Publications by authors named "Colin C Baker"

Inverse vulcanization is the method by which molten sulfur can be combined with comonomers to form stable polymers termed "organically modified chalcogenide" or "ORMOCHALC" polymers. One advantage to ORMOCHALC polymers is that they can possess important optical properties, such as high refractive index and strong infrared (IR) transmission, while being easier to fabricate than glass materials with similar optical properties. In the present work, a new ORMOCHALC is fabricated by using tetravinyltin as a comomoner with sulfur.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A nanoparticle (NP) doping technique was developed for fabricating erbium (Er)- and holmium (Ho)-doped silica-based optical fibers for high energy lasers. Slope efficiencies in excess of 74% were realized for Er NP doping in a single mode fiber based master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) and 53% with multi-Watt-level output in a resonantly cladding-pumped power oscillator laser configuration based on a double-clad fiber. Cores comprising Ho doped LaF and LuO nanoparticles exhibited slope efficiencies as high as 85% at 2.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We present a method of Cu(In,Ga)S2 (CIGS) thin film formation via conversion of layer-by-layer (LbL) assembled Cu-In-Ga oxide (CIGO) nanoparticles and polyelectrolytes. CIGO nanoparticles were created via a novel flame-spray pyrolysis method using metal nitrate precursors, subsequently coated with polyallylamine (PAH), and dispersed in aqueous solution. Multilayer films were assembled by alternately dipping quartz, Si, and/or Mo substrates into a solution of either polydopamine (PDA) or polystyrenesulfonate (PSS) and then in the CIGO-PAH dispersion to fabricate films as thick as 1-2 microns.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Using two-step (air/argon) thermal processing, sol-gel-derived nickel-iron oxide aerogels are transformed into monodisperse, networked nanocrystalline magnetic oxides of NiFe(2)O(4) with particle diameters that can be ripened with increasing temperature under argon to 4.6, 6.4, and 8.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aluminum Nitride (AIN) nanoparticles were synthesized using a Reactive Gas Condensation (RGC) technique in which a mixture of ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen (N2) gases were used for the nitridation of aluminum. NH3 served as the reactive gas, while N2 served as both a carrier gas and the inert source for particle condensation. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses revealed that at reactive gas compositions greater than 10% NH3 in N2, samples were composed entirely of hexagonal AIN nanoparticles.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF