We show that commercial float glass can be used as a substrate to deposit polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) by chemical vapor deposition from trichlorosilane at temperatures between 740 and 870 °C. By using scanning electron microscopy an average grain size lower than 0.4 μm was observed, with a columnar structure suitable for the electrical conduction in photovoltaic cells. X-ray diffraction reveals a strong (2 2 0) preferential orientation of the films, which is indicative of a low density of intra-grain defects. Atomic force microscope images reveal a conical structure, with a root mean square roughness of ~65 nm for samples of around 3 μm in thickness. This natural texture is a positive characteristic from the point of view of light trapping. By using boron tribromide as a doping agent, degrees of doping ranging from intrinsic to clearly p-doped were obtained, as shown by dark conductivity measurements as a function of temperature. The process, the reactants and the substrate used are of low cost and proved to be adequate for direct poly-Si deposition.

Test structures of memristive devices were prepared by tip-induced oxidation of thin titanium films using atomic force microscope. Electrical measurements of such Ti/TiOx/Ti devices confirmed their memristive behavior and inferred presence of diffusion processes in the TiOx barrier. Consequent Kelvin probe force microscopy studies provided evidence for the diffusion processes as well as for expected electricfield-induced ionic/charge redistribution in the oxide barrier. Time evolution of the surface potential due to the diffusion processes in the TiOx barrier revealed minute-scale (at least) retention times of the devices. The work presents a widely utilizable approach to search for novel oxide materials for perspective memristive applications as well as alternative technology for fabrication of memristive nanodevices in geometry favoring advantageous scanning probe microscopy studies of their in-barrier processes.

In the present work, we report the investigation of passivated silicon nanowires (SiNWs) having an average radius of 3.7 μm, obtained by chemical etching of p-type silicon (p-Si). The surface passivation of the SiNWs was performed through a rapid oxidation conducted under a controlled atmosphere at different temperatures and durations. The morphology of the SiNWs was examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) that revealed a wave-like structure of dense and vertically aligned one-dimensional silicon nanostructures. On the other hand, optical and electrical characterizations of the SiNWs were studied using a UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer, the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and I-V measurements. The reflectance of SiNWs has been dropped to approximately 2% in comparison to that of bare p-Si. This low reflectance slightly increased after carrying out the rapid thermal annealing. The observed behavior was attributed to the formation of a SiO2 layer, as confirmed by FTIR measurements. Finally, the electrical measurements have shown that the rapid oxidation, at certain conditions, contributes to the improvement of the electrical responses of the SiNWs, which can be of great interest for photovoltaic applications.

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells with improved efficiency using thermal annealing-induced nanostructured copper phthalocyanine as a donor layer were fabricated. A power conversion efficiency of 1.47% in the OPV cell with interdigitated CuPc/C60 bulk heterojunction has been obtained under AM 1.5 solar illumination at an intensity of 100 mW/cm2, which is higher than 0.63% of CuPc/C60 planar cell. Through varying the annealing temperature of CuPc films, the influence of interface morphology and crystallinity of CuPc films on the performance of OPV cells was systematically studied. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and spectrophotometry were used to characterize the CuPc films. The results showed that at an optimal annealing temperature, the crystalline nature and vertical orientation of nanostructured CuPc have been modified, which can facilitate the separation of interfacial electron-hole pairs and charge carrier transport to electrodes.

We have studied the effects of the substrate and the thickness on the structural, electrical and magnetic properties of permalloy thin films Ni81Fe19 (Py). Series of Py thin films were evaporated on four various substrates: glass, kapton, Si(1 0 0) and Si(1 1 1). The thickness ranges from 13 nm to 190 nm. We show that evaporated permalloy on kapton and Si(1 1 1) present a strong ⟨1 1 1⟩ preferred orientation for samples thicker than 85 nm; however, the films grown on glass and Si(1 0 0) present a weak (1 1 1) texture for most of these samples. Generally, the lattice constant for Py/glass, Py/Si(1 0 0) and Py/Si(1 1 1) samples is found to be smaller than the bulk value (abulk), while for the Py/kapton, it is larger than abulk. There is an overall increase of the grain sizes (100 Å–480 Å) with thickness for Py/Si(1 1 1), Py/Si(1 0 0) and Py/glass. For the Py/kapton samples, the grain sizes (about 130 Å) seem to be independent of the thickness. The resistivity, ρ, decreases with increasing thickness for all samples. The highest values of ρ were observed in the Py/kapton thin films, diffusion at the grain boundaries might be in part responsible for these high values. The magnetization easy axis is found to be in the film plane for all samples. For all series, the two thinner films seem to exhibit a perpendicular magnetocrystalline anisotropy. The coercive field, HC//, values range from 1 Oe to 67 Oe. A peak in the HC// vs. t curve is observed for Py/Si while for Py on glass and Py/kapton, HC// seems to be constant. We also observed that for the thicker Py/Si(1 1 1) samples, the coercivity decreases as the grain sizes increase.

