Rodrigo Martins

In this work, we investigate the role of amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin films deposited by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique on porous silicon (PS) to facilitate its water vapor and oxygen gas sensing properties using its electrical response. Overall we notice a rectifying behavior from a-Si:H/PS heterojunction device, where a current enhancement of one and four orders of magnitude was observed in the presence of oxygen gas and water vapor, in comparison with atmospheric air at room temperature, respectively. The photoluminescence (PL) investigation of PS shows a slight blue shift in the PL emission band from 1.72 to 1.77 eV and the intensity of the PL is enhanced by a factor of 5.4 with increase of porosity from 21% to 77%. This PL emission may originate from the O-Si-H related absorbance bands. Alternatively, quenching of the PL intensity was observed after a-Si:H films were deposited on PS specimens. Besides, micro-Raman and atomic force microscopic (AFM) analyse were carried out to understand the structure and morphological features of the PS and a-Si:H/PS specimens. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In the present work, we investigate the influence of hydrocarbon (CHx) thin film coating on porous silicon (PS) by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique to detect CO2 gas. The fabricated CHx/PS heterojunction device shows up to one and two orders of magnitude enhancement in current under CO2 gas exposure. FTIR spectroscopy measurements reveal a remarkable structural modification of the CHx/PS device during CO2 gas exposure. Further, the enhancement of CHx related absorbance bands by a factor 6.2 for the CHx/PS specimen in comparison with PS confirm the good quality of the deposited CHx thin films. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In the present work we investigate, the role of zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films passivating layer deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature on low (18%) and high (80%) porosity porous silicon (PS). The micro-Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis have been carried out to understand the effect of ZnO films coating on PS. A systematic investigation from Raman spectroscopy suggests the formation of a good quality ZnO wurtzite structure on PS. The photoluminescence (PL) measurements on PS and ZnO coated PS shows a red, blue and UV emission bands at around ∼1.8, ∼2.78 and ∼3.2 eV. An enhancement of all PL emission bands have been achieved after ZnO films deposition on high porosity PS. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This work refers to the fabrication of hybrid solar cells based on porous silicon (PS) filled with copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) to form GZO/CuPc-PS/Si/Al structure. We used n-type Si since photoinduced charge transfer from CuPc to Si is observed only for n-type Si. The characteristic 100% peak at 6.8°2θ from XRD confirms that the CuPc coating on PS exists in α-CuPc polymorph. The systematic increase in FWHM of XRD peak at 69.1°2θ and red-shift of LO phonon Raman spectra indicate a progressive reduction of Si nanocrystallites size with increasing etching time and the estimated size agrees well with atomic force microscopic images. The FTIR results confirm the formation of α-CuPc polymorph and it is also corroborated well with XRD and Raman results. © 2008.

In the present work, the spectroscopic ellipsometry (1.5 - 5.5 eV) was used to investigate the effects of current density induced microstructural variations and their influence on the electronic states of as-prepared and a-Si:H coated porous silicon (PS). The pseudodielectric responses of the low and high current densities (5 and 40 mA/cm2) were analyzed using a multilayer model within the effective medium approximation. The FTIR investigation reveals me enhancement of surface oxide (Si-Ox) layer with current density and the improvement of the Si-Hx band after a-Si:H coating.

In the production of porous silicon (PS) to optoelectronic application one of the most significant constrains is the surface defects passivation. In the present work we investigate, gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) thin films deposited by rf magnetron sputtering at room temperature on PS obtained with different etching times. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis have been carried out to understand the effect of GZO films coating on PS. Further, the XRD analysis suggests the formation of a good crystalline quality of the GZO films on PS. From AFM investigation we observe that the surface roughness increases after GZO film coating. The photoluminescence (PL) measurements on PS and GZO films deposited PS shows three emission peaks at around 1.9 eV (red-band), 2.78 eV (blue-band) and 3.2 eV (UV-band). PL enhancement in the blue and ultraviolet (UV) region has been achieved after GZO films deposition, which might be originated from a contribution of the near-band-edge recombination from GZO. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We present the results obtained with an extended-gate ISFET totally based on amorphous oxides (GIZO as the semiconductor, +{\hbox{Ta}}-{2}{\hbox{O}}-{5}{\ hbox{:SiO}}-inf2-inf as the dielectric and +{\hbox{Ta}}-{2}{\hbox{O}}-inf5-inf as the sensitive layer). A full characterization of the device was performed with constant ionic strength pH buffer solutions, revealing a sensitivity of 40 mV/pH with small hysteresis, and good linearity in the pH 4-pH 10 range buffer solutions. These results clearly show that it is possible to produce room-temperature disposable and low cost bio-sensors. © 2005-2012 IEEE.

Abstract: The present work reports the synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles with hexagonal wurtzite structure considering a solvothermal method assisted by microwave radiation and using different solvents: water (H2O), 2-ethoxyethanol (ET) and ethylene glycol (EG). The structural characterization of the produced ZnO nanoparticles has been accessed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, room-temperature photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopies. Different morphologies have been obtained with the solvents tested. Both H2O and ET resulted in rods with high aspect ratio, while EG leads to flower-like structure. The UV absorption spectra showed peaks with an orange shift for synthesis with H2O and ET and blue shift for synthesis with EG. The different synthesized nanostructures were tested for photocatalyst applications, revealing that the ZnO nanoparticles produced with ET degrade faster the molecule used as model dye pollutant, i.e. methylene blue. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York

In this paper we present the effect of thickness on the electrical and optical properties of intrinsic/nondoped zinc oxide thin films deposited at room temperature by radio frequency magnetron sputtering, able to be used as a semiconductor material on electronic devices, like for example ozone gas sensors and ultraviolet detectors. These films are polycrystalline with a c-axis preferential orientation parallel to the substrate. The films present a resistivity that varies from 5.0 × 104 Ω cm to 1.0 × 109 Ω cm with an optical visible transmittance of 85%. The sensor response exceeds more than five orders of magnitude when exposed to UV light recovering to the initial state in the presence of ozone. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The present work reports the influence of zinc oxide (ZnO) seed layer annealing temperature on structural, optical and electrical properties of ZnO nanorod arrays, synthesized by hydrothermal method assisted by microwave radiation, to be used as UV sensors. The ZnO seed layer was produced using the spin-coating method and several annealing temperatures, ranging from 100 to 500 °C, have been tested. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and spectrophotometry measurements have been used to investigate the structure, morphology, and optical properties variations of the produced ZnO nanorod arrays regarding the seed layer annealing temperatures employed. After the growth of ZnO nanorod arrays, the whole structure was tested as UV sensors, showing an increase in the sensitivity with the increase of seed layer annealing temperature. The UV sensor response of ZnO nanorod arrays produced with the seed layer annealed temperature of 500 °C was 50 times superior to the ones produced with a seed layer annealed at 100 °C. © 2016 by the authors.

In this paper we present results of intrinsic/non doped zinc oxide films deposited at room temperature by rf magnetron sputtering able to be used as a truly semiconductor on electronic devices like ozone gas sensors and ultra-violet detectors. The produced films are polycrystalline with a c-axis preferential orientation parallel to the substrate. The films' resistivity varies from 4.0×10-2 Ωcm to 1.0×10-9 Ωcm, depending on the deposition conditions used (rf power density and oxygen partial pressure), which turns not affecting the optical properties (in average a transmittance of around 85 % and an optical band gap of about 3.44 eV, independent of the deposition conditions used). When exposed to UV light the sensor response based on these films may exceed more than 5 orders of magnitude, recovering to the initial state in the presence of ozone. The sensitivity of the films is improved when the oxygen partial pressure increases and the rf power density used decreases, due to changes on the structural properties of the films. © 2006 Materials Research Society.

In this paper we present results of intrinsic/non-doped zinc oxide deposited at room temperature by radio frequency magnetron sputtering able to be used as a semiconductor material on electronic devices, like for example ozone gas sensors, ultra-violet detectors and thin film transistors. These films present a resistivity as high as 2.5×108 Ω cm with an optical transmittance of 90%. Concerning the structural properties, these films are polycrystalline presenting a uniform and very smooth surface. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Doped and undoped a-Si:H and a-SiC:H films were deposited by R. F. decomposition of silane and silane/methane mixtures respectively, in a two consecutive (decomposition and deposition) chambers glow discharge capacitively coupled system. Their electro-optical properties were extensively investigated through dark conductivity, photoconductivity, spectral response, optical absorption, R. F. transmission spectra, electron spin ressonance and CxV MOS measurements.

