Transport properties including conductivity and magnetoconductance have been measured for amorphous nickel-silicon films. This study focuses on metallic amorphous a-Ni x Si 1−x films, located just above the metal-insulator transition (MIT). Using various techniques, the MIT was identified. Electron-electron interactions dominated the conductivity, where σ ≈ σ (0) + CT 0.55. Strong spin-orbit scattering was important in the weak-localization contribution to the magnetoconductance data for the metallic films. The inelastic scattering time was extracted from the magnetoconductance data. The low-temperature magnetoconductance data versus Ni content x exhibited a negative maximum just above the critical concentration x c , suggesting another technique for identifying the MIT.
In many areas of research the measured spectra consist of a collection of "peaks"--the sought-for signals--which sit on top of an unknown background. The subtraction of the background in a spectrum has been the subject of many investigations and different techniques, varying from filtering to fitting polynomial functions, have been developed. These techniques yield results that are not always satisfactory and often even misleading. Based upon the rules of probability theory, we derive a formalism to separate the background from the signal part of a spectrum in a rigorous and self-consistent manner. We compare the results of the probabilistic approach to those obtained by two commonly used methods in an analysis of particle induced x-ray emission spectra.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.