The disclosed invention includes articles having advantageous ceramic layers with a ceramic/metal intermediate layer that diminishes towards a pure metal core. Such articles have substantial use in unconventional, harsh environments.

The disclosed invention includes articles having advantageous ceramic layers with a ceramic/metal intermediate layer that diminishes towards a pure metal core. Such articles have substantial use in unconventional, harsh environments.

A capacitive element and a dielectric thin film having a small dielectric loss and a large relative permittivity, particularly at low frequencies. [Solution] This dielectric thin film includes an A-B—O—N oxynitride. When the A-B—O—N oxynitride is represented by the compositional formula A.sub.aB.sub.bO.sub.oN.sub.n, (o+n)/a<3.00 is satisfied.

A method of forming a semiconductor structure includes, in a radio frequency (RF) deposition chamber, depositing a titanium film using physical vapor deposition and forming a graded hard mask film by reactive sputtering the titanium film with nitrogen in the RF deposition chamber. The graded hard mask film is a titanium nitride film with a graded vertical concentration of nitrogen. The method may further include, during deposition of the titanium film and during formation of the graded hard mask film, modulating one or more parameters of the RF deposition chamber, such as modulating an auto capacitance tuner (ACT) current, modulating the RF power, and modulating the pressure of the RF deposition chamber.

A thin film deposition system and method for forming photovoltaic cells, the system including a first deposition module including a titanium sputtering target and configured to deposit a titanium precursor layer of a diffusion barrier on the substrate, as the substrate moves through the first deposition module; a second deposition module configured to deposit a first electrode onto the diffusion barrier, as the substrate moves through the second deposition module; and a first connection unit configured to nitride at least a portion of the titanium precursor layer of the diffusion barrier, while the substrate moves though the first connection unit from the first deposition module to the second deposition module.

A film formation apparatus includes: a chamber which an interior thereof can be made vacuum; a rotary table provided inside the chamber, holding a workpiece, and circulating and transporting the workpiece in a circular trajectory; a film formation unit including a target formed of film formation material and a plasma generator which turns sputtering gas introduced between the target and the rotary table into plasma, the film formation unit depositing by sputtering film formation material on the workpiece; a film processing unit processing the film deposited by the film formation unit on the workpiece; holding regions each holding the workpiece and provided in a circular film formation region facing the film formation unit and the film processing unit that is a region other than the rotation axis in the rotary table; and a heater provided in the holding regions.

A nanoporous metal can be formed by projecting laser patterns using a spatial light modulator (SLM) onto a gold/silver alloy film immersed in diluted nitric acid solutions. Heat accumulation induced by the photothermal effect enables localized dealloying in dilute nitric acid. NPG micropatterns can be formed at the irradiated spots while the surrounding alloy remains intact.

Embodiments of the present application provide a memristor electrode material preparation method and apparatus, and a memristor electrode material. The preparation method includes: depositing a metal nitride on a substrate by a reactive sputtering process to obtain a metal nitride substrate; and subjecting the metal nitride substrate to laser annealing treatment in a nitrogen-containing atmosphere to nitride an unreacted metal on the metal nitride substrate, so as to obtain a memristor electrode material.

Process for treatment by an ion beam of a glass material where: the acceleration voltage of the ions is between 5 kV and 1000 kV; the temperature of the glass material is less than or equal to the glass transition temperature; the dose of nitrogen (N) or oxygen (O) ions per unit of surface area is chosen within a range of between 10.sup.12 ions/cm.sup.2 and 10.sup.18 ions/cm.sup.2 so as to reduce the contact angle of a drop of water below 20; a prior pretreatment is carried out with argon (Ar), krypton (Kr) or xenon (Xe) ions in order to strengthen the durability of the superhydrophilic treatment. Superhydrophilic glass materials of long duration are thus advantageously obtained.

A nanoporous metal can be formed by projecting laser patterns using a spatial light modulator (SLM) onto a gold/silver alloy film immersed in diluted nitric acid solutions. Heat accumulation induced by the photothermal effect enables localized dealloying in dilute nitric acid. NPG micropatterns can be formed at the irradiated spots while the surrounding alloy remains intact.