The plasmonic properties of silver-based alloy thin films were studied. Silver-ytterbium (Ag-Yb) and silver-magnesium (Ag-Mg) prepared by thermal co-evaporation were investigated extensively for various thin film properties. The optical properties were intensively analyzed and discussed because the dielectric response of a material is particularly significant in terms of its plasmonic properties. The study of silver-based alloy thin films has been mostly about Ag alloying with other transition metals, but the results of Ag-Yb and Ag-Mg in this work showed that the intensity of plasma resonance is tunable, in which the idea may also apply to other silver-rich binary alloy thin films regardless of the kind of second metal components. In our research, the Ag plasma resonance was weakened with respect to the concentration of Yb and Mg in the alloy thin films. The change in the optical characteristics around Ag plasma resonance frequency was attributed to an increase in “resonance damping. This is confirmed from modeling using classical free-electron theory. The increase in the damping was experimentally corroborated by the concentration dependence of electrical conductivity and estimated average crystallite size of Ag-Yb and Ag-Mg thin films. The reduction in electrical conductivity was not only caused by introducing less conductive Yb or Mg but also through disturbing the Ag lattice structure to promote additional electron scattering at grain boundaries. The Ag-Yb and Ag-Mg alloys carried intermediate properties between their pure components despite the presence of Yb or Mg oxides. Besides optical and electrical properties, changes in the electronic work function were also assessed since it is also important in applications. Plasmonic nanostructures and transparent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) were fabricated to demonstrate their potential applications. Two-dimensional disc-arrays nanostructures composed of pure Ag and Ag-Yb were implemented to evaluate the plasmonic properties. The damping loss in Ag-Yb caused weakened coupling of incident photons and surface plasmons when compared to pure Ag without altering the coupling wavelengths, suggesting potential plasmonic materials for tuning the coupling strength of surface plasmons by controlling the concentration of Yb which may also apply to Ag-Mg. Ultrathin Ag-Yb and Ag-Mg films were used as cathodes in transparent OLEDs for demonstration, which was beneficial by virtue of overall device transmittance though sacrificing electrical conduction leading to poor light emission unless inserting additional ultrathin lithium fluoride to modify the ultrathin cathodes.

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:33:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:06:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Dissertacao (Mestrado Profissionalizante em Lasers em Odontologia) / IPEN/D-MPLO / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP; Faculdade de Odontologia, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo

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Thesis (DTech (Electrical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / Gunn diodes play a prominent role in the development of low-cost and reliable solid-state oscillators for diverse applications, such as in the military, security, automotive and consumer electronics industries. The primary focus of the research presented here is the optimisation of GaAs and GaN Gunn diodes for mm-wave operations, through rigorous Monte Carlo particle simulations. A novel, empirical technique to determine the upper operational frequency limit of devices based on the transferred electron mechanism is presented. This method exploits the hysteresis of the dynamic velocity-field curves of semiconductors to establish the upper frequency limit of the transferred electron mechanism in bulk material that supports this mechanism. The method can be applied to any bulk material exhibiting negative differential resistance. The simulations show that the upper frequency limits of the fundamental mode of operation for GaAs Gunn diodes are between 80 GHz and 100 GHz, and for GaN Gunn diodes between 250 GHz and 300 GHz, depending on the operating conditions. These results, based on the simulated bulk material characteristics, are confirmed by the simulated mm-wave performance of the GaAs and GaN Gunn devices. GaAs diodes are shown to exhibit a fundamental frequency limit of 90 GHz, but with harmonic power available up to 186_GHz. Simulated GaN diodes are capable of generating appreciable output power at operational frequencies up to 250 GHz in the fundamental mode, with harmonic output power available up to 525 GHz. The research furthermore establishes optimised doping profiles for two-domain GaAs Gunn diodes and single- and two-domain GaN Gunn diodes. The relevant design parameters that have been optimised, are the dimensions and doping profile of the transit regions, the width of the doping notches and buffer region (for two-domain devices), and the bias voltage. In the case of GaAs diodes, hot electron injection has also been implemented to improve the efficiency and output power of the devices. Multi-domain operation has been explored for both GaAs and GaN devices and found to be an effective way of increasing the output power. However, it is the opinion of the author that a maximum number of two domains is feasible for both GaAs and GaN diodes due to the significant increase in thermal heating associated with an increase in the number of transit regions. It has also been found that increasing the doping concentration of the transit region exponentially over the last 25% towards the anode by a factor of 1.5 above the nominal doping level enhances the output power of the diodes.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:28:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T13:57:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Dissertacao (Mestrado Profissionalizante em Lasers em Odontologia) / IPEN/D-MPLO / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP; Faculdade de Odontologia, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo