In our previous paper, we proposed a new morphological operation called ordered greyscale erosion, where the structuring element has three greyscale levels of (0, α, 1), and the choice of α must meet some conditions. In this paper, the area-encoding technique is used to code the structuring element so that the restriction to α is reduced. The corresponding optical setup is suggested, and the experimental results are also given.

We examined the impact that the electrode/(Ba,Sr)TiO3 (BST) interface structures have on electric properties by investigating the electrical conduction mechanism of the BST thin-film capacitors with Pt and Au top electrodes. The BST thin films were prepared on the Pt bottom electrode/glazed Al2O3 substrate by chemical solution deposition (CSD). The dielectric property of the as-deposited Pt/BST/Pt capacitor had a large frequency dispersion and the leakage current properties deteriorated because the Pt top electrode/BST interface structure is rough. However, by post-annealing for 30 min at 400 °C after the top electrode was deposited, the frequency and temperature properties improved. The Schottky barrier height at the Pt top electrode/BST interface was 1.03 eV and that at the Au/BST interface was 0.73 eV, which indicated that its electrical conduction mechanism depends on the Schottky emission model. The dielectric constant, tan δ, and tunability of the Au/BST/Pt capacitor are 200, 0.0178, and 53.7% (at 214 kV/cm, 6.0 V), respectively, which showed excellent dielectric properties. This suggests that high-quality BST films for application to tunable microwave devices can be formed on a very inexpensive glazed Al2O3 substrate.

The conduction mechanisms of Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin-film capacitors with Pt bottom electrodes and Pt, IrO2 and SrRuO3 (SRO) top electrodes were investigated. In the case of SRO top electrode prepared by pulsed laser deposition, the Schottky barrier was not formed at the interface due to the interdiffusion and the space-charge-limited current with a trap energy of 2.1 eV was dominant. On the other hand, for the Pt and IrO2 top electrodes prepared by sputtering, the capacitors showed the Schottky emission current at low electric field and the Fowler-Nordheim current at a high electric field. The Schottky barrier heights for Pt/PZT and IrO2/PZT interfaces were estimated to be 0.93 and 0.67 eV, respectively. An ultra thin alteration layer between the Pt top electrodes and PZT films seems to degrade the barrier height of the Pt/PZT interface. Furthermore, the Pt/PZT/Pt capacitor showed negative resistance at room temperature. We concluded that the potential well formed near the top interface by band bending is the origin of this negative resistance.

The preparation of (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O 3 (PLZT) films has been widely investigated because of the expectation for their application to high-performance optical devices. We prepared PLZT films on sapphire substrates by a newly developed modified sol-gel process with methanol, and the crystalline and optical evaluations of the films were performed in detail. In particular, relationships between the modified process and crystallinity were discussed. The crystalline orientation of the films obtained by our modified process was noticeably improved without enlargement of grain size. Thus, optical loss in the films also decreased by 15% using the modified process. In order to investigate crystal growth using the modified process, the observation of the surface state of sapphire by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was performed. The Al 2p on the XPS profile from the surface of the sapphire substrate was removed by surface treatment. It was found that the surface modification with organic molecules was caused by the methanol process. From the results, the effectiveness of modification treatments for the preparation of high-quality PLZT films was revealed.