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    Patterning and control of the nanostructure in plasma thin films with acoustic waves: mechanical vs. electrical polarization effects
    (Cambridge : RSC Publ., 2021) García-Valenzuela, Aurelio; Fakhfouri, Armaghan; Oliva-Ramírez, Manuel; Rico-Gavira, Victor; Rojas, Teresa Cristina; Alvarez, Rafael; Menzel, Siegfried B.; Palmero, Alberto; Winkler, Andreas; González-Elipe, Agustín R.
    Nanostructuration and 2D patterning of thin films are common strategies to fabricate biomimetic surfaces and components for microfluidic, microelectronic or photonic applications. This work presents the fundamentals of a surface nanotechnology procedure for laterally tailoring the nanostructure and crystalline structure of thin films that are plasma deposited onto acoustically excited piezoelectric substrates. Using magnetron sputtering as plasma technique and TiO2 as case example, it is demonstrated that the deposited films depict a sub-millimetre 2D pattern that, characterized by large lateral differences in nanostructure, density (up to 50%), thickness, and physical properties between porous and dense zones, reproduces the wave features distribution of the generated acoustic waves (AW). Simulation modelling of the AW propagation and deposition experiments carried out without plasma and under alternative experimental conditions reveal that patterning is not driven by the collision of ad-species with mechanically excited lattice atoms of the substrate, but emerges from their interaction with plasma sheath ions locally accelerated by the AW-induced electrical polarization field developed at the substrate surface and growing film. The possibilities of the AW activation as a general approach for the tailored control of nanostructure, pattern size, and properties of thin films are demonstrated through the systematic variation of deposition conditions and the adjustment of AW operating parameters.
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    Mueller matrix imaging microscope using dual continuously rotating anisotropic mirrors
    (Washington, DC : Soc., 2021) Ruder, Alexander; Wright, Brandon; Feder, Rene; Kilic, Ufuk; Hilfiker, Matthew; Schubert, Eva; Herzinger, Craig M.; Schubert, Mathias
    We demonstrate calibration and operation of a Mueller matrix imaging microscope using dual continuously rotating anisotropic mirrors for polarization state generation and analysis. The mirrors contain highly spatially coherent nanostructure slanted columnar titanium thin films deposited onto optically thick titanium layers on quartz substrates. The first mirror acts as polarization state image generator and the second mirror acts as polarization state image detector. The instrument is calibrated using samples consisting of laterally homogeneous properties such as straight-through-air, a clear aperture linear polarizer, and a clear aperture linear retarder waveplate. Mueller matrix images are determined for spatially varying anisotropic samples consisting of a commercially available (Thorlabs) birefringent resolution target and a spatially patterned titanium slanted columnar thin film deposited onto a glass substrate. Calibration and operation are demonstrated at a single wavelength (530 nm) only, while, in principle, the instrument can operate regardless of wavelength. We refer to this imaging ellipsometry configuration as rotating-anisotropic-mirror-sample-rotating-anisotropic-mirror ellipsometry (RAM-S-RAM-E).