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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,009 records · Page 56
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Fabrication of triangular nanobeam waveguide networks in bulk diamond using single-crystal silicon hard masks

A scalable approach for integrated photonic networks in single-crystal diamond using triangular etching of bulk samples is presented. We describe designs of high quality factor (Q = 2.51 × 10{sup 6}) photonic crystal cavities with low mode volume (V{sub m} = 1.062 × (λ/n){sup 3}), which are connected via waveguides supported by suspension structures with predicted transmission loss of only 0.05 dB. We demonstrate the fabrication of these structures using transferred single-crystal silicon hard masks and angular dry etching, yielding photonic crystal cavities in the visible spectrum with measured quality factors in excess of Q = 3 × 10{sup 3}.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Improving the sensitivity of a near-infrared nanocomposite photodetector by enhancing trap induced hole injection

We report the enhancement of the photoconductive gain of nanocomposite near-infrared photodetectors by a zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) rich surface at the nanocomposite/cathode interface. An argon plasma etching process was used to remove polymer at the surface of nanocomposite films, which resulted in a ZnO NPs rich surface. The other way is to spin-coat a thin layer of ZnO NPs onto the nanocomposite layer. The ZnO NPs rich surface, which acts as electron traps to induce secondary hole injection under reverse bias, increased hole injection, and thus the external quantum efficiency by 2–3 times. The darkcurrent declined one order of magnitude simultaneously as a result of etching the top nanocomposite layer. The specific detectivity at 800 nm was increased by 7.4 times to 1.11 × 10{sup 10} Jones due to the simultaneously suppressed noise and enhanced gain.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Design and fabrication of a MEMS chevron-type thermal actuator

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a MEMS chevron-type thermal actuator. The device was designed for fabrication in the standard MEMS technology, where the topography of the upper layers depends on the patterns of structural and sacrificial layers underneath. The proposed actuator presents some advantages over usual thermal vertical chevron actuators by means of low operating voltages, high output force and linear movement without deformation of the shaft. The device simulations were done using COVENTOR software. The movement obtained by simulation was 12 μm, for a voltage of 0.2 V and the current intensity of 257 mA. The design optimizes the in-plane displacement by fixed anchors and beam inclination angle. Heating is provided by Joule dissipation. The material used for manufacture of chevron-based actuator was aluminum due to its thermal and mechanical properties. The release of the movable part was performed using isotropic dry etching by Reactive Ion Etching (RIE). A first inspection was achieved using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). In order to obtain the in-plane displacement we carried out electrical measurements. The thermal actuator can be used for a variety of optical and microassembling applications. This kind of thermal actuator could be integrated easily with other micro devices since its fabrication is compatible with the general semiconductor processes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Electrowetting properties of atomic layer deposited Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} decorated silicon nanowires

This paper reports the electrowetting properties of liquid droplet on superhydrophobic silicon nanowires with Atomic layer deposited (ALD) Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} as dielectric layer. Silicon wafer were etched by metal assisted wet chemical etching with silver as catalyst. ALD Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} films of 10nm thickness were conformally deposited over silicon nanowires. Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} dielectric film coated silicon nanowires was chemically modified with Trichloro (1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorooctyl) silane to make it superhydrophobic(SHP). The contact angle was measured and all the samples exhibited superhydrophobic nature with maximum contact angles of 163° and a minimum contact angle hysteresis of 6°. Electrowetting induced a maximum reversible decrease of the contact angle of 20°at 150V in air.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Magnetotransport in p-type Ge quantum well narrow wire arrays

We report magnetotransport measurements of a SiGe heterostructure containing a 20 nm p-Ge quantum well with a mobility of 800 000 cm{sup 2} V{sup −1} s{sup −1}. By dry etching arrays of wires with widths between 1.0 μm and 3.0 μm, we were able to measure the lateral depletion thickness, built-in potential, and the phase coherence length of the quantum well. Fourier analysis does not show any Rashba related spin-splitting despite clearly defined Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations being observed up to a filling factor of ν = 22. Exchange-enhanced spin-splitting is observed for filling factors below ν = 9. An analysis of boundary scattering effects indicates lateral depletion of the hole gas by 0.5 ± 0.1 μm from the etched germanium surface. The built-in potential is found to be 0.25 ± 0.04 V, presenting an energy barrier for lateral transport greater than the hole confinement energy. A large phase coherence length of 3.5 ± 0.5 μm is obtained in these wires at 1.7 K.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Exploring the wake of a dust particle by a continuously approaching test grain

