There has been unprecedented growth in wireless technologies in recent years; wireless devices such as cellular telephones and wireless local area network (WLAN) transceivers are becoming ubiquitous. It is now common for a single hardware device, such as a cellular telephone, to be capable of multi-band operation. Implementing a dedicated radio frequency (RF) front-end for each frequency band increases the component count and therefore the cost of the device. Consequently, there is now a requirement to design RF and microwave circuits that can be reconfigured to operate at different frequency bands, as opposed to switching between several fixed-frequency circuits. Barium strontium titanate (BST) thin films show great promise for application in reconfigurable microwave circuits. The material has a high dielectric constant which can be controlled by the application of a quasi-static electric field, combined with relatively low losses at microwave frequencies. Tunable microwave components based on BST-thin films have the potential to replace several fixed components, thereby achieving useful size and cost reductions. This thesis is concerned with the growth and microwave circuit applications of BST thin films on c- and r-plane sapphire substrates. Sapphire is an ideal substrate for microwave integrated circuit fabrication due to its low cost and low loss. Electronically tunable capacitors (varactors) were fabricated by patterning interdigital electrode structures on top of the BST films. High capacitance tunabilities of 56% and 64% were achieved for the films grown on c-plane and r-plane sapphire, respectively, at 40 V bias. A novel electronically tunable 3 dB quadrature hybrid circuit was also developed. Prototypes of this circuit were initially implemented using commercial varactor diodes, in order to validate the design. An integrated version of the coupler was then fabricated using BST varactors on c-plane sapphire. The results achieved demonstrate the potential of sapphire-based BST thin films in practical microwave circuits.

Ferroelectric materials have received lots of attention thanks to their intriguing properties such as the piezoelectric and pyroelectric effects, as well as the large dielectric constants and the spontaneous polarization which can potentially be used for information storage. In particular, perovskite crystal has a very simple unit cell structure yet a very rich phase transition diagram, which makes it one of the most intensively studied ferroelectric materials. In this dissertation, we use effective Hamiltonian, a first-principles-based computational technique to study the finite-temperature properties of ferroelectric perovskites. We studied temperature-graded (BaxSr1-x )TiO3 (BST) bulk alloys as well as the dynamics of nanodomain walls (nanowalls) in Pb(ZrxTi1-x )O3 (PZT) ultra-thin films under the driving force of an AC field. Our computations suggest that, for the temperature-graded BST, the polarization responds to the temperature gradient (TG), with the "up" and "down" offset observed in polarization components along the direction of TG, in agreement with the findings from experiments. For the nanowalls in PZT, the dynamics can be described by the damped-harmonic-oscillator model, and we observed a size-driven transition from resonance to relaxational dynamics at a critical thickness of 7.2 nm. The transition originates from the change in the effective mass of a nanowall as a film thickness increases. Some of the findings may find potential applications in various devices, such as thermal sensors, energy converters, or novel memory units.

