Properties of Reactive Magnetron Sputtered ITO Films without in-situ Substrate Heating and Post-deposition Annealing

Indium tin oxide (ITO) films were prepared on polyester, Si and glass substrate with relatively high deposition rate of above 0.9 nm/s by DC reactive magnetron sputtering technique at the sputtering pressure of 0.06 Pa system, respectively. The dependence of resistivity on deposition parameters, such as deposition rate, target-to-substrate distance (TSD), oxygen flow rate and sputtering time (thickness), has been investigated, together with the structural and the optical properties. It was revealed that all ITO films exhibited lattice expansion. The resistivity of ITO thin films shows significant substrate effect: much lower resistivity and broader process window have been reproducibly achieved for the deposition of ITO films onto polyester rather than those prepared on both Si and glass substrates. The films with resistivity of as low as 4.23 x 10^-4 Ω.cm and average transmittance of ～78% at wavelength of 400～700 nm have been achieved for the films on polyester at room temperature.

Theoretical Investigation of Influence of Mechanical Stress on Magnetic Properties of Ferromagnetic/Antiferromagnetic Bilayers Deposited on Flexible Substrates

Effect of mechanical stress on magnetic properties of an exchange-biased ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic bilayer deposited on a flexible substrate is investigated. The hysteresis loops with different magnitudes and orientations of the stress can be classified into three types. The corresponding physical conditions for each type of the loop are deduced based on the principle of minimal energy. The equation of the critical stress is derived, which can judge whether the loops show hysteresis or not. Numerical calculations suggest that except for the magnitude of the mechanical stress, the relative orientation of the stress is also an important factor to tune the exchange bias effect.

Effects of Substrate Temperature on Properties for Transparent Conducting ZnO:A1 Films on Organic Substrate Deposited by r.f. Sputtering

This paper presents the substrate temperature dependence of opto-electrical properties for transparent conducting Al-doped ZnO films prepared on polyisocyanate (PI) substrates by r f sputtering. Polycrystalline ZnO:Al films with good adherence to the substrates having a (002) preferred orientation have been obtained with resistivities in the range from 4.1×10-3to 5.3×104 Ωcm, carrier densities more than 2.6×1020 cm-3 and Hall mobilities between 5.78 and 13.11 cm2/V/s for films. The average transmittance reaches 75% in the visible spectrum. The quality of obtained films depends on substrate temperature during film fabrication.

Effects of Substrate Temperature on Properties of Transparent Conductive Ta-Doped TiO_2 Films Deposited by Radio-Frequency Magnetron Sputtering

Ta-doped titanium dioxide films are deposited on fused quartz substrates using the rf magnetron sputtering technique at different substrate temperatures. After post-annealing at 550℃ in a vacuum, all the films are crystallized into the polycrystalline anatase TiO2 structure. The effects of substrate temperature from room temperature up to 350℃ on the structure, morphology, and photoelectric properties of Ta-doped titanium dioxide films are analyzed. The average transmittance in the visible region（400-800 nm） of all films is more than 73%.The resistivity decreases firstly and then increases moderately with the increasing substrate temperature. The polycrystalline film deposited at 150℃ exhibits a lowest resistivity of 7.7 × 10^-4Ω·cm with the highest carrier density of 1.1×10^21 cm^-3 and the Hall mobility of 7.4 cm^2·V^-1s^-1.

Resistivity and Radio-Frequency Properties of Two-Generation Trap-Rich Silicon-on-Insulator Substrates

Crystal morphologies and resistivity of polysilicon trap-rich layers of two-generation trap-rich silicon-on-insulator（TR-SOI） substrates are studied. It is found that the resistivity of the trap-rich layer of generation 2（TR-G2）is higher than that of generation 1（TR-G1）, although the crystal morphologies of the trap rich layers are the same. In addition, the rf performance of two-generation TR-SOI substrates is investigated by coplanar waveguide lines and inductors. The results show that both the rf loss and the second harmonic distortion of TR-G2 are smaller than those of TR-G1. These results can be attributed to the higher resistivity values of both the trap-rich layer and the high-resistivity silicon（HR-Si） substrate of TR-G2. Moreover, the rf performance of the TR-SOI substrate with thicker buried oxide is slightly better. The second harmonics of various TR-SOI substrates are simulated and evaluated with the harmonic quality factor model as well. It can be predicted that the TR-SOI substrate will see further improvement in rf performance if the resistivities of both the trap-rich layer and HR-Si substrate increase.