The structure of the ion wake behind a dust particle in the plasma sheath of an rf discharge is studied in a two-particle system. The wake formation leads to attractive forces between the negatively charged dust and can cause a reduction of the charge of a particle. By evaluating the dynamic response of the particle system to small external perturbations, these quantities can be measured. Plasma inherent etching processes are used to achieve a continuous mass loss and hence an increasing levitation height of the lower particle, so that the structure of the wake of the upper particle, which is nearly unaffected by etching, can be probed. The results show a significant modification of the wake structure in the plasma sheath to one long potential tail.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Growth of antiphase-domain-free GaP on Si substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition using an in situ AsH{sub 3} surface preparation

Antiphase-domain (APD) free GaP films were grown on Si(100) substrates prepared by annealing under dilute AsH{sub 3} in situ in an MOCVD reactor. LEED and AES surface analysis of Si(100) surfaces prepared by this treatment show that AsH{sub 3} etching quickly removes O and C contaminants at a relatively low temperature (690–740 °C), and creates a single-domain “A-type” As/Si surface reconstruction. The resulting GaP epilayers grown at the same temperature are APD-free, and could thereby serve as templates for direct growth of III-V semiconductors on Si. This single chamber process has a low thermal budget, and can enable heteroepitaxial integration of III-Vs and Si at an industrial scale.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

BeZnCdSe quantum-well ridge-waveguide laser diodes under low threshold room-temperature continuous-wave operation

Low threshold current ridge-waveguide BeZnCdSe quantum-well laser diodes (LDs) have been developed by completely etching away the top p-type BeMgZnSe/ZnSe:N short-period superlattice cladding layer, which can suppress the leakage current that flows laterally outside of the electrode. The waveguide LDs are covered with a thick SiO{sub 2} layer and planarized with chemical-mechanical polishing and a reactive ion etching process. Room-temperature lasing under continuous-wave condition is achieved with the laser cavity formed by the cleaved waveguide facets coated with high-reflectivity dielectric films. For a 4 μm-wide green LD lasing around a wavelength of 535 nm, threshold current and voltage of 7.07 mA and 7.89 V are achieved for a cavity length of 300 μm, and the internal differential quantum efficiency, internal absorption loss, gain constant, and nominal transparency current density are estimated to be 27%, 4.09 cm{sup −1}, 29.92 (cm × μm)/kA and 6.35 kA/(cm{sup 2 }× μm), respectively. This compact device can realize a significantly improved performance with much lower threshold power consumption, which would benefit the potential application for ZnSe-based green LDs as light sources in full-color display and projector devices installed in consumer products such as pocket projectors.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Anisotropic pyrochemical microetching of poly(tetrafluoroethylene) initiated by synchrotron radiation-induced scission of molecule bonds

We developed a process for micromachining polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE): anisotropic pyrochemical microetching induced by synchrotron X-ray irradiation. X-ray irradiation was performed at room temperature. Upon heating, the irradiated PTFE substrates exhibited high-precision features. Both the X-ray diffraction peak and Raman signal from the irradiated areas of the substrate decreased with increasing irradiation dose. The etching mechanism is speculated as follows: X-ray irradiation caused chain scission, which decreased the number-average degree of polymerization. The melting temperature of irradiated PTFE decreased as the polymer chain length decreased, enabling the treated regions to melt at a lower temperature. The anisotropic pyrochemical etching process enabled the fabrication of PTFE microstructures with higher precision than simultaneously heating and irradiating the sample.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Electron-bombarded 〈110〉-oriented tungsten tips for stable tunneling electron emission

