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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,693 records · Page 94
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Fabrication and local laser heating of freestanding Ni{sub 80}Fe{sub 20} bridges with Pt contacts displaying anisotropic magnetoresistance and anomalous Nernst effect

In spin caloritronics, ferromagnetic samples subject to relatively large in-plane temperature gradients ∇T have turned out to be extremely interesting. We report on a preparation technique that allows us to create freely suspended permalloy/Pt hybrid structures where a scanning laser induces ∇T on the order of a few K/μm. We observe both the anisotropic magnetoresistance at room temperature and the magnetic field dependent anomalous Nernst effect under laser heating. The technique is promising for the realization of device concepts considered in spin caloritronics based on suspended ferromagnetic nanostructures with electrical contacts.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Charge noise analysis of metal oxide semiconductor dual-gate Si/SiGe quantum point contacts

The frequency dependence of conductance noise through a gate-defined quantum point contact fabricated on a Si/SiGe modulation doped wafer is characterized. The 1/f{sup 2} noise, which is characteristic of random telegraph noise, is reduced by application of a negative bias on the global top gate to reduce the local gate voltage. Direct leakage from the large global gate voltage also causes random telegraph noise, and therefore, there is a suitable point to operate quantum dot measurement.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Multi-scale quantum point contact model for filamentary conduction in resistive random access memories devices

We depart from first-principle simulations of electron transport along paths of oxygen vacancies in HfO{sub 2} to reformulate the Quantum Point Contact (QPC) model in terms of a bundle of such vacancy paths. By doing this, the number of model parameters is reduced and a much clearer link between the microscopic structure of the conductive filament (CF) and its electrical properties can be provided. The new multi-scale QPC model is applied to two different HfO{sub 2}-based devices operated in the unipolar and bipolar resistive switching (RS) modes. Extraction of the QPC model parameters from a statistically significant number of CFs allows revealing significant structural differences in the CF of these two types of devices and RS modes.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Passivation layer breakdown during laser-fired contact formation for photovoltaic devices

Low resistance laser-fired ohmic contacts (LFCs) can be formed on the backside of Si-based solar cells using microsecond pulses. However, the impact of these longer pulse durations on the dielectric passivation layer is not clear. Retention of the passivation layer during processing is critical to ensure low recombination rates of electron-hole pairs at the rear surface of the device. In this work, advanced characterization tools are used to demonstrate that although the SiO{sub 2} passivation layer melts directly below the laser, it is well preserved outside the immediate LFC region over a wide range of processing parameters. As a result, low recombination rates at the passivation layer/wafer interface can be expected despite higher energy densities associated with these pulse durations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Back-junction back-contact n-type silicon solar cell with diffused boron emitter locally blocked by implanted phosphorus

The highest energy conversion efficiencies in the field of silicon-based photovoltaics have been achieved with back-junction back-contact (BJBC) silicon solar cells by several companies and research groups. One of the most complex parts of this cell structure is the fabrication of the locally doped p- and n-type regions, both on the back side of the solar cell. In this work, we introduce a process sequence based on a synergistic use of ion implantation and furnace diffusion. This sequence enables the formation of all doped regions for a BJBC silicon solar cell in only three processing steps. We observed that implanted phosphorus can block the diffusion of boron atoms into the silicon substrate by nearly three orders of magnitude. Thus, locally implanted phosphorus can be used as an in-situ mask for a subsequent boron diffusion which simultaneously anneals the implanted phosphorus and forms the boron emitter. BJBC silicon solar cells produced with such an easy-to-fabricate process achieved conversion efficiencies of up to 21.7%. An open-circuit voltage of 674 mV and a fill factor of 80.6% prove that there is no significant recombination at the sharp transition between the highly doped emitter and the highly doped back surface field at the device level.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Interfacial characterization and electrical properties of Ni–GaSb contacts

