Polarization-dependent X-ray absorption measurements reveal the existence of structural anisotropy in amorphous (a-) SnO2 film. The anisotropy is readily seen for the second neighbor interaction whose magnitude differs along three measured directions. The differences can be well accounted for by 10%–20% variation in the Debye-Waller factor. Instead of a single Gaussian distribution found in cry...

We have investigated the crystallization of amorphous equiatomic NiTi thin films sandwiched between two protective silicon nitride barrier films using optical, atomic force, and transmission electron microscopy. Crystallite nucleation occurs homogeneously inside the NiTi films because small composition shifts at the interfaces between NiTi and surrounding layers suppress heterogeneous nucleatio...

Various amounts of strain and lattice deformation were introduced into <111> Si substrates by the deposition of amorphous Si films of different thicknesses. Strain and deformation are concentrated along the film edges and were recorded as contrast in double-crystal X-ray topograph (DXRT) images. The contrast in the DXRT images was measured and was related to lattice deformation by means of the ...

The influence of Ti content on crystallinity and bonding of Cr-Ti-C thin films deposited by magnetron sputtering have been studied by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Our results show that binary Cr-C films without Ti exhibit an amorphous structure with two non-crystalline components; amorphous CrCx and amorphous C (a...

− Several aspects of the science and technology of thin film silicon for photovoltaic applications will be presented. The potential advantages of this technology over crystalline wafer technology will be discussed. A basic understanding of the material properties of thin film silicon layers enables to assess their potential and limitations when used in photovoltaic devices. A brief review of th...

In this work, we extracted the film’s hardness (HF) of ultra-thin diamond-like carbon layers by simultaneously taking into account the tip blunting and the substrate effect. As compared to previous approaches, which did not consider tip blunting, this resulted in marked differences (30–100%) for the HF value of the thinner carbon coatings. We find that the nature of the substrate influences thi...

This is the first report on dual synthesis of poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutyric acid] (PHB) and protein polymer by recombinant microorganisms for use in the fabrication of a biofunctional PHB-based material hybridized with functional proteins. PHB and recombinant silk protein, a model protein developed in this study, were synthesized by a recombinant Escherichia coli system, and then films of PHB hybri...

We propose the use of bimetallic non-alloyed nanoparticles (BNNPs) to improve the broadband optical absorption of thin amorphous silicon substrates. Isolated bimetallic NPs with uniform size distribution on glass and silicon are obtained by depositing a 10-nm Au film and annealing it at 600°C; this is followed by an 8-nm Ag film annealed at 400°C. We experimentally demonstrate that the depositi...

Contact effects are a common impediment to electrical measurements throughout the fields of nanoelectronics, organic electronics, and the emerging field of graphene electronics. We demonstrate a novel method of measuring electrical conductance in a thin film of amorphous germanium that is insensitive to contact effects. The measurement is based on the capacitive coupling of a nanoscale metal-ox...

– Experimental results on amorphous ZrAlCu thin-film growth and the dynamics of the surface morphology as predicted from a minimal nonlinear stochastic deposition equation are analysed and compared. Key points of this study are: i) an estimation procedure for coefficients entering into the growth equation and ii) a detailed analysis and interpretation of the time evolution of the correlation le...