27 research outputs found
Nanomaterials synthesis by a novel phenomenon: The nanoscale Rayleigh-Taylor instability
The Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) interfacial instability has been attributed to physical phenomenon in a wide variety of macroscopic systems, including black holes, laser generated plasmas, and thick fluids. However, evidence for its existence in the nanoscale is lacking. Here we first show theoretically that this instability can occur in films with thickness negligible compared to the capillary length when they are heated rapidly inside a bulk fluid. Pressure gradients developed in the evaporated fluid region produce large forces causing the instability. Experiments were performed by melting Au films inside glycerol fluid by nanosecond laser pulses. The ensuingnanoparticles had highly monomodal size distributions. Importantly, the spacing of thenanoparticles was independent of the film thickness and could be tuned by the magnitude of the pressure gradients. Therefore, this instability can overcome some of the limitations of conventional thin self-organization techniques that rely on film thickness to control length scales
The convolution theorem for nonlinear optics
We have expressed the nonlinear optical absorption of a semiconductor in
terms of its linear spectrum. We determined that the two-photon absorption
coefficient in a strong DC-electric field of a direct gap semiconductor can be
expressed as the product of a differential operator times the convolution
integral of the linear absorption without a DC-electric field and an Airy
function. We have applied this formalism to calculate the two-photon absorption
coefficient and nonlinear refraction for GaAs and ZnSe using their linear
absorption and have found excellent agreement with available experimental data.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures (6 sub fugures
A compound figure of merit for photonic applications of metal nanocomposites
Selecting nanocomposites for photonic switching applications requires
optimizing their thermal, nonlinear and two-photon absorption characteristics.
We simplify this step by defining a compound figure of merit (FOM_{C}) for
nanocomposites of noble metals in dielectric based on criteria that limit these
structures in photonic applications, i.e. thermal heating and two-photon
absorption. The device independent results predict extremely large values of
FOM_{C} for a specific combination of the metal and insulator dielectric
constant given by \epsilon_{h}=\frac{\epsilon_{1}-\epsilon_{2}}{2}, where
\epsilon_{h} is the dielectric constant of the host and \epsilon_{1} and
\epsilon_{2} are the real and imaginary parts for the metal.Comment: Appearing in Appl. Phys. Lett. (2006
Demagnetization Borne Microscale Skyrmions
Magnetic systems are an exciting realm of study that is being explored on
smaller and smaller scales. One extremely interesting magnetic state that has
gained momentum in recent years is the skyrmionic state. It is characterized by
a vortex where the edge magnetic moments point opposite to the core. Although
skyrmions have many possible realizations, in practice, creating them in a lab
is a difficult task to accomplish. In this work, new methods for skyrmion
generation and customization are suggested. Skyrmionic behavior was numerically
observed in minimally customized simulations of spheres, hemisphere,
ellipsoids, and hemi-ellipsoids, for typ- ical Cobalt parameters, in a range
from approximately 40 nm to 120 nm in diameter simply by applying a field
Enhanced and tunable optical quantum efficiencies from plasmon bandwidth engineering in bimetallic CoAg nanoparticles
Plasmonic nanoparticles are amongst the most effective ways to resonantly couple optical energy into and out of nanometer sized volumes. However, controlling and/or tuning the transfer of this incident energy to the surrounding near and far field is one of the most interesting challenges in this area. Due to the dielectric properties of metallic silver (Ag), its nanoparticles have amongst the highest radiative quantum efficiencies (η), i.e., the ability to radiatively transfer the incident energy to the surrounding. Here we report the discovery that bimetallic nanoparticles of Ag made with immiscible and plasmonically weak Co metal can show comparable and/or even higher η values. The enhancement is a result of the narrowing of the plasmon bandwidth from these bimetal systems. The phenomenological explanation of this effect based on the dipolar approximation points to the reduction in radiative losses within the Ag nanoparticles when in contact with cobalt. This is also supported by a model of coupling between poor and good conductors based on the surface to volume ratio. This study presents a new type of bandwidth engineering, one based on using bimetalnanostructures, to tune and/or enhance the quality factor and quantum efficiency for near and far-field plasmonic applications
Transparent ferromagnetic and semiconducting behavior in Fe-Dy-Tb based amorphous oxide films
We report a class of amorphous thin film material comprising of transition (Fe) and Lanthanide metals (Dy and Tb) that show unique combination of functional properties. Films were deposited with different atomic weight ratio (R) of Fe to Lanthanide (Dy + Tb) using electron beam co-evaporation at room temperature. The films were found to be amorphous, with grazing incidence x-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies indicating that the films were largely oxidized with a majority of the metal being in higher oxidation states. Films with R = 0.6 were semiconducting with visible light transmission due to a direct optical band-gap (2.49 eV), had low resistivity and sheet resistance (7.15 × 10−4 Ω-cm and ~200 Ω/sq respectively), and showed room temperature ferromagnetism. A metal to semiconductor transition with composition (for R \u3c 11.9) also correlated well with the absence of any metallic Fe0oxidation state in the R = 0.6 case as well as a significantly higher fraction of oxidized Dy. The combination of amorphous microstructure and room temperature electronic and magnetic properties could lead to the use of the material in multiple applications, including as a transparent conductor, active material in thin film transistors for display devices, and in spin-dependent electronics
Robust nanopatterning by laser-induced dewetting of metal nanofilms
We have observed nanopattern formation with robust and controllable spatial
ordering by laser-induced dewetting in nanoscopic metal films. Pattern
evolution in Co film of thickness 1\leq h\leq8 nm on SiO_{2} was achieved under
multiple pulse irradiation using a 9 ns pulse laser. Dewetting leads to the
formation of cellular patterns which evolve into polygons that eventually break
up into nanoparticles with monomodal size distribution and short range ordering
in nearest-neighbour spacing R. Spatial ordering was attributed to a
hydrodynamic thin film instability and resulted in a predictable variation of R
and particle diameter D with h. The length scales R and D were found to be
independent of the laser energy. These results suggest that spatially ordered
metal nanoparticles can be robustly assembled by laser-induced dewetting
Self consistent determination of plasmonic resonances in ternary nanocomposites
We have developed a self consistent technique to predict the behavior of
plasmon resonances in multi-component systems as a function of wavelength. This
approach, based on the tight lower bounds of the Bergman-Milton formulation, is
able to predict experimental optical data, including the positions, shifts and
shapes of plasmonic peaks in ternary nanocomposites without using any ftting
parameters. Our approach is based on viewing the mixing of 3 components as the
mixing of 2 binary mixtures, each in the same host. We obtained excellent
predictions of the experimental optical behavior for mixtures of Ag:Cu:SiO2 and
alloys of Au-Cu:SiO2 and Ag-Au:H2 O, suggesting that the essential physics of
plasmonic behavior is captured by this approach.Comment: 7 pages and 4 figure