Search results for "Conducting film"
showing 10 items of 20 documents
Energy of dendritic avalanches in thin-film superconductors
2018
A method for calculating stored magnetic energy in a thin superconducting film based on quantitative magneto-optical imaging is developed. Energy and magnetic moment are determined with these calculations for full hysteresis loops in a thin film of the superconductor NbN. Huge losses in energy are observed when dendritic avalanches occur. Magnetic energy, magnetic moment, sheet current and magnetic flux distributions, all extracted from the same calibrated magneto-optical images, are analyzed and discussed. Dissipated energy and the loss in moment when dendritic avalanches occur are related to each other. Calculating these losses for specific spatially-resolved flux avalanches is a great ad…
Metal frame as local protection of superconducting films from thermomagnetic avalanches
2016
Thermomagnetic avalanches in superconducting films propagating extremely fast while forming unpredictable patterns, represent a serious threat for the performance of devices based on such materials. It is shown here that a normal-metal frame surrounding a selected region inside the film area can provide efficient protection from the avalanches during their propagation stage. Protective behavior is confirmed by magneto-optical imaging experiments on NbN films equipped with Cu and Al frames, and also by performing numerical simulations. Experimentally, it is found that while conventional flux creep is not affected by the frames, the dendritic avalanches are partially or fully screened by them…
Nanostructuring thin Au films on transparent conductive oxide substrates
2013
Fabrication processes of Au nanostructures on indium-tin-oxide (ITO) surface by simple, versatile, and low-cost bottom-up methodologies are investigated in this work. A first methodology exploits the patterning effects induced by nanosecond laser irradiations on thin Au films deposited on ITO surface. We show that after the laser irradiations, the Au film break-up into nanoclusters whose mean size and surface density are tunable by the laser fluence. A second methodology exploits, instead, the patterning effects of standard furnace thermal processes on the Au film deposited on the ITO. We observe, in this case, a peculiar shape evolution from pre-formed nanoclusters during the Au deposition…
Ion irradiation of AZO thin films for flexible electronics
2017
Aluminum doped Zinc oxide (AZO) is a promising transparent conductor for solar cells, displays and touch-screen technologies. The resistivity of AZO is typically improved by thermal annealing at temperatures not suitable for plastic substrates. Here we present a non-thermal route to improve the electrical and structural properties of AZO by irradiating the TCO films with O+ or Ar+ ion beams (30–350 keV, 3 × 1015–3 × 1016 ions/cm2) after the deposition on glass and flexible polyethylene naphthalate (PEN). X-ray diffraction, optical absorption, electrical measurements, Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry and Atomic Force Microscopy evidenced an increase of the crystalline grain size and a …
Thermoelectric radiation detector based on a superconductor-ferromagnet junction : Calorimetric regime
2018
We study the use of a thermoelectric junction as a thermal radiation detector in the calorimetric regime, where single radiation bursts can be separated in time domain. We focus especially on the case of a large thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT$ affecting significantly for example the relevant thermal time scales. This work is motivated by the use of hybrid superconductor/ferromagnet systems in creating an unprecedentedly high low-temperature $ZT$ even exceeding unity. Besides constructing a very general noise model which takes into account cross correlations between charge and heat noise, we show how the detector signal can be efficiently multiplexed by the use of resonant LC circuits gi…
Identification of electroactive sites in Prussian Yellow films
2013
Abstract Prussian Blue films were electrogenerated on the surface of the transparent ITO electrodes. The electrochemical oxidation to the Prussian Yellow form was investigated by means of in situ voltammetry and vis–NIR spectroscopic techniques. Changes of the whole spectra between 400 and 950 nm were analyzed and three characteristic wavelengths were selected to in situ follow the electrochemical changes of the films. Voltammetric peaks and absorbance derivative curves at these three wavelengths were deconvoluted and were interpreted such as the overlapping of different electrochemical processes. The correlation between these overlapped processes has allowed proposing three different elect…
Impact of transparent conductive oxide on the admittance of thin film solar cells
2010
Abstract The impact of transparent electrically conducting oxide (TCO) on the admittance measurements of thin film p–i–n a-Si:H solar cells was investigated. Admittance measurements on solar cell devices, with different area and geometry, in a wide range of frequencies and biases were performed. The admittance measurements of the investigated solar cells, which use the TCO as an electrical contact, showed that the high frequency admittance per area unit depends on the area. This effect increases both with the probe frequency and the size of the solar cells. Transmission line model valid for strip geometry which explains how the resistivity of the TCO layer impacts the measured admittance of…
Ray optics behavior of flux avalanche propagation in superconducting films
2015
Experimental evidence of wave properties of dendritic flux avalanches in superconducting films is reported. Using magneto-optical imaging the propagation of dendrites across boundaries between a bare NbN film and areas coated by a Cu layer was visualized, and it was found that the propagation is refracted in full quantitative agreement with Snell's law. For the studied film of 170 nm thickness and a $0.9\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ thick metal layer, the refractive index was close to $n=1.4$. The origin of the refraction is believed to be caused by the dendrites propagating as an electromagnetic shock wave, similar to damped modes considered previously for normal …
Ray optics behavior of flux avalanche propagation in superconducting films
2015
Experimental evidence of wave properties of dendritic flux avalanches in superconducting films is reported. Using magneto-optical imaging the propagation of dendrites across boundaries between a bare NbN film and areas coated by a Cu layer was visualized, and it was found that the propagation is refracted in full quantitative agreement with Snell’s law. For the studied film of 170 nm thickness and a 0.9 μm thick metal layer, the refractive index was close to n = 1.4. The origin of the refraction is believed to be caused by the dendrites propagating as an electromagnetic shock wave, similar to damped modes considered previously for normal metals. The analogy is justified by the large dissipa…
Thermoelectric radiation detector based on a superconductor-ferromagnet junction : Calorimetric regime
2018
We study the use of a thermoelectric junction as a thermal radiation detector in the calorimetric regime, where single radiation bursts can be separated in time domain. We focus especially on the case of a large thermoelectric figure of merit ZT affecting significantly, for example, the relevant thermal time scales. This work is motivated by the use of hybrid superconductor/ferromagnet systems in creating an unprecedentedly high low-temperature ZT even exceeding unity. Besides constructing a very general noise model which takes into account cross correlations between charge and heat noise, we show how the detector signal can be efficiently multiplexed by the use of resonant LC circuits givi…