The I-V characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors in the temperature range between 100 K and 300 K are studied. It is found that both the maximum drain-source current and transconductance decrease with the increase of temperature. Decrease of the electron mobility with increasing temperature is considered to be the main cause for that condition. The threshold voltage shows a forward shift, which can be explained by the increase of Schottky barrier with increasing temperature. It is found that at VGS = 0 V the drain-source current reduces with the ascending temperature, which should be due to the variation of the electron mobility with the temperature. While at VGS = −5 V the drain-source current is found to increase with the ascending temperature, it is suggested to be caused by the positive temperature coefficient of the electron transport in the depleted region.

The present paper introduces the principles of the Impedance Spectroscopy technique, as an important method in the characterization of the discrete materials working in real conditions in circuits. The method was firstly verified by using an RC series-parallel circuit and then was exemplified in studying two types of (Ni, Zn) ferrite ceramics.

The current-voltage characteristics of Cu-nMoSe2 Schottky diodes measured over a wide temperature range 50 < T <300 K have been interpreted on the basis of thermionic emission mechanism assuming Gaussian barrier distribution. A decrease in the experimental barrier height Φb0 and an increase in the ideality factor n with a decrease in temperature have been explained on the basis of barrier height inhomogeneities at the metal-semiconductor interface. It is proven that the presence of a distribution of barrier heights is responsible for the apparent decrease of the zero-bias barrier height. The voltage dependence of the standard deviation causes the increase of ideality factor at low temperatures. The mean barrier height Φb0 = 1.05 eV and the Richardson constant A* = 89.7 A cm−2 k−2 have been calculated by means of the modified Richardson plot. The value of the Richardson constant found is much closer than that obtained without considering the inhomogeneous barrier heights with that of the theoretical value.

The temperature dependence of the pulse length was measured for an 18-fold segmented n-type germanium detector in the temperature range of 77–120 K. The interactions of 122 keV photons originating from a 152Eu source were selected and pulses as observed on the core and segment electrodes were studied. In both cases, the temperature dependence can be well described by a Boltzmann-like ansatz.

The effect of coupling between levels in quantum wells or quantum dots is described in Green’s function formalism. The structure eigenvalues are shown to have a Brillouin-Wigner continued-fraction expression that allows to give a general and intuitive meaning to levels coupling, described in terms of an off-diagonal self-energy. The concept of coupling is linked to a general potential matrix and can be given the same mathematical form for all kinds of coupling (inter- and intra-quantum dot and quantum well), in which off-diagonal self-energy contributions assume each time a different conceptual meaning. Furthermore, the same scheme, based on off-diagonal self-energies, allows to evaluate renormalization contribution due to each structure energy level in a natural and easy way.

The DC electrical measurements on Au/ZnTPP/Au planar structure showed two regimes of electrical conductivity depending on temperature, at low temperatures the activation energy is 0.24 eV and variable range hopping in localized states near Fermi level is the operating conduction mechanism, at high temperatures the activation energy is 0.998 eV and phonon-assisted hopping of small polarons is the operating conduction mechanism. The capacitance-voltage measurements on Au/ZnTPP/n-Si/Al showed that the formed junction is linearly graded one. The thickness of depletion region in ZnTPP and n-Si has been determined and the built-in potential is 0.85 V. The concentration gradient of holes and electrons is 2.6 × 1020 holes/m4 and 0.3 × 1020 electrons/m4, respectively. Thermoelectric power measurements showed that ZnTPP films are p-type semiconductor and polaron activation energy is 0.37 eV. A hybrid solar cell of Au/ZnTPP/n-Si/Al had been constructed by growing ZnTPP film via thermal evaporation technique on n-Si wafer. Dark current-voltage measurements of the device at different temperatures showed that there are three conduction mechanisms operating in the device. The dominance of any of them depends on applied potential. The photovoltaic properties of Au/ZnTPP/n-Si/Al hybrid solar had been evaluated.

Te/Cd/Te/Zn/Cd stacked layers were prepared by Stacked Elemental Layer (SEL) Method. All stacks were annealed from 200 °C to 500 °C and the prepared films were confirmed as polycrystalline nature. Cubic CdTe and Hexagonal ZnTe were identified at high annealing temperature. Transmittance spectra emphasized the significance of Zn doping by annealing the stack. The calculated optical constants n and k were 1.52–2.45 and 0.07–0.36 respectively. The band gaps (Eg) were observed between 1.38 and 1.44 eV at above 350 °C. A uniform surface morphology could be observed at high annealing temperatures. The observed results encouraged the Zn doping using SEL method.

