ABSTRACT
Crystalline transition-metal chalcogenides are the focus of solid state research. At the same time, very little is known about amorphous chalcogenides doped with transition metals. To close this gap, we have studied, using first principle simulations, the effect of doping the typical chalcogenide glass As2S3 with transition metals (Mo, W and V). While the undoped glass is a semiconductor with a density functional theory gap of about 1 eV, doping results in the formation of a finite density of states (semiconductor-to-metal transformation) at the Fermi level accompanied by an appearance of magnetic properties, the magnetic character depending on the nature of the dopant. Whilst the magnetic response is mainly associated with d-orbitals of the transition metal dopants, partial densities of spin-up and spin-down states associated with arsenic and sulphur also become slightly asymmetric. Our results demonstrate that chalcogenide glasses doped with transition metals may become a technologically important material.
ABSTRACT
Perovskite-type ferroelectric (FE) crystals are wide bandgap materials with technologically valuable optical and photoelectric properties. Here, versatile engineering of electronic transitions is demonstrated in FE nanofilms of KTaO3, KNbO3 (KNO), and NaNbO3 (NNO) with a thickness of 10-30 unit cells. Control of the bandgap is achieved using heteroepitaxial growth of new structural phases on SrTiO3 (001) substrates. Compared to bulk crystals, anomalous bandgap narrowing is obtained in the FE state of KNO and NNO films. This effect opposes polarization-induced bandgap widening, which is typically found for FE materials. Transmission electron microscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements indicate that the formation of higher-symmetry structural phases of KNO and NNO produces the desirable red shift of the absorption spectrum towards visible light, while simultaneously stabilizing robust FE order. Tuning of optical properties in FE films is of interest for nanoscale photonic and optoelectronic devices.
ABSTRACT
The possibilities of in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry applied to phase transitions investigation in oxide thin films and crystals are examined in this work, along with the use of various parameters calculated from ellipsometric data (band gap energy Eg, refractive index n and surface roughness) together with the directly measured main ellipsometric angles psi and Delta, for the detection of phase transitions. The efficiency of spectroscopic ellipsometry on "surface" phase transition and its sensitivity to surface defects are also demonstrated.