The microstructural characterization of Ni–GaSb junctions in samples annealed at 300 °C, 350 °C, and 400 °C in a N{sub 2} atmosphere was elucidated using transmission electron microscopy in conjunction with energy-dispersive spectrometry, nanobeam electron diffraction, and grazing-incident X-ray diffraction. Only the NiSb(Ga) phase is formed at the interface of Ni/GaSb when the annealing temperature is below 350 °C. However, three phases—NiSb, Ni{sub 2}Ga{sub 3}, and NiSb(Ga)—are formed simultaneously at the interface between Ni/GaSb when the annealing temperature is increased to 400 °C, which causes a significant increase in the sheet resistance of the Ni–GaSb alloy. These results indicate that the annealing temperature of the Ni/GaSb structure should be maintained below 350 °C for the formation of low-resistance metal Ni/GaSb contacts in GaSb-based p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Spin splitting generated in a Y-shaped semiconductor nanostructure with a quantum point contact

We have studied the spin splitting of the current in the Y-shaped semiconductor nanostructure with a quantum point contact (QPC) in a perpendicular magnetic field. Our calculations show that the appropriate tuning of the QPC potential and the external magnetic field leads to an almost perfect separation of the spin-polarized currents: electrons with opposite spins flow out through different output branches. The spin splitting results from the joint effect of the QPC, the spin Zeeman splitting, and the electron transport through the edge states formed in the nanowire at the sufficiently high magnetic field. The Y-shaped nanostructure can be used to split the unpolarized current into two spin currents with opposite spins as well as to detect the flow of the spin current. We have found that the separation of the spin currents is only slightly affected by the Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The spin-splitter device is an analogue of the optical device—the birefractive crystal that splits the unpolarized light into two beams with perpendicular polarizations. In the magnetic-field range, in which the current is carried through the edges states, the spin splitting is robust against the spin-independent scattering. This feature opens up a possibility of the application of the Y-shaped nanostructure as a non-ballistic spin-splitter device in spintronics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Quantum capacitance of graphene in contact with metal

We report a versatile computation method to quantitatively determine the quantum capacitance of graphene when it is in contact with metal. Our results bridge the longstanding gap between the theoretically predicted and experimentally measured quantum capacitance of graphene. Contrary to popular assumptions, the presence of charged impurities or structural distortions of graphene are not the only sources of the asymmetric capacitance with respect to the polarity of the bias potential and the higher-than-expected capacitance at the Dirac point. They also originate from the field-induced electronic interactions between graphene and metal. We also provide an improved model representation of a metal–graphene junction.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Improvement of the electrical contact resistance at rough interfaces using two dimensional materials

Reducing the electronic contact resistance at the interfaces of nanostructured materials is a major goal for many kinds of planar and three dimensional devices. In this work, we develop a method to enhance the electronic transport at rough interfaces by inserting a two dimensional flexible and conductive graphene sheet. We observe that an ultra-thin graphene layer with a thickness of 0.35 nm can remarkably reduce the roughness of a sample in a factor of 40%, avoiding the use of thick coatings, leading to a more homogeneous current flow, and extraordinarily increasing the total current compared to the graphene-free counterpart. Due to its simplicity and performance enhancement, this methodology can be of interest to many interface and device designers.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Quantization and anomalous structures in the conductance of Si/SiGe quantum point contacts

