Search results for "defect"
showing 10 items of 879 documents
Structural phase transitions on the nanoscale: The crucial pattern in the phase-change materialsGe2Sb2Te5and GeTe
2007
Phase-change materials are of immense importance for optical recording and computer memory, but the structure of the amorphous phases and the nature of the phase transition in the nanoscale bits pose continuing challenges. Massively parallel density functional simulations have been used to characterize the amorphous structure of the prototype materials ${\mathrm{Ge}}_{2}{\mathrm{Sb}}_{2}{\mathrm{Te}}_{5}$ and GeTe. In both, there is long-ranged order among Te atoms and the crucial structural motif is a four-membered ring with alternating atoms of types $A$ (Ge and Sb) and $B$ (Te), an ``$ABAB$ square.'' The rapid amorphous-to-crystalline phase change is a reorientation of disordered $ABAB$ …
Electrical conductivity and micro-Raman scattering studies of ionic conduction in Li1−xHxIO3 solid solutions
2002
Abstract Li 1− x H x IO 3 solid solutions have been investigated by ac electrical conductivity and micro-Raman techniques, for x ≤0.32. The presence of protons leads to a continuous reduction of the anisotropic intrinsic conduction of the system. The in-plane conduction mechanism would be by Li + vacancy hopping, while a mixed process by interstitial Li + and H + would account for the conduction along the c -axis. The solid solutions undergo the same phase transition sequence as the pure crystal, but the presence of the protons shifts the transition temperatures to lower values. Micro-Raman spectroscopy has been successfully introduced to demonstrate that proton mobility occurs preferential…
Tuning the defect configurations in nematic and smectic liquid crystalline shells
2013
Thin liquid crystalline shells surrounding and surrounded by aqueous phases can be conveniently produced using a nested capillary microfluidic system, as was first demonstrated by Fernandez-Nieves et al. in 2007. By choosing particular combinations of stabilizers in the internal and external phases, different types of alignment, uniform or hybrid, can be ensured within the shell. Here, we investigate shells in the nematic and smectic phases under varying boundary conditions, focusing in particular on textural transformations during phase transitions, on the interaction between topological defects in the director field and inclusions in the liquid crystal (LC), and on the possibility to rel…
Intrinsic stability of quasicrystals under the generation of Frenkel pairs
2015
Under irradiation metastable quasicrystals undergo a phase transition to an amorphous state. This transition can be reversed by annealing. As in normal crystalline materials the phase transition is considered to be triggered by generation and recombination of vacancies and interstitial atoms (Frenkel pairs). We have classified the possible Frenkel defects in a metastable monatomic quasicrystal with respect to geometric and energetic properties. With numerical simulation we have studied the behaviour of the quasicrystal under a load of Frenkel defects for various defect concentrations. We find three ranges of behaviour: up to 5% defects per atom the structure remains icosahedral, in a middle…
Simplified Monte Carlo simulations of point defects during industrial silicon crystal growth
2004
Abstract The paper proposes Monte-Carlo method-based 2D and 3D models of vacancies and interstitials in a cubic crystal. The model exploits the concept of lattice gas with covalent bounds between neighbour nodes. Two lattices shifted by half-period serve as nodes for atoms of the main crystal and interstitials. Distribution of particles between both lattices characterizes the entropy of the crystal. Successfully chosen interaction energies between main and sub-lattices allows the authors to detect a phase transition solid–liquid as well as to study the production of crystal defects/their agglomeration as a function of cooling/heating rate. Although the introduced 3D modification of the mode…
Spatial inhomogeneities and defect structures in CIGS and CIS materials: An ab-initio based Monte Carlo study
2011
The chalcopyrite semiconductors CuIn 1−x Ga x Se 2 (CIGS) and CuInSe 2 (CIS) are excellent materials for high efficiency and low cost thin-film solar cells. This is due to the effective absorption of the solar spectrum and the inherent resilience to defects and composition fluctuations. Although the CIGS and CIS material in solar cells is highly inhomogeneous and exhibits a lot of different defects, the cell efficiencies are exceptionally high. If single crystalline absorbers are used, efficiencies are lower. Therefore, studying spatial inhomogeneities and defect structures is of great importance for understanding what supports and what diminishes the efficiency and robustness of the cells.…
Crystallographic changes and thermal properties of lanthanum?strontium ferromanganites between RT and 700 �C
2005
Abstract X-ray powder diffraction was used to determine the crystallographic changes between room temperature (RT) and 700 °C of the (La 0.8 Sr 0.2 )(Mn 1− y Fe y )O 3± δ perovskites with y =0.2, 0.5, 0.8, 1 which can be considered as possible cathode materials for the ITSOFCs. For y =0.2, the rhombohedral symmetry was preserved in the whole temperature range. For y =1, a transition from orthorhombic to rhombohedral symmetry occurred at 290 °C. The compounds with y =0.5 and 0.8 were found to be diphasic at RT by combination of both rhombohedral and orthorhombic symmetries. They became only rhombohedral at 80 and 160 °C, respectively. This reversible transition is discussed in terms of iron …
Water-Hydrophobic Zeolite Systems
2012
Water intrusion-extrusion in hydrophobic microporous AFI, IFR, MTW and TON pure silica zeolites (zeosils) has been investigated through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. It was found that intruded water volumes correlate with the free volume of the zeosil unit cells. Calculated adsorption isotherms allowed us to estimate the amounts of water intruded, and deviations from experiments (lower experimental with respect to calculated intrusion pressures) have been;explained in terms of connectivity defects in the synthesized materials. Water phase transitions in defectless zeosils occur in a narrow range at high pressure. On the basis of a simple model, we derived a thermodynamic equation tha…
Formation of optically active oxygen deficient centers in Ge-doped SiO2 by γ- and β-ray irradiation
2010
Abstract We report an experimental study on the comparison between the γ- or β-ray induced Ge related point defects in Ge-doped silica. Silica samples doped with ∼2.2 1017 Ge atoms/cm3 produced with the sol–gel technique have been irradiated with γ-ray or with β-ray. The effects of the irradiation have been investigated by optical absorption, photoluminescence and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy in order to evaluate the generation and the dependence on dose of the Ge(1), E’Ge, GLPC (Germanium lone pair center) and H(II) point defects. No relevant differences between the concentrations of γ- or β-ray induced Ge(1) and E’Ge point defects have been observed and, in addition, it ha…
Luminescence properties of nonbridging oxygen hole centers at the silica surface
2009
Abstract Two variants of the surface-nonbridging oxygen hole center, ( Si–O)3Si–O• and ( Si–O)2(H–O)Si–O•, stabilized in porous films of silica nano-particles were investigated by time resolved luminescence excited in the visible and UV spectral range by a tunable laser system. Both defects emit a photoluminescence around 2.0 eV with an excitation spectrum evidencing two maxima at 2.0 and 4.8 eV, this emission decreases by a factor ∼2 on increasing the temperature from 8 up to 290 K. However, the different local structure influences the emission lineshape, the quantum yield and the decay lifetime. Such peculiarities are discussed on the basis of the symmetry properties of these defects.