A clean tungsten (W) tip apex with a robust atomic plane is required for producing a stable tunneling electron emission under strong electric fields. Because a tip apex fabricated from a wire by aqueous chemical etching is covered by impurity layers, heating treatment in ultra-high vacuum is experimentally known to be necessary. However, strong heating frequently melts the tip apex and causes unstable electron emissions. We investigated quantitatively the tip apex and found a useful method to prepare a tip with stable tunneling electron emissions by controlling electron-bombardment heating power. Careful characterizations of the tip structures were performed with combinations of using field emission I–V curves, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (transmitted Debye-Scherrer and Laue) with micro-parabola capillary, field ion microscopy, and field emission microscopy. Tips were chemically etched from (1) polycrystalline W wires (grain size ∼1000 nm) and (2) long-time heated W wires (grain size larger than 1 mm). Heating by 10-40 W (10 s) was found to be good enough to remove oxide layers and produced stable electron emission; however, around 60 W (10 s) heating was threshold power to increase the tip radius, typically +10 ± 5 nm (onset of melting). Further, the grain size of ∼1000 nm was necessary to obtain a conical shape tip apex.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

Atomic force microscopy studies of homoepitaxial GaN layers grown on GaN template by laser MBE

We have grown homoepitaxial GaN films on metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) grown 3.5 µm thick GaN on sapphire (0001) substrate (GaN template) using an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) laser assisted molecular beam epitaxy (LMBE) system. The GaN films were grown by laser ablating a polycrystalline solid GaN target in the presence of active r.f. nitrogen plasma. The influence of laser repetition rates (10-30 Hz) on the surface morphology of homoepitaxial GaN layers have been studied using atomic force microscopy. It was found that GaN layer grown at 10 Hz shows a smooth surface with uniform grain size compared to the rough surface with irregular shape grains obtained at 30 Hz. The variation of surface roughness of the homoepitaxial GaN layer with and without wet chemical etching has been also studied and it was observed that the roughness of the film decreased after wet etching due to the curved structure/rough surface.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Translation effects on vertical Bridgman growth and optical, mechanical and surface analysis of 2-phenylphenol single crystal

2-phenylphenol optical crystals were grown in cone ampoules using vertical Bridgman technique. Single crystal of 2-phenylphenol with 150 mm length has been grown. The inclination on the conical part of the ampoule reduces the growth defects in the 2-phenylphenol single crystal. The lattice parameters and structure studied using single crystal X-ray diffraction method. 2-phenylphenol single crystal belongs to orthorhombic space group Fdd2. The micro translation rate affects crystal growth of 2-phenylphenol crystal was studied. The translation rate dependent defects present in the crystal were investigated by transmittance, indentation and etching characterizations. The dislocation induced indentation crack lengths variations were studied. Etch pits and striations observed for the selective etchants furnish significant information on growth aspects and degree of defect present in the crystal.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2016

Silicon nanostructures-induced photoelectrochemical solar water splitting for energy applications

We study the photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar water splitting assisted with synthesized nanostructures. Si nanowires decorated with silver dendrite nanostructures have been synthesized using metal assisted wet chemical etching of (100) Si wafer. Etching has been carried out in an aqueous solution consisting of 5M HF and 0.02M AgNO{sub 3}. Investigations showed that such type of semiconductor nanostructures act as efficient working electrodes for the splitting of normal water in PEC method. An enhancement in the photon-to-current conversion efficiency and solar-to-hydrogen evolution was observed for obtaining a practical source of clean and renewable fuel.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