The aim of this work is to present a spectroscopic ellipsometry study focused on the annealing time effect on nickel metal induced crystallization of amorphous silicon thin films. For this purpose silicon layers with 80 and 125 nm were used on the top of which a 0.5 nm Ni thick layer was deposited. The ellipsometry simulation using a Bruggemann Effective Medium Approximation shows that films with 80 nm reach a crystalline fraction of 72% after 1 h annealing, appearing to be full crystallized after 2 h. No significant structural improvement is detected for longer annealing times. On the 125 nm samples the crystalline volume fraction after 1 h is only around 7%, requiring 5 h to get a similar crystalline fraction than the one achieved with the thinner film. This means that the time required for full crystallization will be strongly determined by the Si layer thickness. Using a new fitting approach the Ni content within the films was also determined by SE and related to the silicon film thickness. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This work focuses on the role of the native oxide layer (SiO2) on the nickel (Ni)-assisted crystallization of amorphous silicon (a-Si). In some samples, the native oxide was removed using a HF-diluted solution before Ni layers with 0.5 nm be deposited on a-Si. The results show that the presence of a thin SiO2 layer of about 3 nm between the a-Si and the Ni delays the crystallization process. Ellipsometry data show that, after annealing for 5 h at 500 °C, the HF-cleaned sample presents a crystalline fraction of 88%, while the one with the native oxide has only 35%. This difference disappears after 20 h where both samples present similar crystalline fraction. These facts are also reflected on the film's electrical properties, where the activation energy for samples annealed for 5 h rises from 0.42 eV to 0.55 eV, when the oxide layer is removed. After 20 h and 30 h, the activation energy is around 0.55 eV for both kinds of samples, meaning that films with similar electrical properties are now obtained. However, the XRD data suggest the presence of some structural differences attributed to slight differences on the crystallization process. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper describes the development of a novel microfluidic platform for multifactorial analysis integrating four label-free detection methods: electrical impedance, refractometry, optical absorption and fluorescence. We present the rationale for the design and the details of the microfabrication of this multifactorial hybrid microfluidic chip. The structure of the platform consists of a three-dimensionally patterned polydimethylsiloxane top part attached to a bottom SU-8 epoxy-based negative photoresist part, where microelectrodes and optical fibers are incorporated to enable impedance and optical analysis. As a proof of concept, the chip functions have been tested and explored, enabling a diversity of applications: (i) impedance-based identification of the size of micro beads, as well as counting and distinguishing of erythrocytes by their volume or membrane properties; (ii) simultaneous determination of the refractive index and optical absorption properties of solutions; and (iii) fluorescence-based bead counting. © 2016 by the authors.

In this work hafnium oxide (HfO2) was deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering at room temperature and then annealed at 200 °C in forming gas (N2+H2) and oxygen atmospheres, respectively for 2, 5 and 10 h. After 2 h annealing in forming gas an improvement in the interface properties occurs with the associated flat band voltage changing from -2.23 to -1.28 V. This means a reduction in the oxide charge density from 1.33×1012 to 7.62×1011 cm-2. After 5 h annealing only the dielectric constant improves due to densification of the film. Finally, after 10 h annealing we notice a degradation of the electrical film's properties, with the flat band voltage and fixed charge density being -2.96 V and 1.64×1012 cm-2, respectively. Besides that, the leakage current also increases due to crystallization. On the other hand, by depositing the films at 200 °C or annealing it in an oxidizing atmosphere no improvements are observed when comparing these data to the ones obtained by annealing the films in forming gas. Here the flat band voltage is more negative and the hysteresis on the C-V plot is larger than the one recorded on films annealed in forming gas, meaning a degradation of the interfacial properties. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The search for new dielectric materials to be used in metal-insulator- semiconductor (MIS) structures to replace the silicon oxide (SiO2) has been growing up. The aim is to have materials with high dielectric constants that could allow the use of thicker films and so, to reduce the role of leakage currents that happens in devices using very thin SiO2 layers or to allow the MIS devices to support high currents, besides having a retain memory effect. In this work, we present data concerning the production of hafnium oxide (HfO2) thin films by radio frequency (rf) sputtering that present suitable characteristics to be used as a gate dielectric, taking advantage of its high dielectric constant and stoichiometry reached under certain deposition conditions. Data concerning the role of the deposition parameters in the films structure and in the electrical properties of the films produced using capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements will be shown, together with data concerning the degree of films' compactness measured by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this work Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (SE) was used to study metal induced crystallization (MIC) on amorphous silicon films in order to analyze the influence of different annealing conditions on their structural properties. The variation of the metal thickness has shown to be determinant on the time needed to full crystallize silicon films. Films of 100 nm thickness crystallize after 2h at 500°C using 1 nm of Ni deposited on it. When reducing the average metal thickness down to 0.05 nm the same silicon film will need almost 10 hours to be totally crystallized. Using a new approach on the modelling procedure of the SE data we show to be possible to determine the Ni remaining inside the crystallized films. The method consists in using Ni as reference on the Bruggeman Effective Medium Approximation (BEMA) layer that will simulated the optical response of the crystallized silicon. Silicon samples and metal layers with different thicknesses were analyzed and this new method has shown to be sensible to changes on the initial metal/silicon ratio. The nickel distribution inside the silicon layers was independently measured by Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS) to check the data obtained from the proposed approach. © 2006 Materials Research Society.

