infrared transmission and reflection measurements. The real part shows the superconducting gap, which we observe to be suppressed by the applied magnetic field. We compare our result...

The accurate modelling of damping is essential to capture the dynamic behaviour of a MEMS device. Our interest lies in squeeze-film damping which models the behaviour of a fluid in small gaps between a fixed surface and a structure moving perpendicular to this surface (Fig.1). The lateral dimensions of the surfaces are large compared to the gap and the system is considered isothermal. Squeeze f...

Equilibrium structures, solvation forces, and conformational dynamics of thin confined films of n-hexadecane and squalane are investigated using a new grand canonical ensemble molecular dynamics method for simulations of confined liquids. The method combines constant pressure simulations with a computational cell containing solid surfaces and both bulk and confined liquid regions in equilibrium...