VO2:Ge based thermochromic solar absorber coatings

Flat plate solar collectors face the problem of overheating and the ensuing high thermal stresses and general collector damage lead to high maintenance costs. To address this challenge, absorber coatings with a passive optical switch at critically high operating temperatures are proposed. The remarkable near-and mid-infrared spectral modulation of thermochromic VO2 makes it a promising material for smart selective absorbers with temperature dependent optical selectivity. Single VO2 films readily achieve thermal emittance modulations of 40% points (p.p.) at a phase transition temperature of 66 ?. With 5 at. % Ge added to the VO2 thin film, the transition temperature is increased to 82 ?. When VO2 and VO2:Ge films are combined with a selective CuCoMnOx layer and an SiO2 top layer, a thermal emittance modulation of 31 p.p. and 33 p.p. is retained, respectively. However, a simultaneous increase of the solar absorptance alpha sol by 7 p.p. and 5 p.p. limits the drop in collector efficiency at elevated temperatures. Simulations show that adding an absorber layer between the Al substrate and thermochromic VO2, decreasing solar absorptance over the phase transition is achieved. In line with these findings, a TiAlSiN//VO2-Ge//SiO multilayer is prepared. Below the phase transition temperature, the efficiency of the thermochromic collector is similar to that of standard collectors. At the transition temperature, alpha sol decreases from 0.93 to 0.91 and epsilon th increases from 0.08 to 0.24. Such a decrease in alpha sol accompanied by an increase in eth for increasing temperature has been achieved for the first time. The subsequent drop in selectivity, limits the maximum stagnation temperature of the thermochromic collector to 160 ?, 17 ? lower than for a standard collector in identical conditions. The absorber durability is confirmed through accelerated aging tests in dry and humid conditions alike.

Infrared Optical Properties of Doped and Pure Thermochromic Coatings for Solar Thermal Absorbers

Fabrice Thierry Demière, Anna Krammer, Josef Andreas Schuler

A new generation of solar collectors is based on thermochromic thin film technology, where the remarkable optical changes of vanadium dioxide, through its reversible semiconductor-to-metal phase transition, are exploited. This study reports on the infrared optical properties of VO2 based coatings deposited on Al substrates by reactive magnetron sputtering. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is used to determine the emittance of a VO2 coated sample before (ε = ~6%) and after (ε = ~33%) the phase transition. The angular dependence of the thermal emittance for such coating is investigated. It is found that the emittance increases with increasing the angle from normal incidence. In literature it is widely reported that the transition temperature of vanadium dioxide can be tuned by doping with different elements. An increase in the transition temperature is desired for solar thermal applications and it is reached with the addition of Ge into the VO2 matrix. Here we show that through Ge doping, the emittance switch, especially the emittance in the high temperature state, can be optimized as well. An increase of ~10% in emittance is recorded.

ISES2018

Pulsed laser deposition of (SrBa)Nb2O6 thin films and their properties

Anna Infortuna

Strontium barium niobate (SrxBa1-xNb2O6, shortly SBN) is a solid solution system with tetragonal tungsten bronze crystal structure. It exhibits a ferroelectric phase with only one polar axis and a transition temperature depending on the Sr/Ba ratio. This thesis studies the growth of SBN thin films, in order to obtain a ferroelectric thin film model system for the study of 180° domain switching close to the ferroelectric phase transition. SBN has been chosen not only because uniaxial, but because it is possible to tune the temperature of phase transition varying the Sr/Ba ratio. It is thus possible to study electric properties of the phase transition close to room temperature, where conduction phenomena related to defects are normally lower. Thin films of SBN were grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition in a vacuum system constructed during this thesis work. For the formulation of a model it is desirable to have a system as close as possible to a single crystal. Therefore deposition parameters have been optimized to grow SBN thin films with the polar axis oriented perpendicular to the film plane. The films are integrated in parallel plate capacitor structures, in order to measure dielectric properties. The stability of the ferroelectric phase is found to be sensitive to impurities; contaminants with concentration below 1% induce a lowering of the transition temperature of about 100°C. Strain as well has influence on the phase transition; in the case of substrate with thermal expansion coefficients different from the SBN ones, the SBN film is under stress. A 0.6% tensile strain induces a lowering of the transition temperature of about 100°C, this is the case of silicon single crystal substrate. Grown on strontium titanate single crystals (STO), whose thermo-mechanical properties are close to the one of SBN, the films exhibit a phase transition temperature compatible with the one measured on single crystals. The obtained films suffer from leakage that is reduced by thermal treatment in oxygen rich atmosphere. The oxygen vacancies, created during the deposition process, are considered to be responsible of leakage. Vacancies recovery upon annealing does not eliminate the problem, and measurement of polarization at room temperature is difficult. However, piezoelectric measurements performed on individual grains, with atomic force microscope, prove that these have ferroelectric properties; by these experiment has been proved that it is possible to switch the polarization. Films with a disordered structure of grains are much less leaky than the ones with columnar grains spanning the whole cross section. These observations lead to the conclusion that conduction goes trough the grain boundaries. On STO single crystals, SBN grows epitaxial in Volmer-Weber mode. With a suitable preparation of the substrate surface, it is possible to induce the growth of films with different orientations of the polar axis: in the film plane, perpendicular to it or inclined of 45°. A model is proposed, explaining the epitaxial relation with the substrate on the basis of the perovskite kernel contained in the unit cell of the tetragonal tungsten bronze structure. The film grows from the nucleation of the perovskite structure that rules the orientation of the film; the high temperature at which the substrate is kept during the deposition, assure the necessary mobility for the arriving atoms to organize in the SBN structure around these nuclei. The study of literature data allows to state that such a model is valid not only for substrates with perovskite structure, but can be extended to substrates with a cubic crystal structure, like magnesium oxide.

