ALBERT

Notes: We report optical waveguiding in single-crystal, epitaxial (101) oriented rutile (TiO2) thin films grown on (112¯0) sapphire (α-Al2O3) substrates using the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technique. The electromagnetic field distributions and propagation constants for asymmetric planar waveguides composed of an anisotropic dielectric media applicable to these films are derived. Modifications to the prism-film coupling theory for this anisotropic case are also discussed. By application of this model to (101) oriented rutile thin films, we directly obtain values of the ordinary and extraordinary refractive indexes, n0 and ne, of the rutile thin films as well as film thicknesses. We obtain typical values of the refractive indexes (n0=2.5701±0.0005; ne=2.934±0.001) near to those for bulk rutile single crystals indicating the exceptional quality of these films.

Notes: Advances on permanent high-Tc superconducting magnets are reported. Materials are tested in the form of small tiles. An accurate phenomenological model of the currents in a magnetized tile predicts that the maximum trapped field BT,max∝Jcf(d), where Jc is the critical current density, d is the diameter of the single-grain tile, and f(d) is a function which increases monotonically with d. Results are reported of increasing Jc via chemical additives, and via bombardment by high-energy light ions and fission fragments. Increases in d via chemical and temperature gradients are also reported. Methods, data, and most recent results are presented. Present values are d=2 cm, and Jc=85 kA/cm2, at 77 K. A six tile minimagnet, 1.2×1.2×1.5 cm3, fabricated from earlier tiles with d∼1 cm, Jc∼45 kA/cm2, retains 1.52 T at 77 K. It is calculated that the more recent values of Jc and d will result in fields of 3 T at 77 K. BT,max also increases rapidly with T−1, and approximately doubles at 60 K.

Notes: Domain switching of 90° ferroelectric domains in tetragonal BaTiO3 and PbTiO3 is induced by the application of stress along specific crystallographic axes. For BaTiO3, single-domain crystals are obtained from twinned specimens by the application of ∼1.1 MPa of stress parallel to the a axis and twin boundaries are induced by application of ∼0.22 MPa of stress parallel to the c axis. Similar piezoelectrically-induced domain switching was observed in PbTiO3 at elevated temperature. We observed the rotation of the crystallographic axes associated with domain switching via micro-Raman spectroscopy. These results were consistent with optical microscope images of the domain switching which demonstrates the usefulness of micro-Raman spectroscopy for the study of ferroelectric domain structures. A phenomenological treatment of domain switching in a piezoelectrically-coupled system is described.

Notes: Epitaxial thin films of TiO2 and VO2 single layers and TiO2/VO2 multilayers were grown on (112¯0) sapphire (α-Al2O3) substrates using the metalorganic chemical vapor deposition technique and were characterized using Raman scattering and four-circle x-ray diffractometry. X-ray diffraction results indicate that the films are high quality single crystal material with well defined growth plane and small in-plane and out-of-plane mosaic. Single-layer films are shown to obey the Raman selection rules of TiO2 and VO2 single crystals. The close adherence to the Raman selection rules indicates the high degree of orientation of the films, both parallel and perpendicular to the growth plane. Selection rule spectra of two and three layer TiO2/VO2 multilayers are dominated by the VO2 layers with only minimal signature of the TiO2 layers. Due to the low band gap of semiconducting vanadium dioxide, we attribute the strong signature of the VO2 layers to resonant enhancement of the VO2 Raman component accompanied with absorption of the both the incident and scattered laser light from the TiO2 layers.

Notes: We report on persistent field in a quasipermanent magnet made of high temperature superconductor. The material has an average of 40% molar excess of Y, relative to Y1Ba2Cu3O7 and has been irradiated with high energy light ions at 200 MeV. The magnet, which traps 1.52 T at 77.3 K, traps nearly 4 T at 64.5 K. No evidence of giant flux jump or sample cracking was observed.

Notes: Reactions occurring during cooling of charnockitic intrusives on the Lofoten Islands produce characteristic diffusion-controlled textures around fayalite and Fe–Ti oxides. Thermobarometry indicates the corona textures formed at 780–840 °C and pressures of 4–10 kbar, whereas the magmatic assemblage of the charnockite (clinopyroxene–olivine–quartz) crystallized at about 850–870 °C and 4 kbar. The succession olivine|orthopyroxene+magnetite|orthopyroxene+garnet and olivine|orthopyroxene+magnetite|amphibole developed where olivine reacted with adjacent plagioclase or K-feldspar, but the modes and the thicknesses of the corona textures vary according to the feldspar type, indicating that the primary magmatic ternary feldspar was already exsolved into albitic plagioclase and alkali feldspar when the corona formation began. Simultaneously, in other parts of the rock, primary magmatic clinopyroxene reacted to amphibole and Fe–Ti oxides reacted to orthopyroxene+garnet coronas or to amphibole. Textures demonstrate significant Al diffusion in the rocks under granulite facies conditions and they suggest that no pervasive fluid influx occurred and that amphibole formation was dependant on a local source of H2O probably related to water-release during the last stages of magmatism. Calculation of the net reaction by accounting for all observed reactions at different sites in the rock indicates that the system can be regarded as balanced on a hand-specimen scale with respect to all elements except for Na and H2O. The larger variety of textures developed in rocks of granitic bulk composition provide more constraints than textures from gabbroic compositions, and permitted calculation of a set of relative diffusion coefficients which also reproduce textures in the gabbroic and anorthositic rocks from the Lofoten Islands. The following set of relative diffusion coefficients (Li/LFe) reproduces the observed textures in the Lofoten rocks: Si=0.82, Mg=0.59, Mn=0.05, Na=0.38, K=0.39, Al=0.05 and Ca=0.07.