The effect of vacuum heat treatment in the temperature range between 100 and 400 °C on the morphology and optical properties of thermally evaporated thin gold films with mass thickness from 8 to 80 nm was studied by AFM, TEM and optical spectroscopy in the spectral region of localized (surface) plasmons excitation. Our investigations have shown that change of film morphology induced by thermal annealing depends strongly on film thickness. Thus, optical behavior of thin metal films is modified due to being induced by recrystallization film permittivity changes as well as transformation of film morphology. The considered processes might be crucial for thin film optical properties determination and must be taken into account for the choice of adequate thin film optical model. Besides that, post-fabrication thermal annealing enables a wide modification of thin metal films morphology and surface plasmon resonance parameters, offering new possibilities for metal substrates design enhancing surface electromagnetic fields and therefore SERS, SEIRA, luminescence effects.

The local structures and the EPR g factors g║ and g┴ are theoretically studied for the tetragonal Ti3+-Vo centers in BaTiO3 bulks and thin films using the perturbation formulas of the g factors for a 3d1 ion in tetragonally elongated octahedra and compressed tetrahedra, respectively, based on the cluster approach. For the Ti3+-Vo center in BaTiO3 bulks, the impurity Ti3+ suffers the displacement away from the oxygen vacancy Vo by about 0.15 Å along the C4 axis due to the electrostatic repulsion of the Vo. Nevertheless, the Ti3+-Vo center in BaTiO3 thin films may exhibit the tetragonally compressed tetrahedron, characterized by the bond angle 55.88° larger than that (≈54.74°) of an ideal tetrahedron. The quite different g factors (especially g anisotropies Δg = g║ − g┴) for the two kinds of samples are discussed, in view of the dissimilar bonding or coordination environments (i.e., incomplete bonding in the thin films may lead to the lower coordination number).

We have synthesized CdS NCs (NCs) by a thermochemical approach. CdSO4 and Na2S2O3 were used as the precursors and thioglycolic acid (TGA) was used as capping agent molecule. The structure and optical property of the NCs were characterized by means of XRD, TEM, UV-visible optical spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL). XRD and TEM analyses demonstrated hexagonal phase CdS NCs with an average size of around 2 nm. Synthesized NCs exhibited a band gap of about 3.21 eV and showed a broad band emission from 400 to 750 nm centered at 503 nm. This broad band emission is related to surface states of CdS and our results showed that the emission peak can be attributed to the interstitial sulfur. The best attained photoluminescence quantum yield of the NCs was about 11%. At the same conditions the PL quantum yield of TGA capped NCs was about 20 times higher than that of TG capped NCs.

Recent theoretical progress in understanding the nonlinear optical response of noble metal nanocomposite materials with an enhanced third-order nonlinear susceptibility was reviewed. The enhanced third-order nonlinear susceptibility results from the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of noble metal nanoparticles. And then the enhancement strongly depends on irradiation light wavelength, concentration and surrounding medium of noble metal particles. Furthermore, their applications as optical switchers with ultrashort time response and optical limiters of intense laser radiation were also reviewed. Moreover, the enhancement mechanism of third-order nonlinear susceptibility, and physical process was further discussed in detail, which was very important for further improvement of third-order nonlinear susceptibility and application on optical switchers and optical limiters for noble metal nanoparticles.

In this article, the saturation optical intensity in electroabsorption modulators (EAMs) at 1.55 μm with asymmetric intra-step-barrier coupled double strained quantum well (AICD-SQWs) active region is theoretically investigated and compared with intra-step quantum well (IQW) structure. For this purpose, the two basic escape processes, thermionic emission and tunneling, are considered and the escape times of photogenerated carriers both for the AICD-SQW and the IQW based on the InGaAlAs material system are calculated and compared. From the reduction in escape times, improvement in the saturation optical intensity due to the introduction of the AICD-SQW structure is estimated to be greater than 6 dB at high fields.

The distribution patterns of the second-harmonic generation (SHG) enhancement factor in the incident plane of silver nanoshell at resonance frequencies have been studied by using electrostatic approximation. The mapping feature of SHG corresponding to double frequency local field enhancement is different from that of fundamental case. At longer wavelength (SHG enhancement resulting from local field at double frequency), large SHG enhancements are only observed outside the shell. However, hot spots also take place inside the silver shell at shorter wavelength (SHG enhancement resulting from local field at fundamental frequency). The effect of outer surrounding media on the SHG corresponding to local field at fundamental frequency is also very different from that of double frequency. It has been found that the azimuth angle dependent SHG at shorter wavelength split into two maximums when the surrounding dielectric constant is increased, which is absent for SHG at longer wavelength.

The interaction of the near IR femtosecond laser pulses with photochromic glass sample is investigated. Two different types of microstructures due to the optical properties modification of the sample are observed at the irradiated regions with single laser pulses. Laser fluence and shot number dependency of the structures are investigated. The optical transmission of irradiated areas is analyzed spectroscopically.