This dissertation shows a detailed investigation on reconfigurable low profile antennas using tunable high impedance surfaces (HIS). The specific class of HIS used in this dissertation is called a frequency selective surface (FSS). This type of periodic structure is fabricated to create artificial magnetic conductors (AMCs) that exhibit properties similar to perfect magnetic conductors (PMCs). The antennas are intended for radiometric sensing applications in the biomedical field. For the particular sensing application of interest in this dissertation, the performance of the antenna sub-system is the most critical aspect of the radiometer design where characteristics such as small size, light weight, conformability, simple integration, adjustment in response to adverse environmental loading, and the ability to block external radio frequency interference to maximize the detection sensitivity are desirable. The antenna designs in this dissertation are based on broadband dipole antennas over a tunable FSS to extend the usable frequency range. The main features of these antennas are the use of an FSS that does not include via connections to ground, their low profile and potentially conformal nature, high front-to-back radiation pattern ratio, and the ability to dynamically adjust the center frequency. The reduction of interlayer wiring on the tunable FSS minimizes the fabrication complexity and facilitates the use of flexible substrates. This dissertation aims to advance the state of the art in low profile tunable planar antennas. It shows a qualitative comparison between antennas backed with different unit cell geometries. It demonstrates the feasibility to use either semiconductor or ferroelectric thin film varactor-based tunable FSS to allow adjustment in the antenna frequency in response to environment loading in the near-field. Additionally, it illustrates how the coupling between antenna and HIS, and the impact of the varactor losses affect the antenna performance and it shows solutions to compensate these adverse effects. Novel hybrid manufacturing approaches to achieve flexibility on electrically thick antennas that could be transitioned to thin-film microelectronics are also presented. The semiconductor and ferroelectric varactor-based tunable low profile antennas demonstrated tunability from 2.2 GHz to 2.65 GHz with instantaneous bandwidths greater than 50 MHz within the tuning range. The antennas had maximum thicknesses of λ/45 at the central frequency and front to back-lobe radiation ratios of approximately 15dB. They also showed impedance match improvement in the presence of a Human Core Model (HCM) phantom at close proximity distances of the order of 10-20 mm. In addition, the use of thin film ferroelectric Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) varactors in the FSS layer enabled an antenna that had smaller size, lower cost and less weight compared to the commercially available options. The challenging problems of fabricating robust flexible antennas are also addressed and novel solutions are proposed. Two different types of flexible antennas were designed and built. A series of flexible microstrip antennas with slotted grounds which demonstrated to be robust and have 42% less mass than typically used technologies (e.g., microstrip antennas fabricated on Rogers® RT6010, RT/duroid® 5880, etc.); and flexible ferroelectric based tunable low profile antennas that showed tunability from 2.42 GHz to 2.66 GHz using overlapping metallic plates instead of a continuous ground plane. The bending test results demonstrated that, by placing cuts on the ground plane or using overlapping metallic layers that resemble fish scales, it was possible to create highly conductive surfaces that were extremely flexible even when attached to other solid materials. These new approaches were used to overcome limitations commonly encountered in the design of antennas that are intended for use on non-flat surfaces. The material presented in this dissertation represents the first investigation of reconfigurable low profile antennas using tunable high impedance surfaces where the desired electromagnetic performance as well as additional relevant features such as robustness, low weight, low cost and low complexity were demonstrated.

