No Arabic abstract
Grain boundaries in Sr-doped LaMnO3 thin films have been shown to strongly influence the electronic and oxygen mass transport properties, being able to profoundly modify the nature of the material. The unique behaviour of the grain boundaries can be correlated with substantial modifications of the cation concentration at the interfaces, which can be tuned by changing the overall cationic ratio in the films. In this work, we study the electronic properties of La0.8Sr0.2Mn1-yO3 thin films with variable Mn content. The influence of the cationic composition on the grain boundary and grain bulk electronic properties is elucidated by studying the manganese valence state evolution using spectroscopy techniques and by confronting the electronic properties of epitaxial and polycrystalline films. Substantial differences in the electronic conduction mechanism are found in the presence of grain boundaries and depending on the manganese content. Moreover, the unique defect chemistry of the nanomaterial is elucidated by measuring the electrical resistance of the thin films as a function of oxygen partial pressure, disclosing the importance of the cationic local non-stoichiometry on the thin films behavior.
We investigated structural, magnetic and electrical properties of sputter deposited Mn-Fe-Ga compounds. The crystallinity of the Mn-Fe-Ga thin films was confirmed using x-ray diffraction. X-ray reflection and atomic force microscopy measurements were utilized to investigate the surface properties, roughness, thickness and density of the deposited Mn-Fe-Ga. Depending on the stoichiometry, as well as the used substrates (SrTiO3 (001) and MgO (001)) or buffer layer (TiN) the Mn-Fe-Ga crystallizes in the cubic or the tetragonally distorted phase. Anomalous Hall effect and alternating gradient magnetometry measurements confirmed strong perpendicular magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Low saturation magnetization and hard magnetic behavior was reached by tuning the composition. Temperature dependent anomalous Hall effect measurements in a closed cycle He-cryostat showed a slight increase in coercivity with decreasing temperature (300K to 2K). TiN buffered Mn2.7Fe0.3Ga revealed sharper switching of the magnetization compared to the unbuffered layers.
Tin monosulfide (SnS) usually exhibits p-type conduction due to the low formation enthalpy of acceptor-type defects, and as a result n-type SnS thin films have never been obtained. This study realizes n-type conduction in SnS thin films for the first time by using RF-magnetron sputtering with Cl doping and sulfur plasma source during deposition. N-type SnS thin films are obtained at all the substrate temperatures employed in this study (221-341 C), exhibiting carrier concentrations and Hall mobilities of ~2 x 10 18 cm-3 and 0.1-1 cm V-1s-1, respectively. The films prepared without sulfur plasma source, on the other hand, exhibit p-type conduction despite containing a comparable amount of Cl donors. This is likely due to a significant amount of acceptor-type defects originating from sulfur deficiency in p-type films, which appears as a broad optical absorption within the band gap. The demonstration of n-type SnS thin films in this study is a breakthrough for the realization of SnS homojunction solar cells, which are expected to have a higher conversion efficiency than the conventional heterojunction SnS solar cells.
We report on the influence of the chemical composition on the electronic properties of molybdenum oxynitrides thin films grown by reactive sputtering on Si (100) substrates at room temperature. The partial pressure of Ar was fixed at 90 %, and the remaining 10 % was adjusted with mixtures N$_2$:O$_2$ (varying from pure N$_2$ to pure O$_2$). The crystalline and electronic structures and the electrical transport of the films depend on the chemical composition. Thin films grown using oxygen mixtures up 2 % have gamma-Mo$_2$N phase and display superconductivity. The superconducting critical temperature T$_c$ reduces from ~ 6.8 K to below 3.0 K as the oxygen increases. On the other hand, films grown using oxygen mixtures richer than 2 % are mostly amorphous. The electrical transport shows a semiconductor-like behavior with variable-range hopping conduction at low temperatures. The analysis of the optical properties reveals that the samples have not a defined semiconductor band gap, which can be related to the high structural disorder and the excitation of electrons in a wide range of energies
The temperature dependent resistance $R$($T$) of polycrystalline ferromagnetic CoFeB thin films of varying thickness are analyzed considering various electrical scattering processes. We observe a resistance minimum in $R$($T$) curves below $simeq$ 29 K, which can be explained as an effect of intergranular Coulomb interaction in a granular system. The structural and Coulomb interaction related scattering processes contribute more as the film thickness decreases implying the role of disorder and granularity. Although the magnetic contribution to the resistance is the weakest compared to these two, it is the only thickness independent process. On the contrary, the negative coefficient of resistance can be explained by electron interaction effect in disordered amorphous films.
We report a study on the electrical properties of 19 nm thick Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) films grown by liquid phase epitaxy. The electrical conductivity and Hall coefficient are measured in the high temperature range [300,400]~K using a Van der Pauw four-point probe technique. We find that the electrical resistivity decreases exponentially with increasing temperature following an activated behavior corresponding to a band-gap of $E_gapprox 2$ eV, indicating that epitaxial YIG ultra-thin films behave as large gap semiconductor, and not as electrical insulator. The resistivity drops to about $5times 10^3$~$Omega cdot text{cm}$ at $T=400$ K. We also infer the Hall mobility, which is found to be positive ($p$-type) at 5 cm$^2$/(V$cdot$sec) and about independent of temperature. We discuss the consequence for non-local transport experiments performed on YIG at room temperature. These electrical properties are responsible for an offset voltage (independent of the in-plane field direction) whose amplitude, odd in current, grows exponentially with current due to Joule heating. These electrical properties also induce a sensitivity to the perpendicular component of the magnetic field through the Hall effect. In our lateral device, a thermoelectric offset voltage is produced by a temperature gradient along the wire direction proportional to the perpendicular component of the magnetic field (Righi-Leduc effects).