Influence of the Source to Substrate Distance on the Growth,Tribological Properties and Optical Properties of Be Films

The Be films were prepared by thermal evaporation at different sources to substrate distances（SSD） on glass substrates. The decrease of SSD from 90 mm to 50 mm caused the increase of substrate temperature and the rising density of incident Be atoms, thus the properties of Be films greatly changed accordingly. The experimental results showed that the grain diameter in the Be films transited from below 100 nm to 300 nm, the film growth rate increased from 2.35 nm/min to 4.73 nm/min and the roughness increased from 7 nm to 49 nm. The performance study suggested that the friction coefficient of Be films increased from 0.13 to 0.27 and was related to the surface roughness and inner structure, the near-infrared reflectance of Be films increased from 40% to 85% with the increase of wavelength and concurrently decreased with the decrease of SSD, respectively. The performance study indicated that the Be film had the potential application in specific near-infrared reflectance optical system.

Growth mechanism and modification of electronic and magnetic properties of silicene

Silicene, a monolayer of silicon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has been undergoing rapid development in recent years due to its superior electronic properties and its compatibility with mature silicon-based semiconductor technology. The successful synthesis of silicene on several substrates provides a solid foundation for the use of silicene in future microelectronic devices. In this review, we discuss the growth mechanism of silicene on an Ag(111) surface, which is crucial for achieving high quality silicene. Several critical issues related to the electronic properties of silicene are also summarized, including the point defect effect, substrate effect, intercalation of alkali metal, and alloying with transition metals.

Metamaterial beam scanning leaky-wave antenna based on quarter mode substrate integrated waveguide structure

In this paper, we first propose a metamaterial structure by etching the same two interdigital fingers on the upper ground of quarter mode substrate integrated waveguide（QMSIW）. The simulated results show that the proposed QMSIWbased metamaterial has a continuous phase constant changing from negative to positive values within its passband. A periodic leaky-wave antenna（LWA）, which consists of 11 QMSIW-based metamaterial unit cells, is designed, fabricated,and measured. The measured results show that the fabricated antenna achieves a continuous beam scanning property from backward-43° to forward ＋32° over an operating frequencyrange of 8.9 GHz–11.8 GHz with return loss better than 10 d B.The measured antenna gain keeps consistent with the variation of less than 2 d B over the operating frequency range with a maximum gain of 12 d B. Besides, the measured and simulated results are in good agreement with each other, indicating the significance and effectiveness of this method.

Low substrate temperature deposition of transparent and conducting ZnO:Al thin films by RF magnetron sputtering

Transparent and conducting Al-doped ZnO（ZnO：Al） films were prepared on glass substrate using the RF sputtering method at different substrate temperatures from room temperature（RT） to 200 ℃. The structural,morphological, electrical and optical properties of these films were investigated using a variety of characterization techniques such as low angle XRD, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）, field-emission scanning electron microscopy（FE-SEM）, Hall measurement and UV–visible spectroscopy. The electrical properties showed that films deposited at RT have the lowest resistivity and it increases with an increase in the substrate temperature whereas carrier mobility and concentration decrease with an increase in substrate temperature. Low angle XRD and Raman spectroscopy analysis reavealed that films are highly crystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure and a preferred orientation along the c-axis. The FE-SEM analysis showed that the surface morphology of films is strongly dependent on the substrate temperature. The band gap decreases from 3.36 to 3.29 e V as the substrate temperature is increased from RT to 200 ℃. The fundamental absorption edge in the UV region shifts towards a longer wavelength with an increase in substrate temperature and be attributed to the Burstein-Moss shift. The synthesized films showed an average transmission（〉 85%） in the visible region, which signifies that synthesized ZnO：Al films can be suitable for display devices and solar cells as transparent electrodes.

A PIECEWISE LINEAR MODEL FOR ANALYZING THIN FILM/SUBSTRATE STRUCTURE IN FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS

The conventional analytical method of predicting strain in a thin film under bending is restricted to the uniform material assumption, while in flexible electronics, the film/substrate structure is widely used with mismatched material properties taken into account. In this paper,a piecewise model is proposed to analyze the axial strain in a thin film of flexible electronics with the shear modification factor and principle of virtual work. The excellent agreement between analytical prediction and finite element results indicates that the model is capable of predicting the strain of the film/substrate structure in flexible electronics, whose mechanical stability and electrical performance is dependent on the strain state in the thin film.