“Virtual IED sensor” at an rf-biased electrode in low-pressure plasma

Energy distribution and the flux of the ions coming on a surface are considered as the key-parameters in anisotropic plasma etching. Since direct ion energy distribution (IED) measurements at the treated surface during plasma processing are often hardly possible, there is an opportunity for virtual ones. This work is devoted to the possibility of such indirect IED and ion flux measurements at an rf-biased electrode in low-pressure rf plasma by using a “virtual IED sensor” which represents “in-situ” IED calculations on the absolute scale in accordance with a plasma sheath model containing a set of measurable external parameters. The “virtual IED sensor” should also involve some external calibration procedure. Applicability and accuracy of the “virtual IED sensor” are validated for a dual-frequency reactive ion etching (RIE) inductively coupled plasma (ICP) reactor with a capacitively coupled rf-biased electrode. The validation is carried out for heavy (Ar) and light (H{sub 2}) gases under different discharge conditions (different ICP powers, rf-bias frequencies, and voltages). An EQP mass-spectrometer and an rf-compensated Langmuir probe (LP) are used to characterize plasma, while an rf-compensated retarded field energy analyzer (RFEA) is applied to measure IED and ion flux at the rf-biased electrode. Besides, the pulsed selfbias method is used as an external calibration procedure for ion flux estimating at the rf-biased electrode. It is shown that pulsed selfbias method allows calibrating the IED absolute scale quite accurately. It is also shown that the “virtual IED sensor” based on the simplest collisionless sheath model allows reproducing well enough the experimental IEDs at the pressures when the sheath thickness s is less than the ion mean free path λ{sub i} (s < λ{sub i}). At higher pressure (when s > λ{sub i}), the difference between calculated and experimental IEDs due to ion collisions in the sheath is observed in the low energy range. The effect of electron impact ionization in the sheath on the origin and intensity of low-energy peaks in IED is discussed compared to ion charge-exchange collisions. Obviously, the extrapolation of the “virtual IED sensor” approach to higher pressures requires developing some other sheath models, taking into account both ion and electron collisions and probably including even a model of the whole plasma volume instead of plasma sheath one.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Radial direct bandgap p-i-n GaNP microwire solar cells with enhanced short circuit current

We report the demonstration of dilute nitride heterostructure core/shell microwire solar cells utilizing the combination of top-down reactive-ion etching to create the cores (GaP) and molecular beam epitaxy to create the shells (GaNP). Systematic studies of cell performance over a series of microwire lengths, array periods, and microwire sidewall morphologies examined by transmission electron microscopy were conducted to shed light on performance-limiting factors and to optimize the cell efficiency. We show by microscopy and correlated external quantum efficiency characterization that the open circuit voltage is degraded primarily due to the presence of defects at the GaP/GaNP interface and in the GaNP shells, and is not limited by surface recombination. Compared to thin film solar cells in the same growth run, the microwire solar cells exhibit greater short circuit current but poorer open circuit voltage due to greater light absorption and number of defects in the microwire structure, respectively. The comprehensive understanding presented in this work suggests that performance benefits of dilute nitride microwire solar cells can be achieved by further tuning of the epitaxial quality of the underlying materials.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Edge structures and properties of triangular antidots in single-layer MoS{sub 2}

Density functional theory and experiments are employed to shed light on the edge structures of antidots in O etched single-layer MoS{sub 2}. The equilibrium morphology is found to be the zigzag Mo edge with each Mo atom bonded to two O atoms, in a wide range of O chemical potentials. Scanning electron microscopy shows that the orientation of the created triangular antidots is opposite to the triangular shape of the single-layer MoS{sub 2} samples, in agreement with the theoretical predictions. Furthermore, edges induced by O etching turn out to be p-doped, suggesting an effective strategy to realize p-type MoS{sub 2} devices.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optically pumped deep-UV multimode lasing in AlGaN double heterostructure grown by molecular beam homoepitaxy

Multimode lasing at sub-300 nm wavelengths is demonstrated by optical pumping in AlGaN heterostructures grown on single-crystal AlN substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. Edge-emitting ridge-based Fabry–Pérot cavities are fabricated with the epitaxial AlN/AlGaN double heterostructure by a combined inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etch and tetramethylammonium hydroxide etch. The emitters exhibit peak gain at 284 nm and modal linewidths on the order of 0.1 nm at room temperature. The applied growth technique and its chemical and heterostructural design characteristics offer certain unique capabilities toward further development of electrically injected AlGaN laser diodes.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