Vapor deposition of tantalum and tantalum compounds

Tantalum, and many of its compounds, can be deposited as coatings with techniques ranging from pure, thermal chemical vapor deposition to pure physical vapor deposition. This review concentrates on chemical vapor deposition techniques. The paper takes a historical approach. The authors review classical, metal halide-based techniques and current techniques for tantalum chemical vapor deposition. The advantages and limitations of the techniques will be compared. The need for new lower temperature processes and hence new precursor chemicals will be examined and explained. In the last section, they add some speculation as to possible new, low-temperature precursors for tantalum chemical vapor deposition

Synthesis of ultrafine ceramic and metallic powders in a thermal argon rf plasma

Ultrafine powders of SiC, Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/, Ni, and Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ have been prepared in a rf-plasma reactor, utilizing an induction plasma tube designed at Los Alamos. The primary particle size of the ceramic powders ranges from 5 to 50 nm. Silicon carbide and alumina are ultrapure crystalline powders, while silicon nitride is amorphous for surface areas greater than 100 m/sup 2//g. Plasma nickel powder will sinter to full density at 1073 K

Improvement of luminescent properties of thin-film phosphors by excimer laser processing

Thin-films of europium doped yttrium oxide, (Y{sub 1{minus}x}Eu{sub x}){sub 2}O{sub 3}, were deposited on sapphire substrates by metallorganic chemical vapor deposition. The films, {approximately} 400 nm thick, were weakly luminescent in the as-deposited condition. A KrF laser was pulsed once on the surface of the films at a fluence level between 0.9--2.3 J/cm{sup 2}. One pulse was sufficient to melt the film, which increased the photoluminescent emission intensity. Melting of a rough surface resulted in smoothing of the surface. The highest energy pulse resulted in a decrease in luminous intensity, presumably due to material removal. Computational modeling of the laser melting and ablation process predicted that a significant fraction of the film is removed by ablation at the highest fluence levels

Physical and chemical properties of Cu( i

The electronic structure and chemical bonding of Cu(I) compounds with O and/or H are investigated using ab initio calculations based on density functional theory. A hybrid functional PBE0 is employed, which accurately reproduces an experimental band gap of cuprite Cu2O. Cuprous hydroxide CuOH (cuprice) is found to be an indirect band gap semiconductor. Depending on the bond network configuration of CuOH, its band gap is found to vary between 2.73 eV and 3.03 eV. The presence of hydrogen in CuOH has little effect on the character of Cu–O bonds, as compared to Cu2O, but lowers the energy levels of the occupied states upon O–H bond formation. The bonding charge density and electron localization function calculations reveal that a closed-shell Cu–Cu interaction takes place in Cu2O and CuOH between the neighbouring Cu cations belonging to different bond networks. Besides, three structures of cuprous hydride CuH are investigated. We find that the halite structure of CuH can be stabilized at high pressure (above 32 GPa) while wurtzite is the most stable structure of CuH at ambient pressure. The H–H interaction contributes to the dynamical stabilization of the halite structure. The wurtzite and sphalerite structures of CuH are predicted to be semiconducting with small band gaps, while the halite structure is calculated to be metallic

Matthew Trkula, classical guitar, Friday, May 2, 2008

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Musi