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The purpose of this research is to explore the properties of CoSe nanostructured thin films on glass substrates prepared by a chemical solution deposition method. Special attention is given to study the effects of precursor concentrations (Cobalt(II) acetate, Ammonia and Sodium Selenosulphite), fixing the Co:Se concentration ratio, on the grainy structure and optical properties of the resulting thin films. The structural, chemical composition and morphological characteristics were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The optical properties were determined by UV–visible spectroscopy determining the optical band gap energy (Eg). According to these results, the average particle diameter was decreased from 119 to 42 nm as the precursor salt concentration was decreased from 0.3 to 0.1 M, being the bigger nanoparticles more spherical. With the reduction of the particle size, a blue shift in the absorption peaks of the UV–visible spectra and an increment of their optical band gap energy (from 1.8 to 3.6 eV) occurred due to confinement effects.

The characterization of ion beam current density distribution and beam uniformity is crucial for improving broad-beam ion source technologies. The design of the broad ion beam extraction system directly affects these two parameters, therefore, depending on the application, the design and geometry of the source is changed. In this study, the effect of the presence or the absence of a neutralization process on the ion beam density was investigated. Also, the effect of the probe bias on the ion beam current measurement was evaluated. Eventually, using a flat probe, the ion beam profiles obtained from the extraction system of the ion source (Model RFIS 60, ACECR, Iran) were measured at energies from 300 eV to 1000 eV and compared in terms of current and uniformity of the ion beam in the absence of the neutralizer. In these experiments, screen and accelerator grids with different geometries (flat and convex grids) were used for comparison purposes. According to the obtained results, the flat grids generate a higher current density while the convex grids generate a more uniform beam. Therefore, each of these grid geometries can be suitable depending on the desired application.

The aim of this research is to fabricate Ag nanoparticle assemblies forming nanolayers with different thicknesses in order to evaluate their physical properties and their 3-D (three-dimensional) surface micromorphology. Such Ag nanolayers were deposited by physical vapor deposition methods under ion-beam irradiation in argon atmosphere at room temperature. X-ray diffraction (XRD) characterizations confirmed the formation of silver nanocrystals. Using surface field parameters, which were derived from atomic force microscopy (AFM) analysis, the surface morphology of the nanolayers were described according ISO 25178-2:2012. The height and slope distribution functions, together with the autocorrelation (ACF), the height–height correlation (HHCF) and the power spectral density (PSDF) functions were determined for the different analyzed samples using linear interpolation in the horizontal direction. All samples had a fractal character with a fractal dimension of 2.54 ± 0.01 independent of the film thickness.

Nanocomposite thin films made of partially oxidized Cu nanoparticles embedded into hydrogenated amorphous carbon, with different thicknesses and Cu/C ratio, were prepared by means of radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and radio frequency sputtering using acetylene gas and copper target. The surface roughness was investigated using atomic force microscopy, revealing the fractal geometry of the Cu/carbon thin films at the nanoscale with fractal dimensions around 2.7. In addition, the electrical properties of these films and their dependence on the application of low magnetic fields were explored at room temperature. It was found that when the Cu nanoparticles are separated by gaps, the electrical conduction is governed by tunneling effects. In these conditions, the samples exhibit negative magnetoresistance values, displaying steps in the dependences on the magnetic field. These properties suggest the potential use of these films as magnetic sensors in spintronics.

Thin films of Ag/Cu were deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering on (001)-oriented Si and glass substrates for various deposition times (4–24 min). These films were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), and a power law scaling was performed on the obtained micrographs to investigate the self-affine nature of the sample morphology, which is indicative of a fractal structure. We applied the Higuchi’s algorithm to the AFM data to determine the fractal dimension of each sample, and the Hurst exponents were computed. The deposition time dependences of these parameters and the grain size distributions estimated from the UV–visible spectra using the Mie theory, allowed us to describe a particle formation mechanism during the deposition process, in which the length of continuous paths of conductive particles increases as the deposition time is increased. In agreement with this explanation, the electrical resistance decreased with the increment of the deposition time.