A deformation sensing technique with a multimode plastic optical fibre based on intensity speckle patterns’ correlation coefficient measurement has been presented. Influence of the average speckle size on results of deformation measuring has been studied and discussed. The presented sensing technique provides a good linear response to the applied deformation in a relatively wide operation region. It is shown that the proposed technique is highly sensitive, low-cost and simple to implement in practice.
Photofield emission from SiGe nanoislands formed by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) have been investigated. Two types of nanoislands, namely the domes and pyramids with different heights, have been addressed. It was found that the arrays of SiGe nanoislands exhibited a low onset voltage for field emission. The increase of emission current and the decrease of the curve slope in Fowler-Nordheim coordinates under green light illumination have been revealed. Electron field emission and photoemission from SiGe nanoislands have been explained based on the energy band diagram of Si-Ge heterostructure and some energy barriers have been determined.
Evolution of many high technologies such as microelectronics, microsystem technology and nanotechnology involves design, application and testing of technical structures, whose size is being decreased continuously. Scanning probe microscopes (SPM) are therefore increasingly used as diagnostic and measurement instruments. Consequently the demand for standardized calibration routines for this kind of equipment rises. Up to now, there has been no in generally accepted guideline on how to perform SPM calibration procedure. In this article we discuss calibration scheme and focus on several critical aspects of SPM characterization e.g. the determination of the static and dynamic physical properties of the cantilever, the influence factors which need to be considered when plotting a scheme for the calibration of the force and displacement sensitivity.