Uniform dispersion of lanthanum hexaboride nanoparticles in a silica thin film: synthesis and optical properties.

Silica thin films containing uniformly dispersed lanthanum hexaboride (LaB₆) nanoparticles have been prepared by spin-coating a sol-gel silica solution containing cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB)-stabilized LaB₆ nanoparticles onto a glass substrate followed by a standard heat treatment. The production of this thin film involved three steps: (i) a CTAB-stabilized LaB₆ nanoparticle dispersion was prepared in water and then dried, (ii) the dried nanoparticles were redispersed in a small amount of water and mixed with tetraethoxyorthosilane (TEOS), ethanol, and a little acid to initiate the sol-gel reaction, and (iii) this reaction mixture was spun to produce a thin film and then was annealed. A range of techniques such as zeta potential, laser sizing, energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (EFTEM), scanning TEM (STEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectrum (EDS) were employed to characterize the particle's size, elemental composition, and stability and the optical properties of silica thin films with LaB₆ nanoparticles.

Nanostructural characteristics and mechanical properties of low temperature plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited silicon nitride thin films.

This paper reports nanostructural characteristics and mechanical properties of the PECVD silicon nitride thin films deposited at relatively low temperatures. Nanostructures of the films were examined using high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Chemical bonding structures of the films were studied using Fourier Infrared Transmission Spectrum (FTIR) analysis.

Near band-edge field-dependent absorption coefficient and refractive index determined by photocurrent and transmittance measurements.

A technique is proposed for the extraction of precise values of field-dependent absorption coefficient alpha and refractive index n from photocurrent and transmittance measurements of optical modulator structures. The technique uses approximate results of alpha and n extracted from a simplified device as the initial input into an iterative procedure that utilizes the consistency between alpha and n to obtain successively better estimates of these parameters. The technique was applied to results that were measured experimentally, and we verified the accuracy by using synthetic data.