Quantum point contacts (QPCs) are fabricated on modulation-doped Si/SiGe heterostructures and ballistic transport is studied at low temperatures. We observe quantized conductance with subband separations up to 4 meV and anomalies in the first conductance plateau at 4e{sup 2}/h. At a temperature of T = 22 mK in the linear transport regime, a weak anomalous kink structure arises close to 0.5(4e{sup 2}/h), which develops into a distinct plateau-like structure as temperature is raised up to T = 4 K. Under magnetic field parallel to the wire up to B = 14 T, the anomaly evolves into the Zeeman spin-split level at 0.5(4e{sup 2}/h), resembling the '0.7 anomaly' in GaAs/AlGaAs QPCs. Additionally, a zero-bias anomaly (ZBA) is observed in nonlinear transport spectroscopy. At T = 22 mK, a parallel magnetic field splits the ZBA peak up into two peaks. At B = 0, elevated temperatures lead to similar splitting, which differs from the behavior of ZBAs in GaAs/AlGaAs QPCs. Under finite dc bias, the differential resistance exhibits additional plateaus approximately at 0.8(4e{sup 2}/h) and 0.2(4e{sup 2}/h) known as '0.85 anomaly' and '0.25 anomaly' in GaAs/AlGaAs QPCs. Unlike the first regular plateau at 4e{sup 2}/h, the 0.2(4e{sup 2}/h) plateau is insensitive to dc bias voltage up to at least V{sub DS} = 80 mV, in-plane magnetic fields up to B = 15 T, and to elevated temperatures up to T = 25 K. We interpret this effect as due to pinching off one of the reservoirs close to the QPC. We do not see any indication of lifting of the valley degeneracy in our samples.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Characterization of dangling bond defects at the crystalline Si/SiO x interface in a polycrystalline Si passivating contact solar cell at room temperature with electrically detected magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Monocrystalline silicon solar cells can achieve photoconversion efficiencies exceeding 26%; however, performance-limiting defects that trap carriers continue to be a challenge. In this work, we have characterized Si solar cells with tunneling SiO x /polycrystalline-Si (poly-Si) passivating contacts (TOPCon) on As-doped Czochralski Si wafers with electrically detected magnetic resonance (EDMR) spectroscopy. We fabricated 2 × 20 mm 2 TOPCon-like mini solar cells with edge passivation alongside larger 4 cm 2 sister cells and obtained similar device characteristics. We performed EDMR spectroscopy at 300 K on two minicells with different degrees of surface passivation based on the recombination parameter, J o , values of 40 and 310 fA/cm2. We optimized the resolution and the signal-to-noise ratio of the EDMR response of the minicells by varying the forward bias voltage and the magnetic field modulation amplitude. We detect two distinct signals with EDMR spectroscopy, an axial-like signal at g = 2.009, 2.0087, and 2.0015, and an isotropic signal at g = 2.0024, which we attribute to Si dangling bonds (P b0 and P b centers) and boron–oxygen related defects, respectively, at or near the c-Si/SiO x interface. The EDMR signals were lower for the cell with a lower value of J o , while the ratio of the two defect populations was very similar. The EDMR signal increases with forward bias but drops to zero at bias voltages >0.5 V, consistent with interface defects within or near the boron-doped emitter depletion region. Our study demonstrates a method to fabricate minicells that can be characterized with EDMR spectroscopy to detect industrially relevant defects in TOPCon cells.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

A low energy muon spin rotation and point contact tunneling study of niobium films prepared for superconducting cavities

Point contact tunneling and low energy muon spin rotation are used to probe, on the same samples, the surface superconducting properties of micrometer thick niobium films deposited onto copper substrates using different sputtering techniques: diode, dc magnetron and HIPIMS. The combined results are compared to radio-frequency tests performances of RF cavities made with the same processes. Degraded surface superconducting properties are found to correlate to lower quality factors and stronger Q-slope. In addition, both techniques find evidence for surface paramagnetism on all samples and particularly on Nb films prepared by HIPIMS.

LE-mu SR↗
DOE OSTI2014

Contact nonlinearities and linear response in jammed particulate packings

Packings of frictionless athermal particles that interact only when they overlap experience a jamming transition as a function of packing density. Such packings provide the foundation for the theory of jamming. This theory rests on the observation that, despite the multitude of disordered configurations, the mechanical response to linear order depends only on the distance to the transition. We investigate the validity and utility of such measurements that invoke the harmonic approximation and show that, despite particles coming in and out of contact, there is a well-defined linear regime in the thermodynamic limit.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Spontaneous Localization at a Potential Saddle Point from Edge State Reconstruction in a Quantum Hall Point Contact

Quantum point contacts (QPCs) are an essential component in mesoscopic devices. Here, in this work, we study the transmission of quantum Hall edge modes through a gate-defined QPC in monolayer graphene. We observe resonant tunneling peaks and a nonlinear conductance pattern characteristic of Coulomb-blockaded localized states. The in-plane electric polarizability reveals the states are localized at a classically unstable electrostatic saddle point. We explain this unexpected finding within a self-consistent Thomas-Fermi model, finding that localization of a zero-dimensional state at the saddle point is favored whenever the applied confinement potential is sufficiently soft compared to the Coulomb energy. Our results provide a direct demonstration of Coulomb-driven reconstruction at the boundary of a quantum Hall system.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