The AC and DC electrical properties of sandwich devices fabricated with silicon (Si), porous silicon (PSi) and nanolayers of bromo aluminum phthalocyanine with aluminum electrodes (Al/Si/Al, Al/Si/PSi/Al, Al/Si/BrAlPc/Al and Al/Si/PSi/BrAlPc/Al) were examined over the voltage, frequency and temperature range of 0–11 mV, 102–105 Hz and 303–423 K respectively. Morphology of the samples was studied via scanning electron microscope (SEM) images and X-ray diffraction (XRD) micrographs. Capacitance is practically independent of frequency (f) in the range of 102–104 Hz, whereas it is extremely frequency dependent for f > 104 Hz. Dissipation factor decreased with increasing frequency to a minimum value and increased noticeably thereafter. Capacitance and dissipation factor are almost independent of temperature; capacitance increases with increasing temperature for T > 380 K. The AC electrical behavior of sandwich devices has been shown to be in agreement with the model of Goswami and Goswami. According to our data the Al contact in sandwich devices is of ohmic type and the tunneling mechanism is applicable in explaining the DC conduction process. The Al/Si/PSi/BrAlPc/Al device, compared to other devices, exhibits the highest sensitivity to CO2.

N-doped Cu2O thin films have been deposited on glass substrate by reactive magnetron sputtering method under various N2/O2 flow ratios from 0 to 1.0. The structural and electronic properties of Cu2O:N films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), four-point probe and Hall effect measurements. XRD pattern showed that crystalline structures of all the samples retained single phase of Cu2O with the increase of N2/O2 flow ratio from 0 to 1.0. However, the crystalline quality of Cu2O:N films reduced with the increase of the N2/O2 flow ratio. The phenomenon of peak shift of Cu2O(1 1 1) implied that N atoms have been doped into Cu2O film. The square resistance of Cu2O:N films linearly decreased from 28.1 to 1.5 (104 Ω/☐) with the increase of N2/O2 flow ratio from 0.2 to 0.6 initially, and then it changed slowly with the increase of N2/O2 flow ratio from 0.8 to 1.0. Hole density of Cu2O:N films with various N2/O2 flow ratios from 0 to 0.6 was measured using the Van der Pauw method. All the samples are p-type, and the hole density of Cu2O:N films was enhanced from 1.2 × 1016 cm−3 to 3.1 × 1019 cm−3 with the increase of N2/O2 flow ratio from 0 to 0.6. The experimental results demonstrated that N doping was an effective method to enhance hole density of p-type Cu2O film.

In this paper, colloidal silver nanoparticles were prepared by chemical reduction of AgNO3 and pure Sn in a new and simple method. The type of crystallite lattice and the size of nanopowders were estimated by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The geometric, heterogeneous and mixing structure of synthesized nanopowders were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Optical properties such as plasmon absorption and frequency of soluble colloidal nanopowders in two solutions of distilled water and oil were investigated by UV-Visible spectroscopy, which was developed to calculate the absorbance spectra of nanoparticles solution containing a size distribution of particles using the Mie theory. Dipole and quadrupole plasmons related to molecular structure of water and oil were found by absorbance spectra. Also, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) analysis was used for determining the thermal behavior, endothermic and exothermic peaks of Ag nanopowder.

Methanol sensing characteristics of conducting polypyrrole-silver nanocomposites are reported here. The nanocomposites are synthesized by wet chemical technique with different amount of silver loadings (5–15 mol%). The sensitivity of the nanocomposites upon exposure to gas molecules is critically dependent on the silver loadings and the concentration of the exposed gas. This is possibly instigated by the modified metal-polymer interface and the polar nature of the constituent metal and the exposed gas. Interaction of the alcohol gas with the polypyrrole chains in the presence of silver effectively determines the change in resistance and hence the sensitivity of the nanocomposites upon exposure to methanol. The adsorption of methanol molecules within the nanocomposites and the subsequent chemical reactions are studied by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.