The proposed method allows the detection and the measurement, in the sense of metrology, of smooth elongated curvilinear shapes. Such measurements are required in many fields of physics, for example: mechanical engineering, biology or medicine (deflection of beams, fibers or filaments), fluid mechanics or chemistry (detection of fronts). Contrary to actual methods, the result is given in an analytical form of class C∞ (and not a finite set of locations or pixels) thus curvatures and slopes, often of great interest in science, are given with good confidence. The proposed Virtual Image Correlation (VIC) method uses a virtual beam, an image which consists in a lateral expansion of the curve with a bell-shaped gray level. This figure is deformed until it fits the best the physical image with a method issued from the Digital Image Correlation method in use in solid mechanics. The precision of the identification is studied in a benchmark and successfully compared to two state-of-the-art methods. Three practical examples are given: a bar bending under its own weight, a thin fiber transported by a flow within a fracture and a thermal front. The first allows a comparison with theoretical solution, the second shows the ability of the method to deal with complex shapes and crossings and the third deals with ill-defined image.

This research work involves the plasma treatment of polyethylene terephthalate fiber to improve performance of various ionic lubricating agents. To do this, polyester fabric was pre-scoured with detergent, treated with atmospheric-air plasma and then coated with anionic, cationic and nonionic emulsions. Chemical and physical properties of samples were investigated by the use of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), bending lengths (BL), wrinkle recovery angles (WRA), fiber friction coefficient analysis (FFCA), moisture absorbency (MA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and reflectance spectroscopy (RS). Study on chemical properties of fibers revealed that the plasma pretreatment modifies the surface of fibers and increases the reactivity of substrate toward various ionic emulsions. Physical properties of textiles indicated that the combination of plasma and emulsion treatments on polyester can improve crease resistant, drapeability and water repellency due to uniform coating of various emulsions on surface of textiles.

The oxide semiconductor compounds such as SnO2, In2O3, ITO, ZnO and others brought about a new attention for the metal-insulator-semiconductor structures as photovoltaic converters because of the high values of transmission and conductivity and the possibility of metal replacement in above-mentioned structures. The characteristics of the solar cells based on these oxide semiconductor compounds can be improved with conductivity increasing of the transparent semiconductor films and that is why the purpose of this paper is obtaining of F-doped tin oxide thin films, preparation of SnO2:F-Si solar cells and studying of their properties. The F-doped tin oxide thin films were prepared by spray pyrolysis technique [1–8]. This method was chosen because of the simplicity of the apparatus and relatively low cost. Aqueous solutions containing 0.1 M (TT, BTT or DTD) and 0.07 M NH4F (in the case of doping with F) have been sprayed by an atomizer on Si or glass substrates, heated up to 420 °C by maintaining the spray liquid volume, the spray time and the pressure of the carrier gas. Spray pyrolysis deposition of transparent and conductive SnO2 is a low-cost and very flexible technique applicable to solar cells. For SnO2, the drawback is that polycrystalline films are only obtained at relatively high deposition temperatures, largely above 450 °C. This constraint may cause damage to the photovoltaic junction. In the present work, it will be demonstrated that the photovoltaic parameters can be influenced by adding small amounts of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to the source solution.

Ramsey fringes observed in an atomic fountain are formed by the superposition of the individual atomic signals. Due to the atomic beam residual temperature, the atoms have slightly different trajectories and thus are exposed to a different average magnetic field, and a velocity-dependent Ramsey interaction time. As a consequence, both the velocity distribution and magnetic field profile are imprinted in the Ramsey fringes observed on Zeeman sensitive microwave transitions. In this work, we perform a Fourier analysis of the measured Ramsey signals to retrieve both the time-averaged magnetic field associated with different trajectories and the velocity distribution of the atomic beam. We use this information to reconstruct Ramsey fringes and establish an analytical expression for the value of the microwave frequency for which individual Ramsey fringes add most constructively and are thus visible in the microwave spectrum.

The expansion of a plume generated during laser ablation is studied with the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method. The plume is a mixture of four disparate molecular mass components and expands in vacuum or into ambient gas. The time dependence of deposition rate is studied and the transition from an initial vacuum-like to a diffusion-like regime of expansion in ambient gas is shown. The lack of stoichiometry increases with the ratio of molecular masses of ablated particles and at disparate masses the stoichiometry is seriously affected. Ambient gas worsens the stoichiometry unless it supplies particles compensating the backward and sideward flows of plume constituents.

We report the design and operation of a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) for use with either solid or liquid samples with a volume down to a few microliters. The calorimeter is based on lithium tantalite pyroelectric bulk material used to perceive the energy involved in any phase transformation process. The device consists of a pyroelectric substrate, a thermoelectric cooler and a heat dissipation system. Its effectiveness is demonstrated by scanning the freezing and melting phase shifts of water droplets, ranging from 1 to 2 μl. The latent heat of fusion and solidification were measured to within 3% of the bulk value.