High performance miniaturized passives are of great importance for advanced nanoelectronic packages for several applications including efficient power delivery. Low cost thin film capacitors fabricated directly on package (and/or on-chip) are an attractive approach towards realizing such devices. This thesis aims to explore fundamental frequency dependent dielectric and insulating properties of thin film high-k dielectric constant in the perovskite and perovskite-related complex oxides. Throughout this thesis, we have successfully observed the role of structure, strain and oxygen stoichiometry on the dielectric properties of thin film complex oxides, allowing a greater understanding of processing conditions and polarization mechanisms. In the first section of the thesis, we explore novel processing methods in the conventional ferroelectric, barium strontium titanate, \(Ba_{1-x}Sr_xTiO_3 (BST)\), using ultraviolet enhanced oxidation techniques in order to achieve improvements in the dielectric properties. Using this method, we also explore the growth of BST on inexpensive non-noble metals such as Ni which presents technical challenges due to the ability to oxidize at high temperatures. We observe a significant lowering of the dielectric loss while also lowering the process temperature which allows us to maintain an intimate interface between the dielectric layer and the metal electrode. The second section of this thesis explores the novel dielectric material, Lanthanum Strontium Nickelate, \(La_{2-x}Sr_xNiO_4 (LSNO)\), which exhibits a colossal dielectric response. For the first time, we report on the colossal dielectric properties of polycrystalline and epitaxial thin film LSNO. We observe a significant polarization dependence on the microstructure due to the grain/grain boundary interaction with charged carriers. We next grew epitaxial films on various insulating oxide substrates in order to decouple the grain boundary interaction. Here we observed substrate dependent dielectric properties associated with induced strain. We also observe, due to the p-type carriers in LSNO, pn junction formation when grown epitaxially on the conducting oxide degenerate n-type Nb-doped \(SrTiO_3\). Finally we explore the growth mechanism of epitaxial LSNO as a function of high oxygen content. Due to the ability for LSNO to take in interstitial oxygen, a reoriented growth is observed at a critical thickness, thereby allowing us to vary anisotropy as a function of deposition conditions. / Engineering and Applied Sciences

Als Modellsystem für Oxide mit Perowskitstruktur ist Strontiumtitanat besonders geeignet, um generalisierbare Erkenntnisse über die Auswirkungen von Defekten zu gewinnen und ausgehend davon Struktur-Eigenschafts-Korrelationen zu diskutieren. Durch den Einsatz verschiedener oberflächensensitiver Methoden lässt sich im Ausgangszustand eine erhöhte Konzentration von Liniendefekten an der Oberfläche nachweisen, die sich durch Temperaturbehandlung verkleinert. Die Defektchemie bei hohen Temperaturen wird zur Simulation der elektrischen Leitfähigkeit in Abhängigkeit vom umgebenden Sauerstoff-Partialdruck genutzt. Die Dotierung des oxidischen Halbleitermaterials ist von Eigendefekten abhängig, wobei Sauerstoff-Leerstellen Donatorniveaus bilden und Strontium-Leerstellen Akzeptorcharakter besitzen. Neben der Diffusionsbewegung dieser Eigendefekte bei hohen Temperaturen kann bei niedrigen Temperaturen ein elektrisches Feld deren Umverteilung bewirken. Damit zeigt sich die Leitfähigkeit abhängig von externen elektrischen Feldern, aber auch weitere Eigenschaften sind auf diesem Wege modifizierbar. Im Rahmen der Arbeit werden strukturelle Änderungen, Valenz-Änderungen und veränderte mechanische Eigenschaften nachgewiesen, die jeweils abhängig vom elektrischen Feld schaltbar sind. Schließlich wird das gezielte Ausnutzen struktureller Defekte für Speicherzellen, die den schaltbaren Widerstand von Metall-SrTiO3-Kontakten zur Grundlage haben, vorgestellt. Die Anwendbarkeit des oxidischen Halbleiters als resistives Speicherelement beruht wiederum auf der Kopplung von Sauerstoff-Leerstellen an das elektrische Feld. / Being a model system for oxides with pervovskite-type of structure, strontium titanate can be used to gain generalizable insights into the consequences of defects and to discuss resulting structure-property relationships. By employing different surface sensitive methods, an increased concentration of line defects is found at the surface that reduces on temperature treatment. The defect chemistry at elevated temperatures is used to simulate the electric conductivity depending on the oxygen partial pressure during annealing. Doping of the oxidic semiconductor depends on intrinsic defects, whereby oxygen vacancies form donor states and strontium vacancies have acceptor character. Beside the diffusion movement of these intrinsic defects at elevated temperatures, at low temperatures an electric field may cause their redistribution. Hence, the conductivity becomes dependent on external electric fields but also other properties can be altered in this way. Within this work, structural changes, valence changes and changing mechanical properties are shown to be switchable by the electric field. Finally, the dedicated usage of structural defects is demonstrated on memory cells that employ the switchable resistance of metal-SrTiO3 junctions. The applicability of the oxidic semiconductor as a resistive memory element is again based on the coupling between oxygen vacancies and the electric field.