Toh-Ming Lu

Terahertz optical rectification from a nonlinear organic crystal

We report optical rectification and subsequent generation of subpicosecond submillimeter‐wave radiation from a nonlinear organic crystalline salt. With optical excitation at a wavelength of 820 nm and a 150 fs pulse duration, the magnitude of the rectified field from the organic salt dimethyl amino 4‐N‐methylstilbazolium tosylate is one and two orders of magnitude larger than that from GaAs and LiTaO3 crystals, respectively. This organic crystal presently provides the most intense terahertz radiated field among all of the natural nonexternally biased materials we know.

Designing nanostructures by glancing angle deposition

Three-dimensional nanostructures can be fabricated by the glancing angle deposition technique. By rotating the substrate in both polar and azimuthal directions, one can fabricate desired nanostructures, such as nano-rod arrays with different shapes, nano-spring arrays, and even multilayer nanostructures. This method offers a fully three-dimensional control of the nanostructure with additional capability of self-alignment. There is almost no limitation on materials that can be fabricated into desired nanostructures. In this presentation, we will discuss the current status of the glancing angle deposition technology, its potential applications, and its future challenges.

Diffraction from rough surfaces and dynamic growth fronts

Designed both for experimentalists who study rough surfaces and the dynamics of thin film growth using diffraction techniques and for theorists who wish to learn of such rough surfaces and dynamic behavior in Fourier space, this monograph quickly brings the readers to forefront research in the area of the dynamics of interface growth. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as those readers who have very little prior knowledge of diffraction can pick up the subject matter with little difficulty.This monograph gives a brief review and summary at the end of each chapter. After the introduction of the elementary theory of diffraction in Chapter I, Chapter II discusses the various parameters and correlation functions that are essential in describing a rough surface. In Chapter III, the authors not only show analytical forms of the diffraction structure factor for both rough crystalline and non-crystalline surfaces, but also outline the methods of extracting the interface width, the lateral correlation length and the roughness parameter from the diffraction structure factor. To present the basic physical concepts underlying the scaling hypothesis during dynamic growth, in Chapter IV, a detailed description of the dynamic scaling properties of the height-height correlation function, the height difference function and the structure factor is given. The structure factor from a dynamic growth front is derived in Chapter V. An example of a quantitative measurement of the dynamic growth front of an epitaxial system is also given in this chapter. In Chapter VI, a particular type of rough surfaces having a diverging interface width associated with an equilibrium surface roughening transition is discussed. A comparison of the diffraction characteristics from divergent and non-divergent interface is also summarized.

Diffraction from surfaces with randomly distributed steps

Abstract A closed-form solution is obtained for the angular distribution of intensity in diffraction from a surface on which the terrace size distribution is given by the geometric distribution, i.e. a surface in which the occurrence of steps is random. Several distributions of step heights that are integral multiples of the monatomic step height are considered. It is shown that a random occurrence of monatomic steps will cause some multiatomic steps. If a very broad distribution of step heights is assumed, the beam width no longer oscillates with energy but approaches a constant value except at the characteristic energies of zero width. Comparisons are made with a previous model and with measurements on GaAs(110).

Defect-Induced Photoluminescence in Monolayer Semiconducting Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

It is well established that defects strongly influence properties in two-dimensional materials. For graphene, atomic defects activate the Raman-active centrosymmetric A1g ring-breathing mode known as the D-peak. The relative intensity of this D-peak compared to the G-band peak is the most widely accepted measure of the quality of graphene films. However, no such metric exists for monolayer semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides such as WS2 or MoS2. Here we intentionally create atomic-scale defects in the hexagonal lattice of pristine WS2 and MoS2 monolayers using plasma treatments and study the evolution of their Raman and photoluminescence spectra. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy confirms plasma-induced creation of atomic-scale point defects in the monolayer sheets. We find that while the Raman spectra of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (at 532 nm excitation) are insensitive to defects, their photoluminescence reveals a distinct defect-related spectral feature located ∼0.1 eV below the neutral free A-exciton peak. This peak originates from defect-bound neutral excitons and intensifies as the two-dimensional (2D) sheet is made more defective. This spectral feature is observable in air under ambient conditions (room temperature and atmospheric pressure), which allows for a relatively simple way to determine the defectiveness of 2D semiconducting nanosheets. Controlled defect creation could also enable tailoring of the optical properties of these materials in optoelectronic device applications.

