Determination of optical and microstructural parameters of ceria films
Abstract
Light-matter interactions are of tremendous importance in a wide range of fields from solar energy conversion to photonics. Here the optical dispersion behavior of undoped and 20 mol. % Sm doped ceria thin films, both dense and porous, were evaluated by UV-Vis optical transmission measurements, with the objective of determining both intrinsic and microstructural properties of the films. Films, ranging from 14 to 2300 nm in thickness, were grown on single crystal YSZ(100) and MgO(100) using pulsed laser deposition (both dense and porous films) and chemical vapor deposition (porous films only). The transmittance spectra were analyzed using an in-house developed methodology combining full spectrum fitting and envelope treatment. The index of refraction of ceria was found to fall between 2.65 at a wavelength of 400 nm and 2.25 at 800 nm, typical of literature values, and was relatively unchanged by doping. Reliable determination of film thickness, porosity, and roughness was possible for films with thickness ranging from 500 to 2500 nm. Physically meaningful microstructural parameters were extracted even for films so thin as to show no interference fringes at all.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Institute of Physics. Received 30 March 2012; accepted 24 October 2012; published online 30 November 2012. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation under award CBET-038307. Additional support was provided by the Global Climate and Environment Program administered by Stanford University. Professor George Rossman kindly provided access to optical equipment and Professor Harry Atwater to XRR instrumentation in their respective laboratories. This work furthermore made use of facilities operated by the Geological and Planetary Sciences Division and by the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech.Attached Files
Published - JApplPhys_112_103535.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 36140
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20130103-094855552
- NSF
- CBET-038307
- Stanford Global Climate and Environment Program
- Created
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2013-01-09Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Kavli Nanoscience Institute