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Flavio Leandro de Souza / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Nanociências e Materiais Avançados, 2017. / Titanato de estrôncio é um material semicondutor interessante para aplicação em células fotoeletroquímicas. Uma via simples e de baixo custo para a preparação de fotoeletrodos de titanato de estrôncio é o método sol-gel. O método complexo polimerizado permite um controle ótimo da estequiometria e da incorporação de dopantes durante o processo. Neste trabalho, fotoanodos de titanato de estrôncio puro e dopado foram preparados usando o método sol-gel. Em primeiro lugar, fotoanodos de titanato de estrôncio puro foram produzidos e tratados termicamente a 800 °C. Em seguida, incorporaram-se os dopantes de ítrio (Y2+) e níquel (Ni2+), sendo realizado uma otimização de deposição para alcançar o melhor desempenho fotoeletroquímico. Além disso, avaliou-se a influência de um tratamento térmico em diferentes condições atmosféricas (nitrogênio e oxigênio) nas propriedades fotoeletroquímicas. Todos os fotoanodos foram analisados estruturalmente, morfologicamente e eletro/fotoeletroquimicamente. As deposições de 6 camadas e 4 tratamentos térmicos de puros e dopados, exibiram a melhor performance analisada por voltametria de varredura linear. Destacou-se os fotoanodos dopados com ítrio, apresentando a maior fotocorrente, comparado com o puro e o dopado com níquel. Adicionalmente, foram analisadas as contribuições na atividade catalítica favorecida pelo tratamento térmica adicional de 15 minutos em atmosfera rica e deficiente em oxigênio. Observou-se que o desempenho aumentou para o material puro submetido a um tratamento térmico adicional em atmosfera de oxigênio e para material dopado com ítrio e submetido a tratamento em atmosfera de nitrogênio. No entanto, fotoanodos de titanato de estrônico, nas diferentes condições de síntese e atmosfera de tratamento térmico, apresentam o desempenho fotoeletroquímico baixo. Em primeiro lugar, o intervalo de banda de titanato de estrôncio puro é muito elevado, 3,2 eV, que permite absorver uma pequena faixa do espectro da radiação solar. Por fim, sugere-se que a maior parte dos dopantes podem estar segregando nos contornos, podendo atuar como centros de recombinação, que reduz a eficiência das reações de superfície. Finalmente, os fotoanodos foram analisados eletroquimicamente através de espectroscopia impedância eletroquímica (EIS) para analisar os possíveis limitantes na performance do material. / Strontium titanate is an interesting semiconductor to be applied in photoelectrochemical cells. A simple and cost effective route to prepare strontium titanate photoelectrode is the sol-gel method. The polymerized complex method allows an optimal control of stoichiometry and the incorporation of impurities during the process. In this work, pure and doped strontium titanate photoanodes were prepared by using sol-gel method. Firstly, pure strontium titanate films were produced and heat treated at 800¿aC. Then, yttrium (Y2+) and nickel (Ni2+) dopants were incorporated. It was made a deposition optimization in order to achieve the best photoelectrochemical performance. Additionally, it was evaluated the influence of an extra heat treatment at different atmosphere (nitrogen and oxygen) on photoanodes properties. All the photoanodes were analyzed structurally, morphologically and electro/photoelectrochemically. Pure and doped strontium titanate photoanodes with 6 layer depositions and 4 time heat treatments exhibited best photocurrent than other conditions provided by linear sweep voltammetry. Yttrium-doped exhibited best photocurrent than pure and nickel-doped strontium titanate. Finally, catalytic activity of pure strontium titanate with extra heat treatment for 15 minutes in oxygen atmosphere and yttrium-doped strontium titanate with extra heat treatment for 15 minutes in nitrogen atmosphere was increased. Nevertheless, photocurrent performances of pure and modified strontium titanate films under air, nitrogen, oxygen atmosphere was very poor which can be explained by plausible hypothesis. Firstly, the band gap of pure strontium titanate is very high ¡V 3.2 eV. So, It only absorbs UV light which is only 4% of sun light. Secondly, most of the dopants may be segregated which may act as recombination centers that reduced the charge separation efficiency. Finally, polaron size of pure and doped strontium titanate under extra oxygen atmosphere decreases. Thus, resistance to charge transfer increases. Under extra nitrogen atmosphere, recombination may have increased as these films exhibited higher conductivity than films prepared under oxygen atmosphere.