High-permittivity dielectric NiO-based ceramics co-doped with Li and Al (LANO) have been prepared by a traditional solid-state synthesis. Analyses of the ceramic microstructure and composition indicate that Al ions are distributed in grain boundaries, and that uniform boundaries indexed as NiAl2O4 surround the grains. The concentration of Al has a remarkable effect on the dielectric properties of the LANO ceramics. The dielectric constant remains almost constant (∼104–105) at low frequency and has a steplike decrease toward higher frequencies. The high-dielectric-constant response of the LANO ceramics is mainly enhanced by Maxwell–Wagner polarization.

In this paper, we demonstrate high optical quantum efficiency (90%) resonant-cavity-enhanced mid-infrared photodetectors fabricated monolithically on a silicon platform. High quality photoconductive polycrystalline PbTe film is thermally evaporated, oxygen-sensitized at room temperature and acts as the infrared absorber. The cavity-enhanced detector operates in the critical coupling regime and shows a peak responsivity of 100 V/W at the resonant wavelength of 3.5 microm, 13.4 times higher compared to blanket PbTe film of the same thickness. Detectivity as high as 0.72 x 10(9) cmHz(1/2)W(-1) has been measured, comparable with commercial polycrystalline mid-infrared photodetectors. As low temperature processing (< 160 degrees C) is implemented in the entire fabrication process, our detector is promising for monolithic integration with Si readout integrated circuits.

In this paper, we present experimental demonstration of a resonant-cavity-enhanced mid-infrared photodetector monolithically fabricated on a silicon substrate. Dual-band detection at 1.6 lm and 3.7 lm is achieved within a single detector pixel without cryogenic cooling, by using thermally evaporated nanocrystalline PbTe as the photoconductive absorbers. Excellent agreement between theory and experiment is confirmed. The pixel design can potentially be further extended to realizing multispectral detection. V

We experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, propagation loss reduction via graded-index (GRIN) cladding layers in high-index-contrast (HIC) glass waveguides. We show that scattering loss arising from sidewall roughness can be significantly reduced without compromising the high-index-contrast condition, by inserting thin GRIN cladding layers with refractive indices intermediate between the core and topmost cover of a strip waveguide. Loss as low as 1.5 dB/cm is achieved in small core (1.6 mum x 0.35 mum), high-index-contrast (Deltan = 1.37) arsenic-based sulfide strip waveguides. This GRIN cladding design is generally applicable to HIC waveguide systems such as Si/SiO2.

The dielectric properties of Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) ‐based composites incorporating silver particles prepared by sintering at a low temperature of ∼900°C are reported. The dielectric constant increases with the amount of metal silver particles in the measured frequency range (150 Hz to 1 MHz), and could be enhanced up to ∼20 times higher than that of pure NBT ceramics, which was ascribed to the effective electric fields developed between the dispersed particles in the matrix and the percolation effect. Further investigation revealed that the dielectric constant of the composites has weak frequency and temperature dependence (−50°C to +50°C).