In this report we present micro/nanostructuring of novel metal isopropoxides-silica containing hybrid sol-gel materials by the femtosecond laser direct writing technique and apply it for the fabrication of various microoptical/nanophotonic components. This approach enables one to photostructure true three-dimensional objects with controlled sub-100 nm spatial definition. Due to self-smoothing effects, surface roughness can be formed below 30 nm making this technique widely applicable for microoptical/nanophotonics devices in visible and near-infra-red wavelengths. After photopolymerization, these materials inherit desired optical properties: high transmittance in the 400–1500 nm spectral range and nearly glass-matching optical refractive index. Doping with organic dyes or quantum dots offers additional functionalities. Fields of applications cover: light guiding, coupling/extraction, trapping, signal processing and transferring, microscopy, biology, etc. In brief, we investigated direct laser writing structurability of these materials and its optimization for manufacturing microoptical/nanophotonic components. We successfully produced microoptical components such as aspheric and Fresnel lenses. We demonstrate the flexibility and reproducibility of this approach to fabricate custom-shaped elements on the tip of the optical fiber, thus producing integrated microoptical devices. The micro/nanostructures were characterized by optical and scanning electron microscopies, and optical profilometry. Their optical functions were measured using a custom-built setup to serve the purpose. The obtained values were in close coincidence to the theoretical values. Further research in the direction of production integrated and multifunctional components to be applied in the fields of photonics, plasmonics and telecommunications as well as optofluidics is currently being carried out.

A theoretical analysis of a tuneable optical filter is presented by proposing an optical ring resonator (ORR) using photonic crystal fiber (PCF) as the resonance loop. The influences of the characteristic parameters of the PCF on the filter response have been analyzed under steady-state condition of the ORR. It is shown that the tuneability of the filter is mainly achieved by changing the modulation frequency of the light signal applied to the resonator. The analyses have shown that the sharpness and the depth of the filter response are controlled by parameters such as amplitude modulation index of applied field, the coupling coefficient of the ORR, and hole-spacing and air-filling ratio of the PCF, respectively. When transmission coefficient of the loop approaches the coupling coefficient, the filter response enhances sharply with PCF parameters. The depth and the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the response strongly depend on the number of field circulations in the resonator loop. With the proposed tuneability scheme for optical filter, we achieved an FWHM of ~1.55 nm. The obtained results may be utilized in designing optical add/drop filters used in WDM communication systems.

A symmetrical detection configuration was developed to detect inner surface defect in a hollow cylinder by laser-induced ultrasonic. In this method, circumferential waves were detected at two points on the outer surface with ±90° relative to the laser source and their difference was used to obtain the differential circumferential wave. Finite element method was used to analyze the influence of inner surface defect’s position and size on the differential circumferential wave. The results show that the relative energy of differential circumferential wave and the emerging time of the bipolar waveform strongly depend on the defect’s size and the source-defect angle. As a result, the position of defect can be determined by the reach time of the bipolar waveform and the size can be evaluated by the relative energy of differential circumferential wave.

This paper is aimed at the analysis of positive pre-breakdown currents triggered in mineral transformer oil submitted to 50 Hz alternating overvoltages. Different shapes of streamer currents and electrical discharges have been recorded to develop a discrimination technique based on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Wavelet analysis of these currents. This enables us to address a complementary diagnosis tool that can serve as an online transformer monitoring and protection.

The axial dependency of the central-axis value of the heavy particle density and temperature of surface-wave plasmas is studied using Rayleigh scattering (RyS). The plasma is generated at a frequency of 2.45 GHz in argon by a surfatron operating under the standard settings of a power of 45 W, a flow rate of 50 sccm and a pressure of 20 mbar. To investigate the effect of the pressure on the gas temperature, we also investigated 6 and 10 mbar plasmas. By using a two-dimensional intensified CCD array we could determine and eliminate the influence of false stray light, a major disturbing factor in the determination of the Rayleigh signal. In order to trace the energy fluxes that determine the gas temperature, we performed Thomson scattering so that the properties of the electron gas are known. It is found that the gas temperature, Ta, depends on the wall temperature and the product of the gas pressure and the electron pressure. The latter implies that Ta follows the electron density axially, meaning that it is highest at the launcher and decreases monotonically in the wave propagation direction. The maximum gas temperature of around Ta = 800 K is found close to the launcher for the highest gas pressure of 20 mbar. For lower pressures we find lower Ta values. The extrapolation of Ta toward the end of the plasma column leads to a temperature of about 320 K. This study reveals that, for the argon plasmas under study, the central-axis values of the gas temperature are determined by the balance between the heating of the gas by means of elastic electron collisions and the cooling due to heat conduction from the center to the wall.