The structure of a contact-dependent growth-inhibition (CDI) immunity protein from Neisseria meningitidis MC58

Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) is an important mechanism of intercellular competition between neighboring Gram-negative bacteria. CDI systems encode large surface-exposed CdiA effector proteins that carry a variety of C-terminal toxin domains (CdiA-CTs). All CDI + bacteria also produce CdiI immunity proteins that specifically bind to the cognate CdiA-CT and neutralize its toxin activity to prevent auto-inhibition. Here, the X-ray crystal structure of a CdiI immunity protein from Neisseria meningitidis MC58 is presented at 1.45 Å resolution. The CdiI protein has structural homology to the Whirly family of RNA-binding proteins, but appears to lack the characteristic nucleic acid-binding motif of this family. Sequence homology suggests that the cognate CdiA-CT is related to the eukaryotic EndoU family of RNA-processing enzymes. A homology model is presented of the CdiA-CT based on the structure of the XendoU nuclease from Xenopus laevis . Molecular-docking simulations predict that the CdiA-CT toxin active site is occluded upon binding to the CdiI immunity protein. Together, these observations suggest that the immunity protein neutralizes toxin activity by preventing access to RNA substrates.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

A Novel Method to Investigate Stoichiometry and Performance of Buried Passivated Contacts Utilizing Time-of-Flight SIMS

We report on methods using time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) to elucidate critical information about the buried interfaces in interdigitated back-contact silicon solar cells. We examined the stoichiometry of the tunneling oxide with TOF-SIMS and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Interestingly, the data indicates that the stoichiometry of the tunneling oxide moves away from SiO 2 towards lower stoichiometry (SiO x ) upon the crystallization annealing treatment, and towards SiO 2 again upon Al 2 O 3 deposition and a subsequent forming gas anneal. We also report on an important artifact for samples with an Al 2 O 3 passivation layer related to the oxygen content of the matrix.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Comparative Studies of Optoelectronic Properties, Structures, and Surface Morphologies for Phosphorus-Doped Poly-Si/SiOx Passivating Contacts

We investigated and compared optoelectronic properties, crystallographic structures, and nanoscale surface morphologies of ex-situ phosphorus-doped polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si)/SiO x passivating contacts, formed by different deposition methods (sputtering, plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD), and low-pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD)). Across all these deposition technologies, a similar trend is observed: higher diffusion temperatures yield films that are more crystalline but have rougher surface morphologies due to bigger surface crystal grains. Also, the recrystallization process of the as-deposited Si films starts from the SiO x interface, rather than from the film surface and bulk. However, there are some distinct differences among these technologies. Firstly, the LPCVD method yields the roughest surface and smallest degree of crystallinity on finished poly-Si films. In contrast, the PECVD method has the smoothest surface for both as-deposited Si and annealed poly-Si films. Secondly, as-deposited sputtered and PECVD Si films contain only an amorphous phase whereas as-deposited LPCVD films has already had some crystalline phase. Thirdly, the LPCVD phosphorus in-diffusion into the substrate depends strongly on the initial film thickness, whereas for the other two methods it is weakly dependent on thickness.

crystallographic structures↗
DOE OSTI2021

Submicron Thickness Characterization of Poly-Si Thin Films on Textured Surfaces by X-Ray Diffraction for Minimizing Parasitic Absorption in Poly-Si/SiO2 Passivating Contact Cells

Poly-Si/SiO2 passivating contacts have shown great potential for industry-relevant next-generation solar cells. Previous work has demonstrated an improved Jsc from dry reactive ion etching in an SF6 environment, using front metal grids as a self-aligned mask. Here, we show an effective method to measure the front poly-Si thickness on an alkaline textured surface using X-ray diffraction. The calculated thicknesses are compared with cross-section SEM analysis and Quokka simulation. We show that by thinning the front poly-Si from 200 nm to 60 nm, Jsc increases by 2.4 mA/cm2, leading to an absolute efficiency gain of 1.73%. Finally, we discuss possible reasons for the premature loss of passivation before the removal of all poly-Si.

41 EE - Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)↗