Search results for "Crystallographic defect"
showing 10 items of 182 documents
Intrinsic defects induced by β-irradiation in silica
2002
We report an electron paramagnetic resonance study of defects induced by β-irradiation in natural and synthetic samples of high purity commercial silica. Data are collected for the E′ centers and a resonance satellite signal split by 1.36 mT. By comparison with the effects of γ-irradiation it is shown that the mechanisms of defect generation are the same for the two irradiation sources and that in the high-dose limit they involve intrinsic defects of the glassy matrix. Moreover, the high concentration of defects generated by β-irradiation modifies the EPR spectrum due to spin–spin interaction.
Influence of hydrogen on paramagnetic defects induced by UV laser exposure in natural silica
2005
Diffusion limited reactions of point defects were investigated in amorphous SiO2 exposed to UV laser light. Electron spin resonance and in situ absorption measurements at room temperature evidenced the annealing of E' centers and the growth of H(II) centers both occurring in the post-irradiation stage and lasting a few hours. These transients are caused by reactions involving molecular hydrogen H2, made available by dimerization of radiolytic H0.
Structural characterization of selective area growth GaN nanowires by non-destructive optical and electrical techniques
2015
The growth selectivity and structural quality of GaN nanowires obtained by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on pre-patterned GaN(0001) templates are investigated by means of non-destructive techniques. Optimum control over the nanowire arrangement and size requires a pitch between the mask apertures below twice the diffusion length of Ga atoms. Lower pitches, however, seem to slightly diminish the structural quality of the material, as revealed by the increase of the Raman peak linewidths. The photoluminescence spectra of the nanowires show a considerable presence of basal plane stacking faults, whose density increases for decreasing nanowire diameter. The capabilities of Kelvin probe…
Atomic scale DFT simulations of point defects in uranium nitride
2007
Atomic scale density functional calculations are used to predict the behaviour of defects in uranium mononitride (UN). Two different density functional codes (VASP and CASTEP) were employed with supercells containing from 8 to 250 atoms (providing a significant range of defect concentrations). Schottky and nitrogen Frenkel point defect formation energies, local lattice relaxations and overall lattice parameter change, as well as the defect induced electronic density redistribution, are discussed.
The effect of high-In content capping layers on low-density bimodal-sized InAs quantum dots
2013
[EN] The structural and morphological features of bimodal-sized InAs/(In) GaAs quantum dots with density in the low 10(9) cm(-2) range were analyzed with transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy and were related to their optical properties, investigated with photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence. We show that only the family of small quantum dots (QDs) is able to emit narrow photoluminescence peaks characteristic of single-QD spectra; while the behavior of large QDs is attributed to large strain fields that may induce defects affecting their optical properties, decreasing the optical intensity and broadening the homogeneous linewidth. Then, by using a rat…
Structural and luminescence properties of amorphous SiO2 nanoparticles
2011
We report an experimental study on the photoluminescence band peaked at 2.7 eV (blue band) induced by thermal treatments in nanometric amorphous SiO 2. In particular the emission dependence on the nanometric particles size as a function of their mean diameter from 7 nm up to 40 nm is investigated. We found that the emission amplitude increases on decreasing the particle diameter, showing a strong correlation between the blue band and the nanometric nature of the particles. By Raman spectroscopy measurements it is evidenced that the SiO2 nanoparticles matrix is significantly affected by the reduction of size. Basing on the shell-like model, these findings are interpreted assuming that the de…
A Mechanical–Electrochemical Approach for the Determination of Precursor Sites for Pitting Corrosion at the Microscale
2006
International audience; The influence of metallurgical defects and residual surface stresses generated by polishing on the pitting susceptibility of duplex stainless steels was studied by combining macro- and microelectrochemical measurements with thermal-mechanical simulation and metallography tests. It has been shown that pits initiate in both phases at metallurgical point defects (such as oxide inclusions in the ferrite and dislocation lines in the austenite). By contrast, the surface stress state was the driving force for pit initiation along the austenite/ferrite interface. Experiments at the macroscale revealed that this process represents about 40% of the total number of pits observe…
Periodic models in quantum chemical simulations ofF centers in crystalline metal oxides
2007
We present a survey of recent first principles simulations of the neutral oxygen vacancies (F centers) existing as native or radiation-induced point defects in various crystalline metal oxides in different forms (bulk, bare substrate surface, and on the interface with metal adsorbates). We mainly consider periodic models in calculations of point defects using the metal oxide supercell or cyclic clusters. We compare different formalisms of first principles calculations, mostly the Density Functional Theory (DFT) as implemented in the framework of either localized basis set of atomic orbitals or delocalized basis sets of plane waves. We analyze in detail the structural and electronic properti…
Ab initio modelling of silver adhesion on the corundum (0001) surface
2003
The Ag/a-Al2O3(0001) interface was simulated using ab initio slab calculations. We have studied silver adhesion on both Al- and Oterminated corundum substrates. The latter case may be considered as silver adhesion on a defective Al-terminated corundum surface with external aluminium vacancies. The dependence of the adhesion energy on the interfacial distance has been analyzed for the two favorable Ag adsorption positions and for two metal coverages (a 1/3 monolayer of the Ag(111) crystallographic plane and a full Ag(111) monolayer, 1 ML). The two different terminations (Al- and O-) give rise to qualitatively different results. In the former case, the small adhesion energies per Ag atom are …
Visible to vacuum-UV range optical absorption of oxygen dangling bonds in amorphous SiO2
2011
Synthetic silica glass with an optical absorption spectrum dominated by oxygen dangling bonds (nonbridging oxygen hole centers, or NBOHCs) and having negligible (1%) contribution from the usually copresent Si dangling bonds (E\ensuremath{'}-centers), was prepared by room temperature ultraviolet photobleaching of high SiOH content (``wet'') silica, irradiated by F${}_{2}$ laser (7.9 eV) at $T$ = 80 K. This allowed us to obtain the up-to-now controversial optical absorption spectrum of NBOHC in the ultraviolet and vacuum-ultraviolet (UV-VUV) region of the spectrum and to show that it is semicontinuous from 4 to 7.8 eV and cannot be represented by a pair of distinct Gaussian bands. Since NBOHC…