β-phase tungsten nanorod formation by oblique-angle sputter deposition

We report the creation of an unusual simple cubic β-phase W(100) nanorods with a pyramidal tip having four (110) facets using an oblique-angle sputter deposition technique with substrate rotation (also known as glancing-angle deposition). During the oblique-angle deposition, both β-phase W(100) and α-phase W(110) islands exist at the initial stages of growth. The β-phase W(100) islands grow taller due to the lower adatom mobility on these islands. The taller islands survive in the competition and form isolated nanorods in the later stages of growth. This is in contrast to the sputter deposition at normal incidence, where only the thermodynamically stable bcc α-phase W(110) polycrystalline films were formed when the film grows to a certain thickness.

Functionally Strain-Graded Nanoscoops for High Power Li-Ion Battery Anodes

Lithium-ion batteries show poor performance for high power applications involving ultrafast charging/discharging rates. Here we report a functionally strain-graded carbon-aluminum-silicon anode architecture that overcomes this drawback. It consists of an array of nanostructures each comprising an amorphous carbon nanorod with an intermediate layer of aluminum that is finally capped by a silicon nanoscoop on the very top. The gradation in strain arises from graded levels of volumetric expansion in these three materials on alloying with lithium. The introduction of aluminum as an intermediate layer enables the gradual transition of strain from carbon to silicon, thereby minimizing the mismatch at interfaces between differentially strained materials and enabling stable operation of the electrode under high-rate charge/discharge conditions. At an accelerated current density of ∼51.2 A/g (i.e., charge/discharge rate of ∼40C), the strain-graded carbon-aluminum-silicon nanoscoop anode provides average capacities of ∼412 mAh/g with a power output of ∼100 kW/kg(electrode) continuously over 100 charge/discharge cycles.

Deposition of amorphous fluoropolymer thin films by thermolysis of Teflon amorphous fluoropolymer

Thin films (0.3–5 μm) of an amorphous fluoropolymer (AF) derived from the copolymeric material Teflon AF 1600 were deposited on Si (100) wafers by vacuum pyrolysis. Infrared spectroscopy indicated that the composition of the deposited films was similar to the source material. The deposited films were amorphous by x‐ray diffraction. The surface morphology contained micropores which did not extend through films deposited at a low rate. The refractive index was ∼1.2 at 633 nm. Comparisons are made to films derived from ordinary Teflon (also by pyrolysis). The mechanism for the repolymerization of the Teflon AF copolymer at the substrate surface is discussed.

Electric field directed self-assembly of cuprous oxide nanostructures for photon sensing.

We demonstrate a novel chemical-free water-based technique to synthesize various forms of cuprous oxide nanostructures at room temperature. The self-assemblies of these nanostructures are formed by the anodic oxidation of Cu in deionized (DI) water. Direct growth of these nanostructures on SiO(2)/Si (100) substrate has been successfully achieved by tuning the bias voltage and the growth duration. A variety of nanostructures from one-dimensional nanowires to different complex two- and three-dimensional structures are successfully grown by this method. We show that the morphological evolution in the self-assembly of the structures strongly depends on the spatial electric field distribution on the substrate. Furthermore, the electrical devices made from these nanowire networks exhibit promising photon sensing characteristics under white light illumination and can be exploited for future applications in photodetection and photovoltaic studies at the nanoscale level.

Metal-coated Si springs: Nanoelectromechanical actuators

We demonstrated a nanoscale electromechanical actuator operation using an isolated nanoscale spring. The four-turn Si nanosprings were grown using the oblique angle deposition technique with substrate rotation, and were rendered conductive by coating with a 10-nm-thick Co layer using chemical vapor deposition. The electromechanical actuation of a nanospring was performed by passing through a dc current using a conductive atomic force microscope (AFM) tip. The electromagnetic force leads to spring compression, which is measured with the same AFM tip. The spring constant was determined from these measurements and was consistent with that obtained from a finite element analysis.