EPFL2005

Etude par microscopie électronique à transmission à haute résolution de l'élargissement thermique des parois de domaines ferroélectriques dans un système de premier ordre

The macroscopic properties of ferroelectric materials depend directly on the domain configuration and the structure of the domain boundaries. For this reason, their study is of great scientific and technological interest. Several models have been developed to describe the properties of domain walls (structure, thickness, stress at the interface, mobility, …). However, few quantitative experimental observations of ferroelectric domain walls at an atomic scale have been reported, and even less results exist at higher temperatures. The ferroelectric domain-wall thickness is an important parameter whose behavior as a function of temperature is directly related to the order of the phase transition. In a second-order system, the temperature dependence of the domain-wall thickness follows a power law L ~ (Tc - T)-ω where ω is the critical exponent characterizing the divergence of L near the critical temperature Tc The predictions concerning the numerical value of are different depending on the theoretical model considered. Nevertheless, the majority of ferroelectric materials are known to undergo a first-order transition. In these systems the domain-wall thickness increases when the transition temperature is approached, but without diverging as for a second-order phase transition. The major objective of this work was to measure this broadening predicted by the theory for the first time at the approach of the phase transition temperature. We have shown that high resolution transmission electron microscopy is powerful technique for the study of ferroelectric domain walls not only at room temperature but also at higher temperatures. This method allows a direct and local observation of interfaces at an atomic scale which is a considerable advantage over diffraction techniques (X-ray, neutron, electron) and most of the other electron microscopy methods. However, the requirements of this method concerning the performance of the optical system of the microscope, the quality of the specimen and its stability in the column are very high, and today high resolution microscopy at high temperature remains a major challenge. The domain-wall thickness is obtained from the measurement of the crystal lattice distortion near the interface using two different numerical techniques of image analysis. The first method is based on the accurate determination of the center of bright peaks which appear on high resolution images for a judicious choice of the experimental parameters (delocalization and crystal thickness) and which represent the crystal lattice nodes. The second technique consists in selecting a circular region of the power spectrum around a reflection peak, centering the Fourier space on this reflection and performing the inverse Fourier transform. The information about the local displacement of atomic planes corresponding to the selected reflection is extracted form the phase component of the obtained complex image. Both techniques have been successfully applied to the measurement of the thickness of the 90° ferroelectric domain walls in PbTiO3 single crystals. This perovskite presents a first order phase transition at Tc = 492.2°C. which corresponds to the transformation of the crystal from the high-temperature paraelectric cubic phase to the low-temperature ferroelectric tetragonal phase. For the first time, the thermal broadening of domain walls has been measured quantitatively using HRTEM. The results are compared with the predictions made by phenomenological theories. We find that the domain wall thickness increases continuously from 0.7 nm at room temperature up to 5.5 nm near the transition temperature. Our results are consistent with those obtained by other authors at room temperature and those of a very recent study performed at higher temperatures using weak-beam microscopy. The measured domain-wall broadening is greater than the one predicted by a three-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau model where the polarization which is the primary order parameter is coupled to the elastic strain which plays the role of secondary order parameter. Our results are better described by a one-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau model without secondary order parameter. In this case the gradient coupling coefficient κ of the Ginzburg-Landau free energy is found to be 1.3 · 10-10 m3F-1. The methods developed for the measurement of the domain-wall thickness can by applied not only to other first-order ferroelectric crystals but also to ferroelectric systems presenting a second-order phase transition thus allowing the determination of the critical exponent ω. Characteristics only present in 2-D systems could also be detected by studying very thin specimens. Moreover, the same techniques can be adapted to the study of domain walls in purely ferroelastic materials.

EPFL2000

Etude par microscopie électronique à transmission à haute résolution de l'élargissement thermique des parois de domaines ferroélectriques dans un système de premier ordre

EPFL2000

Pulsed laser deposition of (SrBa)Nb2O6 thin films and their properties

Anna Infortuna

EPFL2005