4,246 research outputs found
Dimensional effects on the tunneling conductivity of gold-implanted nanocomposite films
We study the dependence of the electrical conductivity on the gold
concentration of Au-implanted polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and alumina
nanocomposite thin films. For Au contents larger than a critical concentration,
the conductivity of Au-PMMA and Au-alumina is well described by percolation in
two dimensions, indicating that the critical correlation length for percolation
is larger than the thickness of the films. Below the critical loading, the
conductivity is dominated by tunneling processes between isolated Au particles
dispersed in PMMA or alumina continuous matrices. Using an effective medium
analysis of the tunneling conductivity, we show that Au-PMMA behaves as a
tunneling system in two dimensions, as the film thickness is comparable to the
mean Au particle size. On the contrary, the conductivity of Au-alumina films is
best described by tunneling in three dimensions, although the film thickness is
only a few times larger than the particle size. We interpret the enhancement of
the effective dimensionality of Au-alumina films in the tunneling regime as due
to the larger film thickness as compared to the mean interparticle distances.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
Theory of percolation and tunneling regimes in nanogranular metal films
Nanogranular metal composites, consisting of immiscible metallic and
insulating phases deposited on a substrate, are characterized by two distinct
electronic transport regimes depending on the relative amount of the metallic
phase. At sufficiently large metallic loadings, granular metals behave as
percolating systems with a well-defined critical concentration above which
macroscopic clusters of physically connected conductive particles span the
entire sample. Below the critical loading, granular metal films are in the
dielectric regime, where current can flow throughout the composite only via
hopping or tunneling processes between isolated nanosized particles or
clusters. In this case transport is intrinsically non-percolative in the sense
that no critical concentration can be identified for the onset of transport. It
is shown here that, although being very different in nature, these two regimes
can be described by treating percolation and hopping on equal footing. By
considering general features of the microstructure and of the electrical
connectedness, the concentration dependence of the dc conductivity of several
nanogranular metal films is reproduced to high accuracy within an effective
medium approach. In particular, fits to published experimental data enable us
to extract the values of microscopic parameters that govern the percolation and
tunneling regimes, explaining thus the transport properties observed in
nanogranular metal films.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures + Supplemental material with 5 figure
Tunable asymmetric reflectance in silver films near the percolation threshold
We report on the optical characterization of semicontinuous nanostructured
silver films exhibiting tunable optical reflectance asymmetries. The films are
obtained using a multi-step process, where a nanocrystalline silver film is
first chemically deposited on a glass substrate and then subsequently coated
with additional silver via thermal vacuum-deposition. The resulting films
exhibit reflectance asymmetries whose dispersions may be tuned both in sign and
in magnitude, as well as a universal, tunable spectral crossover point. We
obtain a correlation between the optical response and charge transport in these
films, with the spectral crossover point indicating the onset of charge
percolation. Such broadband, dispersion-tunable asymmetric reflectors may find
uses in future light-harvesting systems.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Journal of Applied Physic
Thermal Properties of the Binary-Filler Composites with Few-Layer Graphene and Copper Nanoparticles
The thermal properties of an epoxy-based binary composites comprised of
graphene and copper nanoparticles are reported. It is found that the
"synergistic" filler effect, revealed as a strong enhancement of the thermal
conductivity of composites with the size-dissimilar fillers, has a well-defined
filler loading threshold. The thermal conductivity of composites with a
moderate graphene concentration of ~15 wt% exhibits an abrupt increase as the
loading of copper nanoparticles approaches ~40 wt%, followed by saturation. The
effect is attributed to intercalation of spherical copper nanoparticles between
the large graphene flakes, resulting in formation of the highly thermally
conductive percolation network. In contrast, in composites with a high graphene
concentration, ~40 wt%, the thermal conductivity increases linearly with
addition of copper nanoparticles. The electrical percolation is observed at low
graphene loading, less than 7 wt.%, owing to the large aspect ratio of
graphene. At all concentrations of the fillers, below and above the electrical
percolation threshold, the thermal transport is dominated by phonons. The
obtained results shed light on the interaction between graphene fillers and
copper nanoparticles in the composites and demonstrate potential of such hybrid
epoxy composites for practical applications in thermal interface materials and
adhesives.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure
Particle growing mechanisms in Ag-ZrO2 and Au-ZrO2 granular films obtained by pulsed laser deposition
Thin films consisting of Ag and Au nanoparticles embedded in amorphous ZrO2
matrix were grown by pulsed laser deposition in a wide range of metal volume
concentrations in the dielectric regime (0.08<x(Ag)<0.28 and 0.08<x(Au)<0.52).
High resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed regular
distribution of spherical Au and Ag nanoparticles having very sharp interfaces
with the amorphous matrix. Mean particle size determined from X-ray diffraction
agreed with direct TEM observation. The silver mean diameter increases more
abruptly with metal volume content than that corresponding to gold particles
prepared under the same conditions. Two mechanisms of particle growing are
observed: nucleation and particle coalescence, their relative significance
being different in both granular systems, which yields very different values of
the percolation threshold (xc(Ag)~0.28 and xc(Au)~0.52).Comment: 6 figure
Nonlinear DC-response in Composites: a Percolative Study
The DC-response, namely the - and - charateristics, of a variety
of composite materials are in general found to be nonlinear. We attempt to
understand the generic nature of the response charactersistics and study the
peculiarities associated with them. Our approach is based on a simple and
minimal model bond percolative network. We do simulate the resistor network
with appropritate linear and nonlinear bonds and obtain macroscopic nonlinear
response characteristics. We discuss the associated physics. An effective
medium approximation (EMA) of the corresponding resistor network is also given.Comment: Text written in RevTEX, 15 pages (20 postscript figures included),
submitted to Phys. Rev. E. Some minor corrections made in the text, corrected
one reference, the format changed (from 32 pages preprint to 15 pages
Recent Advances in High-k Nanocomposite Materials for Embedded Capacitor Applications
©2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or distribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2008.4656240In this paper, a wide variety of high dielectric constant (k) composite materials which have been developed and evaluated for embedded capacitor application are reviewed. Current research efforts toward achieving high dielectric performance including highk and low dielectric loss for polymer composites are presented. New insights into the effect of unique properties of the nanoparticle filler, filler modification and the dispersion between filler and polymer matrix on the dielectric properties of the nanocomposites are discussed in details
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