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den elektrischen Eigenschaften der resistiven Schaltmaterialien SrTiO3 und NbO2. Im ersten Teil werden NbO2 (001)-Dünnschichten untersucht. Bisher sind die für NbO2-Dünnschichten in der isolierenden Phase gemessenen spezifische Widerstände um einen Faktor von 200 niedriger als der in NbO2-Einkristallen gemessene 10 kΩ cm Widerstand. In dieser Arbeit wird der spezifische Widerstand von NbO2-Dünnschichten auf 945 Ω cm erhöht. Es wird gezeigt, dass leitfähige Perkolationspfade entlang der Korngrenzen für die Abnahme des spezifischen Widerstandes verantwortlich sind. Durch temperaturabhängige Leitfähigkeitsmessungen wurden Defektzustände identifiziert, die für die Verringerung des spezifischen Widerstandes gegenüber dem theoretischen Wert verantwortlich sind. Im zweiten Teil wird der Einfluss des Ti-Antisite Defekts auf das resistive Schalten in SrTiO3 Dünnschichten untersucht, welche mit metallorganischer Dampfphasenepitaxie gezüchtet wurden. Dabei werden sowohl stoichiometrische als auch Strontium defizitäre Schichten untersucht. Es wird über temperaturabhängige Permittivitätsmessungen gezeigt, dass durch Kristalldefekte die weiche Phononenmode gestört wird und bei stark strontiumverarmten Schichten polare Nanoregionen gebildet werden, was auf die Bildung des TiSr Defekts zurückgeführt wurde. Darüber hinaus wird gezeigt, dass stark strontiumdefiziente SrTiO3 -Schichten ein stabiles resistives Schalten mit einem Ein-Aus-Verhältnis von 2e7 bei 10 K aufweisen, während stöchiometrische Dünnschichten kein stabiles Schalten zeigen. Es wird ein diodenartiger Transportmechanismus, der im hochohmigen Zustand auf Schottkyemission beruht und ihm niederohmigen Zustand durch defektassistierten Tunnelstrom dominiert wird, identifiziert. Daraus wurde ein neues Modell für das resistive Schalten, basierend auf dem TiSr Defekt und der induzierten Ferroelektrizität, entwickelt. / In this work, the impact of crystal defects on the resistive switching materials SrTiO3 and NbO2 is investigated. The work is divided into two parts. In the first part, NbO2 (001) thin films are studied. So far, resistivities measured for NbO2 thin films in the insulating phase are by a factor of 200 lower than the 10 kΩ cm resistivity measured in NbO2 single crystals. To make this material applicable for resistive switching, the resistivity in the insulating phase has to be increased to effectively block the current in the high resistive state. Throughout the investigations presented in this work, the resistivity of NbO2 thin films is increased to 945 Ω cm. It is shown that conductive percolation paths along the grain boundaries are responsible for the decrease in resistivity. Temperature-dependent conductivity measurements identified defect states responsible for the reduction in resistivity from the theoretical value. In the second part of this work, the influence of the Ti anti-site defect on resistive switching in SrTiO3 thin films grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy is studied. Both stoichiometric and strontium deficient thin films are studied. It is shown via temperature-dependent permittivity measurements that crystal defects harden the soft phonon mode and polar nano regions are formed in highly strontium deficient films, which was attributed to the formation of Ti antisite defects. In addition, highly strontium deficient SrTiO3 films are shown to exhibit stable resistive switching with an on-off ratio of 2e7 at 10 K, whereas stoichiometric thin-films do not show stable switching. A diode-like transport mechanism based on Schottky emission in the high-resistance state and dominated by defect-assisted tunneling current in the low-resistance state is identified. From this, a new model for resistive switching based on the Ti antisite defect and the induced ferroelectricity is developed.

Barium Strontium Titanate (BST) was deposited on Pt/ZrO2 / SiO2/Si substrates using liquid source metal organic chemical vapor deposition. A stoichiometry series was deposited with various GrII/Ti ratios (0.658 to 1.022) and a temperature series was deposited at 550 to 700°C. The thin films were characterized using transmission electron microscopy. Both series of samples contained cubic perovskite BST and an amorphous phase. The grain size increased and the volume fraction of amorphous phase decreased with increasing deposition temperature. The electrical and microstructural properties improved as the GrII/Ti ratio approached 1 and deteriorated beyond 1. This research demonstrates that BST thin films are a strong candidate for future MOS transistor gate insulator applications.

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