Silicon nitride films were produced on glass and crystalline silicon substrates using r.f. magnetron sputtering to select the best process conditions (substrate temperature, gas pressure and r.f. power) to grow dielectrics for device applications such as low temperature thin film transistors, where special care has to be taken concerning the film's compactness and bulk defects. The films produced were analysed by different techniques such as ultra violet - visible - near infrared spectroscopy Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy and capacitance measurements, aiming to correlate the films properties with its composition and degree of compactness. The role of the deposition pressure is notorious since films deposited at high pressures are more compact, presenting low oxygen incorporation after deposition. The increase of the substrate temperature up to 373 °K has the same effect, not changing the film's amorphous structure. These data will be discussed aiming to produce films with the required compactness and stoichiometry to grow very thin insulating layers (<10 nm) to be used in MIS structures or devices like thin film transistors.

In this work the electrical and structural properties of two high k materials as hafnium oxide (HfO2) and tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) produced at room temperature are exploited. Aiming low temperature processing two techniques were employed: r.f. sputtering and electron beam evaporation. The sputtered HfO2 films present a nanocrystalline structure when deposited at room temperature. The same does not happen for the evaporated films, which are essentially amorphous. The density and the electrical performance of both sputtered and evaporated films are improved after annealing them at 200 °C. On the other hand, the Ta2O5 samples deposited at room temperature are always amorphous, independently of the technique used. The density and electrical performance are not so sensitive to the annealing process. The set of data obtained show that these dielectrics processed at temperatures below 200 °C present promising properties aiming to produce devices at low temperature with improved interface properties and reduced leakage currents. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this work we have focused our attention on the role of the gas mixture (O2/Ar) used during HfO2 thin film processing by r.f. magnetron sputtering, to produce dielectrics with suitable characteristics to be used as gate dielectric. Increasing the O2/Ar ratio from 0 to 0.2, the films properties (optical gap, permittivity, resistivity and compactness) are improved. At these conditions, films with a band gap around 5 eV were produced, indicating a good stoichiometry. Also the flat band voltage has a reduction of almost three times indicating also a reduction of the same order on the fixed charge density at the semiconductor-insulator interface. The dielectric constant is around 16 which is very good, since the surface of the silicon where the HfO2 films were deposited contains a SiO 2 layer of about 3 nm that gives an effective dielectric constant above 20, close to the HfO2 stoichiometric value (∼25). Further increase on the O2/Ar ratio does not produce significant improvements. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The aim of this work is to optimize the metal/silicon ratio on nickel metal induced crystallization of silicon. For this purpose amorphous silicon layers with 80, 125 and 220 nm thick were used on the top of which 0.5 nm of Ni was deposited and annealed during the required time to full crystallize the a-Si. The data show that the 80 nm a-Si layer reaches a crystalline fraction of 95.7% (as detected by spectroscopic ellipsometry) after annealed for only 2 hours. No significant structural improvement is detected by ellipsometry neither by XRD when annealing the films for longer times. However, on 125 nm thick samples, after annealing for 2 hours the crystalline fraction is only 59.7%, reaching a similar value to the one with 80 nm only after 5 hours, with a crystalline fraction of 92.2%. Here again no significant improvements were achieved by using longer annealing times. Finally, the 220 nm thick a-Si sample is completely crystallized only after 10 hours annealing. These data clear suggest that the crystallization of thicker a-Si layers requires thicker Ni films to be effective for short annealing times. A direct dependence of the crystallization time on the metal/silicon ratio was observed and estimated. © 2005 Materials Research Society.

In this work, it is demonstrated the application of a high k dielectric, as hafnium oxide (HfO2), in poly-Si thin film transistors (TFTs) obtained by metal induced lateral crystallization (MILC). The dielectric layer was deposited at room temperature by sputtering, using argon and oxygen as process gases. As produced TFTs exhibit field effect mobility around 45 cm2 V-1 s-1and Ion/Ioff ratio of about 2 × 105. After annealing in a forming gas atmosphere for about 1 h at 200 °C, the threshold voltage and the sub-threshold slope are reduced, respectively from 4.8 to 2 V and from 1.6 to 1.4 V/dec. Nevertheless, by doing so, we notice a reduction on the field effect mobility of about 45% and a decrease of about 2.5 times on the Ion/Ioff ratio. Longer annealing time will not improve the TFT's performance. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this work, the optical and structural properties of high k materials such as tantalum oxide and titanium oxide were studied by spectroscopic ellipsometry, where a Tauc-Lorentz dispersion model based in one (amorphous films) or two oscillators (microcrystalline films) was used. The samples were deposited at room temperature by radio frequency magnetron sputtering and then annealed at temperatures from 100 to 500 °C. Concerning the tantalum oxide films, the increase of the annealing temperature, up to 500 °C does not change the amorphous nature of the films, increasing, however, their density. The same does not happen with the titanium oxide films that are microcrystalline, even when deposited at room temperature. Data concerning the use of a four-layer model based on one and two Tauc-Lorentz dispersions is also discussed, emphasizing its use for the detection of an amorphous incubation layer, normally present on microcrystalline films grown by sputtering. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.