We describe recent observations and measurements realized with microstrip gas chambers (MSGCs) manufactured on boro-silicate glass coated with a thin layer of diamond-like carbon (DLC) having a surface resistivity around 4.1016Ω/❒. The role of the back-plane electrode configuration and potential in the detector performance has been studied. Even for this very high resistivity of the coatings, M...

Electron field emission has been observed from carbon thin films at relatively low electric fields. These films range from amorphous carbon to polycrystalline diamond films. There are many models that attempt to account for the electron field emission process observed in these films. The initial models that were based on the emission due purely to a negative electron affinity have now been modi...

A p-type MOSFET based on a heterointerface of hydrogenated-diamond transfer doped with MoO3 (Diamond:H/MoO3) is demonstrated for the first time. This is an important new heterostructure system due to its potentially improved temperature stability as compared with the better established Diamond:H/H2O system. MOSFETs using HfO2 as gate insulator show excellent output characteristics and gate cont...

Low, stable friction, a higher load-carrying capacity, and lower leakage of sealed blood are required for mechanical seals in implantable ventricular assist devices. One solution is to apply surface texture to the mechanical seal surface, consisting of self-mated silicon carbide. However, the effect of surface texture on the frictional properties of mechanical seals under blood sealing conditio...

Residually compressed films and coatings are susceptible to buckle delamination. The buckles often have linear or telephone cord morphology. When the films are brittle, such buckles are susceptible to the formation of ridge cracks that extend along their length, terminating close to the propagating front. The ridge-cracked buckles are invariably straight-sided (not telephone cord) and differ in...

Diamond-like carbon deposition techniques, characterization techniques and processing parameters, such as gas ratio, bias voltage, gas pressure, type of precursor gas used, temperature, gas total flow, substrate material, among others are reviewed. Mostly silicon substrates have been employed, but also metallic materials such as titanium and aluminum alloys or steels have been used as well. Imp...

Copyright Statement Copyright 2006 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. This paper was published in SPIE volume 6037: Device and Process Technologies for Microelectonics, MEMS, and Photonics IV and is made available as an electronic reprint with permission of SPIE. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic or multiple reproduction, distribution to...

The model and theoretical understanding of the Raman spectra in disordered and amorphous carbon are given. The nature of the G and D vibration modes in graphite is analyzed in terms of the resonant excitation of p states and the long-range polarizability of p bonding. Visible Raman data on disordered, amorphous, and diamondlike carbon are classified in a three-stage model to show the factors th...

Graded DLC based coatings and multilayers for wear resistance applications have been produced using a novel hybrid unbalanced magnetron sputtering1 low pressure CVD system. The main features of this highly flexible and scalable process are discussed. These films have been characterised using a variety of techniques including SEM, microhardness, adhesion, wear rate and lifetime tests. For exampl...

Superlattices are periodic structures where the constituents alternate between low and high band gap materials; the resulting quantum confinement tailors the resulting device's properties and increases their operating speed. To understand the properties of such structures on the nanoscale, the electronic structure needs to be sampled with high spatial resolution. Here we show that, in layered s...