Resumo O objetivo deste trabalho foi investigar as propriedades magnéticas e a dependência da condutividade elétrica com a temperatura associada ao modelo de barreiras de potencial entre os cristalitos. A cerâmica de espinélio de gálio e magnésio possui baixa coercividade magnética e alta resistividade elétrica. As amostras de MgGa2-xFexO4 (x= 0,01, 0,05, 0,15, 0,25, 0,35) foram preparadas pelo método de estado sólido e sinterizada a 800 °C durante 8 h. A análise de difração de raio X confirmou a formação de única fase com estrutura de espinélio cúbico compacto. As medições magnéticas mostraram que a magnetização de saturação e remanescência de todas as amostras aumentaram com a concentração de ferro. O campo coercitivo diminuiu até a concentração x= 0,15 e acima de x= 0,25 observou-se um aumento no campo coercivo. Através da caracterização eléctrica verificou-se que as amostras apresentaram comportamento isolante para x= 0,01 e acima de x= 0,15 observou-se um comportamento semicondutor compatível com o modelo de barreira de potencial entre cristalitos, ou seja, preenche a condição de L/2 > LD (tamanho de cristalito L em comparação com o comprimento de Debye) e a condução é limitada por barreiras de potencial entre os cristalitos.

Abstract The aim of this work was to investigate the magnetic properties and the electrical conductivity temperature dependence associated to the potential barrier between the crystallites model. Gallium and magnesium containing spinel ceramic has low magnetic coercivity and high electrical resistivity. MgGa2-xFexO4 samples (x= 0.01, 0.05, 0.15, 0.25, 0.35) were prepared by solid-state method and sintered at 800 °C for 8 h. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the formation of a single phase with compact cubic spinel structure. The magnetic measurements show that the saturation magnetization and remanence of all samples increased with increasing iron concentration. The coercive field decreased up to the concentration x= 0.15, and above x= 0.25 it was observed an increase in the coercive field. Through electrical characterization it was found that the samples presented highly insulating behavior for x= 0.01, and further increase in x above 0.15 gives a semiconductor behavior compatible with the potential barrier between the crystallites model, i.e. fulfills the condition L/2 > LD (crystallite size L in comparison with the Debye length LD), and the conduction is limited by potential barriers between the crystallites.

We investigated the effect of adding the field-dependent recombination process, namely field-enhanced trapping, to the generation-recombination processes of charge carriers that model current oscillations in semiconductors. The main new features arising from this modification are identified in bifurcation diagrams with the electric field as the control parameter. The characteristic of the bifurcation diagrams is a function of impurity energy. Thus, we generated a set of bifurcation diagrams for a range of the impurity energy and applied bias. The energy dependence of the bifurcation diagrams is discussed considering the context of the competition between the generation-recombination mechanisms impact ionization and field-enhanced trapping.

We present an experimental study of bifurcation diagrams from low frequency current oscillations (LFO) measurements obtained from semi-insulating GaAs samples grown by low temperature molecular beam Epitaxy (LT-MBE). The considered growth temperatures were 215ºC and 265ºC. LFO are considered to be spontaneously generated oscillations under constant applied bias V. These oscillations were measurement and recorded in the form of time series. The bifurcation diagrams were obtained from the sequence of minima as a function of the applied bias. The standard measurement procedure was described elsewhere. As the control parameter, the bias allows the identification of a bifurcation route to chaos.

Electric transport properties measured by Van der Pauw resistivity experiments of Low-Temperature Molecular Beam Epitaxy (LT-MBE) GaAs samples are used to identify a method to improve the resistivity of GaAs material. We present results on five samples grown at 265, 310, 315, 325, and 345 ºC. The electric measurements were carried out at temperatures ranging from 130 to 300 K. In this temperature range the dominant transport process is identified as variable range hopping. The hopping parameter plotted against the growth temperature is shown to present a maximum. The mechanisms responsible for this behavior are discussed in relation to the compensation ratio.

Polyaniline (PANI) and their charge transfer complexes are engineering materials that continue to attract considerable attention from engineers due to their unique electrochemical behavior, environmental stability and high degree of processability. Extensive works on the preparation of electrically conductive PANI blends containing a polymeric matrix having desirable physical and good mechanical characteristics have pointed as a promising route to overcome the PANI intractabilities. This paper reports the electrical properties of the dichromated PANI/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PANI:Cr3+/PVA) blends. Doped polyaniline powder in the emeraldine base form was synthesized by the classical chemical oxidation of aniline with ammonium persulfate as the oxidant in the presence of chromium (Cr3+). The SEM (Phillips XL 30) was used to understand the changes occurring in the conductivity to a microstructure level. The distribution of PANI:Cr3+ (50% w/w) in the host polymer (PVA) show some tendency to occur in "flocculated structures". The samples were cut into circular shapes to form films about 500 microns thick. Electrical contacts were made by sputtering gold over sample surfaces. We have carried out impedance spectroscopy measurements in the range of 20Hz to 1MHz. Measurements carried at 100K and 250K indicates that thermally activated carrier process between PANI:Cr3+ grains in the PANI:Cr3+/PVA blend sample are responsible for its high temperature conductivity.

We have observed Low Frequency Oscillations (LFO) in a GaAs sample grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) at 300 °C as a function of applied electric field, temperature and illumination intensity. Time series of the oscillations for different values of the applied electric field at room temperature were obtained. We have also obtained the jxE characteristics as a function of temperature and light intensity. We were able to control the LFO using three experimental parameters, the electrical field, which controls the oscillation frequency, and the temperature and illumination intensity, which control the carrier density and field-enhanced trapping. We were able to identify the LFO dependence on the carrier density and on the field-enhanced trapping.