The goal of this work was to investigate the potential of sliding spark plasma to excite from dielectrics emission spectra that have utility in direct trace quantitative analysis of non-conducting materials in air at atmospheric pressure. The sliding spark is a special variety of pulsed plasma specularly discharging across a dielectric surface enforced between a pair of electrodes. Analysis of the emission spectra measured between 212 ≤ λ ≤ 511 nm using CCD spectrometer showed that the sliding spark is accompanied by prompt atomic and molecular emission over a broad wavelength range. Each dielectric is characterized by unique spectral features composed of mostly overlapping atomic, ionic and molecular lines and a complex background that results from the plasma species, cathode material, operating environment and the major components of the sample matrix including their reaction products. Among the measured lines a number (depending on the oxidation state of the element in the matrix) of atomic and ionic lines were found to be free from spectral interference and with good signal-to-noise ratio, which indicates their potential for direct trace quantitative analysis utilizing a new technique: sliding spark spectroscopy. Mostly ionic lines are optically thin. In the UV range the lines are especially not broadened and are identifiable against a weak continuum.

To fulfill the transport applications, either for traction or on-board auxiliaries systems, a power generator based on fuel cell needs significant power. For this purpose, long fuel cell stacks, either mono- or multi-stack systems, are already implemented as technological solutions. Long stacks though may be affected by spatial discrepancies (fluidics, temperature) causing possible failures. The latter often occur on localized stack sections. A corrective action has to be taken to quickly restore the fuel cell’s state of health. As an alternative to fluidic action, segmented electric action is explored in this paper. First, an “All or Nothing” solution achieved with electrical by-pass circuits is analyzed: it proved simple to implement but restrictive to exploit. Consequently, a “gradual” action is proposed by using the power electronics converter associated to the fuel cell. Hence, the present work investigates the approach consisting in individually driving the electric power delivered by each segment of a long polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell stack. Each segment is controlled independently according to its state of health. To achieve this objective, the article provides an extended multi-criteria analysis of several power converter topologies. The converter topology has to be in agreement with transportation specifications: simple, compact, having a high efficiency and should be adapted to manage fuel cell degraded modes. Among several studied topologies, resonant isolated boost stands out as a candidate topology. The related multi-port architecture and algorithm structure are analyzed by numerical simulations, taking into account degraded modes and technology considerations.

When asphalt concrete is manufactured incorporating a high percentage (almost 70%) of reclaimed materials from the deconstruction of road surfaces under renovation, and when the corresponding production device is designed specifically to reduce the energy input need (lowering the production temperature), the resulting manufacturing process contributes to the protection of the environment and reduces production costs. However, to meet the quality requirements of the finished product, virgin materials of appropriate quality and quantity must also be added (mineral aggregates and new asphalt binder) and control systems set up to quantify and optimize the parameters involved (thus avoiding the guess work which still often prevails today). It was for this reason that a new experimental technique described here was devised, which will ultimately be used in asphalt concrete production plants. The technique involves lixiviating reclaimed asphalt concrete using a chlorinated solvent; the resulting solute is collected gradually, then the mixture of binders (virgin and reclaimed asphalt concrete) can be characterized and their mass fractions quantified using a combination of UV and IR spectrometry. With this experimental technique we were able to assess the extent to which the reclaimed asphalt pavement binder participates in the agglomeration and cohesion of the reclaimed asphalt concrete. This assessment was made in terms of the main parameters in the production process, temperature of the materials and mixing time.

The optical beam deflection method and numerical simulation are developed to study laserinduced bubble in the bulk and near a wall. The influence of the distance between the bubble center and the wall and the influence of the wall sizes on the collapse features of the bubble are discussed. The results show that the collapse time of the bubble is proportional to the maximum bubble radius, and the experimental and numerical results are in agreement with theoretical results when the bubble collapses in the bulk. Besides, the maximum radius increases with the laser energy and then begins to level out as the laser energy continues to increase because of the laser plasma shielding. The closer the bubble is to the wall, the larger the maximum radius and the collapse time are. Furthermore, the bubble surface velocity, the liquid jet velocity and the newborn shock wave pressure are larger, which means that the force acting on the wall is larger near small walls than near large ones.