Improvement of Surface Morphology of Yttrium-Stabilized Zirconia Films Deposited by Pulsed Laser Deposition on Rolling Assisted Biaxially Textured Substrate Tapes

The surface morphology of buffer layer yttrium-stabilized zirconia （YSZ） of YBa2CuaO7-σ （YBCO） high temperature superconducting films relies on a series of controllable experimental parameters. In this work, we focus on the influence of pulsed laser frequency and target crystalline type on surface morphology of YSZ films deposited by pulsed laser deposition （PLD） on rolling assisted biaxially textured substrate tapes. Usually two kinds of particles are observed in the YSZ layer： randomly distributed ones on the whole film and self-assembled ones along grain boundaries. SEM images are used to prove that particles can be partly removed when choosing dense targets of single crystalline. Lower frequency of pulsed laser also contributes to a smoother film surface. TEM images are used to view the crystalline structure of thin film. Thus we can obtain a basic understanding of how to prepare a particle-free YSZ buffer layer for YBCO in optimized conditions using PLD. The YBCO layer with nice structure and critical current density of around 5 MA/cm2 can be reached on smooth YSZ samples.

Deposition and characterization of YBCO/CeO2/YSZ/CeO2 multilayers on biaxially textured Ni substrates

CeO2/YSZ/CeO2 buffer layers were deposited on biaxially textured Ni substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The influence of the processing parameters on the texture development of the seed layer CeO2 was investigated. Epitaxial films of YBCO were then grown in situ on the CeO2/YSZ （yttria-stabilized ZrO2）/CeO2-buffered Ni substrates. The resulting YBCO conductors exhibited self-fleld critical current density Jc of more than 1 MA/cm^2 at 77K and superconducting transition temperature Tc of about 91K.

Inter-facet composition modulation of III-nitride nanowires over pyramid textured Si substrates by stationary molecular beam epitaxy

InGaN nanowires (NWs) are grown on pyramid textured Si substrates by stationary plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PA-MBE). The incidence angles of the highly directional source beams vary for different pyramid facets, inducing a distinct inter-facet modulation of the In content of the InGaN NWs, which is verified by spatial element distribution analysis. The resulting multi-wavelength emission is confirmed by photoluminescence (PL) and cathodoluminescence (CL). Pure GaN phase formation dominates on certain facets, which is attributed to extreme local growth conditions, such as low active N flux. On the same facets, InGaN NWs exhibit a morphology change close to the pyramid ridge, indicating inter-facet atom migration. This cross-talk effect due to inter-facet atom migration is verified by a decrease of the inter-facet In content modulation amplitude with shrinking pyramid size. A detailed analysis of the In content variation across individual pyramid facets and element distribution line profiles reveals that the cross-talk effect originates mainly from the inter-facet atom migration over the convex pyramid ridge facet boundaries rather than the concave base line facet boundaries. This is understood by first-principles calculations showing that the pyramid baseline facet boundary acts as an energy barrier for atom migration, which is much higher than that of the ridge facet boundary. The influence of the growth temperature on the inter-facet In content modulation is also presented. This work gives deep insight into the composition modulation for the realization of multi-color light-emitting devices based on the monolithic growth of InGaN NWs on pyramid textured Si substrates.

Fabrication of pillar-array superhydrophobic silicon surface and thermodynamic analysis on the wetting state transition

Textured silicon （Si） substrates decorated with regular microscale square pillar arrays of nearly the same side length, height, but different intervals are fabricated by inductively coupled plasma, and then silanized by self-assembly octadecyl- trichlorosilane （OTS） film. The systematic water contact angle （CA） measurements and micro/nanoscale hierarchical rough structure models are used to analyze the wetting behaviors of original and silanized textured Si substrates each as a function of pillar interval-to-width ratio. On the original textured Si substrate with hydrophilic pillars, the water droplet possesses a larger apparent CAs （〉 90~） and contact angle hysteresis （CAH）, induced by the hierarchical roughness of microscale pil- lar arrays and nanoscale pit-like roughness. However, the silanized textured substrate shows superhydrophobicity induced by the low free energy OTS overcoat and the hierarchical roughness of microscale pillar arrays, and nanoscale island-like roughness. The largest apparent CA on the superhydrophobic surface is 169.8~. In addition, the wetting transition of a gently deposited water droplet is observed on the original textured substrate with pillar interval-to-width ratio increasing. Furthermore, the wetting state transition is analyzed by thermodynamic approach with the consideration of the CAH effect. The results indicate that the wetting state changed from a Cassie state to a pseudo-Wenzel during the transition.