Structural and optical characterization of CuInSe2 films deposited by hot wall vacuum evaporation method

Copper indium diselenide (CuInSe₂) compound was prepared by direct reaction of high-purity elemental copper, indium and selenium. CuInSe₂ thin films were deposited onto well-cleaned glass substrates by a hot wall deposition technique using quartz tubes of different lengths (0.05, 0.07, 0.09, 0.11 and 0.13 m). X-ray diffraction studies revealed that all the deposited films are polycrystalline in nature and exhibit chalcopyrite structure. The crystallites were found to have a preferred orientation along the (1 1 2) direction. Micro-structural parameters of the films such as grain size, dislocation density, tetragonal distortion and strain have been determined. The grain sizes in the films were in the range of 65-250 nm. As the tube length increases up to 0.11 m the grain size in the deposited films increases, but the strain decreases. The film deposited using the 0.13 m long tube has smaller grain size and more strain. CuInSe₂ thin films coated using a tube length of 0.11 m were found to be highly crystalline when compared to the films coated using other tube lengths; it has also been found that films possess the same composition (Cu/In=1.015) as that of the bulk. Scanning electron microscope analysis indicates that the films are polycrystalline in nature. Structural parameters of CuInSe₂ thin films deposited under higher substrate temperatures were also studied and the results are discussed. The optical absorption coefficient of CuInSe₂ thin films has been estimated as 10⁴ cm⁻¹ (around 1050 nm). The direct band gap of CuInSe₂ thin films was also determined to be between 1.018 and 0.998 eV.     

A Three-Dimensional Finite-Difference Solution of the External Response of an Aircraft to a Complex Transient EM Environment: Part I-The Method and Its Implementation

Experimental charge and current measurements have recently been performed on an aircraft when it was exposed to the transient electromagnetic fi'eld of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) simulator. These new data allow a test of the predictive capabilities of the three-dimensional finite-difference method for realistic aircraft simulator test problems. In the paper, the workings of the threedimensional finite-difference method and its required inputs and sensitivity to variations in the inputs are discussed in sufficient detail to enable others to employ the method. A companion paper compares the experimental measurements to predictions for a large variety of measurement locations. Agreement is shown to be good for all major response measurements and satisfactory for a number of other measurements.     

Zone melting of indium phosphide

Bulk indium phosphide crystals have been prepared by zone melting with dislocation densities 104 ≤ N_d ≤ 105 cm^-2. The residual impurity level in nominally undoped crystals and the dopant distribution in Cd-, Sn- and Ge-doped zone melted ingots, as revealed by spark source mass spectrometric analyses, indicate a strong interaction between segregation at the solid/liquid interface and vapor transport. The effective distribution coefficients for Sn and Ge in zone melted InP are k_e(Sn) = 0.3 and k_e(Ge) = 0.4. The free electron concentration measured in the middle section of nominally undoped ingots is N_D-N_A = 1.9 × 10¹⁵ cm^-3 corresponding to a Hall mobility Μ_e = 3263 cm^2V-1sec^-l.     

Fast Envelope Detection for Thinned Display of Finely Digitized Ultrasound Scans

In ultrasound tissue characterization, the backscattered RF signal is finely digitized. The signal envelope is displayed in a version thinned 1-8. Three implementations of Hilbert-transform envelope detection with thinning were timed. An array processor speeds up DFT implementation by a factor of 2.5, but convolution implementation is even faster.     

Development and application of the Fraunhofer-diffraction method for measurements of plasma density fluctuations using infrared lasers

This paper is concerned with systematic developments of the Fraunhofer-diffraction method for studies of plasma density fluctuations in high-temperature plasmas using infrared lasers, namely (i) development of the general theory of the Fraunhofer-diffraction method, (ii) measurements of fluctuations propagating in an azimuthal direction, (iii) measurements of fluctuation intensities, and (iv) application in measurements on high-temperature plasmas.     

GOX-functionalized nanodiamond films for electrochemical biosensor

The importance of nanodiamond in biological and technological applications has been recognized recently, and applied in drug delivery, biochip, sensors and biosensors. Under this investigation, nanodiamond (ND) and nitrogen doped nanodiamond (NND) were deposited on n-type silicon films, and later functionalized with enzyme Glucose oxidase (GOX). The GOX functionalized doped and undoped ND films were characterized using combination of several techniques; i.e. FTIR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and electrochemical techniques. ND/GOX and NND/GOX thin films on n-type silicon have been found to provide sensitive glucose sensor. GOX has been chosen as a model enzyme system to functionalize with ND at molecular level to understand the glucose biosensor.     

Suppression of the zero-order diffracted beam from a pixelated spatial light modulator by phase compression

Phase compression is used to suppress the on-axis zero-order diffracted (ZOD) beam from a pixelated phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM) by a simple modification to the computer generated hologram (CGH) loaded onto the SLM. After CGH design, the phase of each SLM element is identically compressed by multiplying by a constant scale factor and rotated on the complex unit-circle to produce a cancellation beam that destructively interferes with the ZOD beam. Experiments achieved a factor of 3 reduction of the ZOD beam using two different liquid-crystal SLMs. Numerical simulation analyzed the reconstructed image quality and diffraction efficiency versus degree of phase compression and showed that phase compression resulted in little image degradation or power loss.     

Phase transformations in Ni + Al and Ni + Al + Cr mixtures during mechanochemical synthesis and subsequent heating

Mechanochemical processing of elemental mixtures with the compositions Ni₇₅Al₂₅, Ni₇₀Al₂₅Cr₅, and Ni₇₅Al₂₀Cr₅ (5 at % Cr in the mixtures instead of the equivalent amount of Ni or Al) leads to the formation of nanocrystalline nickel-based solid solutions (crystallite size in the range ? 7?C12 nm). Comparison of experimentally determined lattice parameters of the solid solutions with Vegard??s law values and with the lattice parameters evaluated using the Bozzolo-Ferrante rule, which takes into account the bulk moduli of constituent elements, suggests that the atoms in the solid solutions are bonded more strongly. Heating the synthesized ternary solid solutions in a calorimeter to 1000°C leads to the formation of an ordered ?á?-phase (L1₂). Analysis of the relative intensity ratio of superlattice and fundamental reflections indicates that the Cr atoms always reside in the Al sublattice, independent of the composition of the starting mixture. When 5 at % Cr is incorporated instead of Ni, the chromium atoms force out aluminum from the Al sublattice, and the Ni deficiency in the Ni sublattice is compensated by the Al atoms. The ordered phases remain nanocrystalline (crystallite size in the range ? 40?C70 nm).