Precious metal alloys enables new possibilities to tailor materials for specific optical functions. Here we present a systematic study of the effects of a nanoscale alloying on the permittivity of Au-Ag-Cu metals at 38 different atomic mixing ratios. The permittivity was measured and analyzed numerically by applying the Drude model. X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed the face centered cubic lattice of the alloys. Both, optical spectra and XRD results point towards an equivalent composition-dependent electron scattering behavior. Correlation between the fundamental structural parameters of alloys and the resulting optical properties is elucidated. Plasmonic properties of the Au-Ag-Cu alloy nanoparticles were investigated by numerical simulations. Guidelines for designing plasmonic response of nano- structures and their patterns are presented from the material science perspective.
The classic metallurgical systems -- noble metal alloys -- that have formed the benchmark for various alloy theories, are revisited. First-principles fully relaxed general potential LAPW total energies of a few ordered structures are used as input to a mixed-space cluster expansion calculation to study the phase stability, thermodynamic properties and bond lengths in Cu-Au, Ag-Au, Cu-Ag and Ni-Au alloys. (i) Our theoretical calculations correctly reproduce the tendencies of Ag-Au and Cu-Au to form compounds and Ni-Au and Cu-Ag to phase separate at T=0 K. (ii) Of all possible structures, Cu/sub 3/Au (L1/sub 2/) and CuAu (L1/sub 0/) are found to be the most stable low-temperature phases of Cu/sub 1-x/Au/sub x/ with transition temperatures of 530 K and 660 K, respectively, compared to the experimental values 663 K and 670 K. The significant improvement over previous first-principles studies is attributed to the more accurate treatment of atomic relaxations in the present work. (iii) LAPW formation enthalpies demonstrate that L1/sub 2/, the commonly assumed stable phase of CuAu/sub 3/, is not the ground state for Au-rich alloys, but rather that ordered <100> superlattices are stabilized. (iv) We extract the non-configurational (e.g., vibrational) entropies of formation and obtain large values for the size mismatched systems: 0.48 k/sub B//atom in Ni/sub 0.5/Au/sub 0.5/ (T=1100 K), 0.37 k/sub B//atom in Cu/sub 0.14/Ag/sub 0.86/ (T=1052 K), and 0.16 k/sub B//atom in Cu/sub 0.5/Au/sub 0.5/ (T=800 K). (v) Using 8 atom/cell special quasirandom structures we study the bond lengths in disordered Cu-Au and Ni-Au alloys and obtain good qualitative agreement with recent EXAFS measurements.
We present a detailed appraisal of the optical and plasmonic properties of ordered alloys of the form Au$_{x}$Ag$_{y}$Cu$_{1-x-y}$, as predicted by means of first-principles many-body perturbation theory augmented by a semi-empirical Drude-Lorentz model. In benchmark simulations on elemental Au, Ag, and Cu, we find that the random-phase approximation (RPA) fails to accurately describe inter-band transitions when it is built upon semi-local approximate Kohn-Sham density-functional theory (KS-DFT) band-structures. We show that non-local electronic exchange-correlation interactions sufficient to correct this, particularly for the fully-filled, relatively narrow $d$-bands that which contribute strongly throughout the low-energy spectral range ($0-6$ eV), may be modelled very expediently using band-stretching operators that imitate the effect of a perturbative G$_0$W$_0$ self-energy correction incorporating quasiparticle mass renormalization. We thereby establish a convenient work-flow for carrying out approximated G$_0$W$_0$+RPA spectroscopic calculations on alloys. We develop a pragmatic procedure for calculating the Drude plasmon frequency from first principles, including self-energy effects, as well as a semi-empirical scheme for interpolating the plasmon inverse lifetimes between stoichiometries. A range of optical and plasmonic figures of merit are discussed at three representative solid-state laser wavelengths.
GaAs nanowires were grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy on evaporated metal films (Au, Au / Pd, Ag, Ni, Ga, Cu, Al, Ti). The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). SEM images reveal that nanowires grow directly on the metals. TEM characterization shows crystalline nanowire (nw) structure originating from Au. Article presents state of the art about nanowire-metal interface growth and enumerates nanowire contacting methods with metals.
While it is known that alloy components can segregate to grain boundaries (GBs), and that the atomic mobility in GBs greatly exceeds the atomic mobility in the lattice, little is known about the effect of GB segregation on GB diffusion. Atomistic computer simulations offer a means of gaining insights into the segregation-diffusion relationship by computing the GB diffusion coefficients of the alloy components as a function of their segregated amounts. In such simulations, thermodynamically equilibrium GB segregation is prepared by a semi-grand canonical Monte Carlo method, followed by calculation of the diffusion coefficients of all alloy components by molecular dynamics. As a demonstration, the proposed methodology is applied to a GB is the Cu-Ag system. The GB diffusivities obtained exhibit non-trivial composition dependencies that can be explained by site blocking, site competition, and the onset of GB disordering due to the premelting effect.
The group IB impurities (Cu, Ag, and Au) incorporated into II-VI zinc blende hosts of ZnTe and CdTe exhibit well resolved excitation lines followed by a photoionization continuum in their infrared absorption spectra. They are associated with transitions from a 1s-like ground state to various p-like excited state characteristic of a hole bound to a Coulomb center. Their spacing agree well with those predicted in the effective mass theory for single acceptors as expected for group IB elements substitutionally replacing the group IIB cations of the host. The occurrence of the simultaneous excitation of the Lyman transitions in combination with the zone center longitudinal optical phonon and hence lying in the photoionization continuum and displaying Fano-like asymmetries are features described and interpreted.