Notes: Experimental evidence is presented to verify the quantitative predictions of interfacial defect theory as applied to strain relief in epitaxial PbTiO3 thin films through the formation of 90° domains. Epitaxial PbTiO3 thin films grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on MgO(001), SrTiO3(001), LaAlO3(001), and SrRuO3(001)/SrTiO3(001) substrates are examined using four-circle x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The data represents a detailed examination of the ...c/a/c/a... 90° domain patterns that develop during the paraelectric to ferroelectric (PE→FE) phase transition as the film is cooled from the growth temperature. Three independent measurements of the relative coherency strain (er) are reported. The data quantitatively and self-consistently verify the crystallographic rotations predicted by the concept of the relative coherency strain and demonstrate the validity of domain stability maps in understanding the phase transformation history in epitaxial ferroelectric thin films. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Epitaxial PbTiO3 films were prepared by metalorganic chemical-vapor deposition on MgO(001)-, SrTiO3(001)-, and LaAlO3(001)-oriented substrates. Four-circle x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, Rutherford backscattering (RBS) channeling, and optical waveguiding were performed to characterize the deposited films. Epitaxial, single-crystal films were obtained on all three substrate materials under the same growth conditions. However, the defect structure of the films, including grain tilting, threading dislocation density, and 90° domain formation, was strongly dependent on the choice of substrate material. Films grown on MgO(001) and LaAlO3(001) (pseudocubic indices) substrates are nominally c-axis oriented; however, the PbTiO3 grains in the film form a fourfold domain structure, with the grains tilted ∼0.6° and ∼0.7°, respectively, toward the [100] directions (cubic or pseudo-cubic) of the substrates. In addition, these films contain a significant volume fraction of 90°-domain (a-axis) structures with a critical thickness hc for domain formation below the detection level of our experiments (hc≥100 A(ring)). Together, these structural defects result in a low RBS channeling yield reduction. In contrast, films grown on SrTiO3(001) substrates showed no tilting of the c-axis grains and a minimum RBS channeling yield of as low as ∼3%. In addition, we observed that below a critical film thickness of hc∼1500 A(ring), 90° domain formation was completely suppressed resulting in a nearly perfect single-crystal structure.The refractive indices and optical birefringence of the films were measured as a function of wavelength using the film-prism coupling method. Both the ordinary and extraordinary refractive indices for films grown on MgO(001) and LaAlO3(001) were higher than that of single-crystal PbTiO3; however, the optical birefringence of films grown on MgO(001) was reduced from that of the bulk. For films grown on SrTiO3(001), the ordinary refractive index was very close to that of single-crystal PbTiO3. We correlate the refractive index values and the reduced birefringence to the degree of residual strain and the volume fraction of 90° domains in the samples, respectively. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Single-crystal thin films of Pb(ZrxTi1−x)O3 (PZT) covering the full compositional range (0≤x≤1) were deposited by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Epitaxial SrRuO3(001) thin films grown on SrTiO3(001) substrates by rf-magnetron sputter deposition served as template electrode layers to promote the epitaxial growth of PZT. X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and optical waveguiding were used to characterize the crystalline structure, composition, surface morphology, microstructure, refractive index, and film thickness of the deposited films. The PZT films were single crystalline for all compositions exhibiting cube-on-cube growth epitaxy with the substrate and showed very high degrees of crystallinity and orientation. The films exhibited typical root mean square surface roughness of ∼1.0–2.5 nm. For tetragonal films, the surface morphology was dominated by grain tilting resulting from ferroelectric domain formation. We report the systematic compositional variation of the optical, dielectric, polarization, and electronic transport properties of these single-crystalline PZT thin films. We show that the solid-solution phase diagram of the PZT system for thin films differs from the bulk due to epitaxy-induced strains and interfacial defect formation. High values of remanant polarization (30–55 μC/cm2) were observed for ferroelectric compositions in the range of 0.8≤x≤0.2. Unlike previous studies, the dielectric constant exhibited a clear dependence on composition with values ranging from 225 to 650. The coercive fields decreased with increasing Zr concentration to a minimum of 20 kV/cm for x=0.8. The undoped films exhibited both high resistivity and dielectric-breakdown strength (1013–1014 Ω cm at 100 kV/cm and 300–700 kV/cm, respectively). © 1997 American Institute of Physics.