Aiming to bind molecules without O-containing groups such as the –OH or –COOH functional groups, a new two-step method involving thermal activation and followed by an in situ chemical reaction was suggested, and the binding of the pyridine molecule on TiO2 nanocrystalline films was realized. UV-Vis, FTIR, and XPS characterizations revealed that pyridine molecules are chemically linked to the TiO2 surface by forming Ti-pyridine bonds. Mott-Schottky measurements indicated that the binding of pyridine results in a positive shift of the flat band potential for TiO2 nanocrystalline film, which is attributed to the alternating surface dipole moment of TiO2 nanocrystals upon pyridine binding. Electrochemical and photoelectrochemical investigations indicated that the binding of pyridine on TiO2 nanocrystalline film has high electrochemical and photoelectrochemical stability.

Multi-junction thin-film devices have emerged as very promising PV materials due to reduced cost, manufacturing ease, efficiency and long term performance. The consequent growing interest of the PV community has lead to the development of new methods for the correction of indoor measurements to standard test conditions (STC), as presented in this paper. The experimental setup for spectral response measurement of multi-junction large-area thin-film modules is presented. A method for reliable corrections of indoor current-voltage characterization to STC is presented: results are compared with outdoor measurements where irradiance conditions are close to standard ones, highlighting ongoing challenges in standard characterization of such devices.

We have proposed, fabricated and tested a novel structure of Field-Effect Transistor (FET) combined with carbon nanotubes (CNT) to control the process of electrolysis. Our proposed device includes a conventional n-channel MOSFET, with a selective growth of carbon nanotubes in its drain region. MOSFET is made according to standard NMOS fabrication flow chart utilizing the advantage of a self-aligned process. The CNT growth is carried out in plasma and at a high temperature environment, so a thick layer of chromium (200nm) was deposited on the whole structure as a passivating layer to overcome MOSFET degradation caused by dopant escape. Afterward we deposited and patterned a thin layer of nickel (10nm) as the catalyst of CNT growth. The CNTs are grown in a DC-PECVD system. Following this step, we etched away the chromium layer completely. After the growth, the transistors needed an annealing treatment in Argon chamber at 500°C for 5 hours to retrieve their electrical behavior. We believe this happens because the atomic hydrogen can pass through the chromium layer and passivate the impurities and annealing in Argon chamber give them enough energy to leave the silicon.

In this structure, the CNT collection is used as one-side electrode of electrolysis and the MOSFET acts as the current controller. We tested the structure to electrolyze a one molar mixture of water and salt and observed well-controlled current-voltage characteristics.

Light element complex hydrides (e.g. NaBH4) together with metal hydrides (e.g. MgH2) are considered two primary classes of solid state hydrogen storage materials. In spite of drawbacks such as unfavourable thermodynamics and poor kinetics, enhancements may occur in reactive hydride composites by nanostructuring of reactant phases and formation of more stable product phases (e.g. MgB2) which lower overall reaction enthalpy and allow reversibility. One potential system is based on mixing NaBH4 and MgH2 and subsequent ball milling, which in a 2:1 molar ratio can store considerable amounts of hydrogen by weight (up to 7.8 wt%). A study of the 2NaBX4 + MgX2 → MgB2 + 2NaX + 4X2 (X=D,H) reaction is assessed by means of in-situ neutron diffraction with different combinations of hydrogen and deuterium on the X position. The desorption is established to begin at temperatures as low as 250 °C, starting with decomposition of nanostructured MgX2 due to joint effects of nanostructured MgX2 and its reducing effect at NaBX4. Analyses of background profile, due to the high incoherent neutron scattering of hydrogen, as a function of temperature demonstrate direct correlation of H/D desorption reactions with relative phases amount.

Numerical computations and order-of-magnitude estimates are used to analyze a jet of a very viscous liquid of finite electrical conductivity that is injected at a constant flow rate in an immiscible dielectric liquid under the action of an electric field. The conditions under which the injected liquid can form an elongated meniscus with a thin jet issuing from its apex (a cone-jet) are investigated by computing the flow, the electric field, and the transport of electric charge in the meniscus and a leading region of the jet. The boundaries of the domain of operation of the cone-jet mode are discussed. The current transfer region determining the electric current carried by the jet is analyzed taking into account the viscous drag of the dielectric liquid surrounding the jet. Conditions under which the electric current/flow rate characteristic follows a square root law or departs from it are discussed.

The surface plasmon enhanced transmission of light though a plasmonic crystal provides a novel approach for fabricating an optical modulator. The extraordinary transmission passing though these patterned metallic films is very sensitive to the surface dielectric environment. In this study, hexagonal lattice plasmonic crystals were fabricated with a self-assembly technique. Arrays of gold nano-holes or bumps with 500/600 nm periodicity were used to test the sensitivity of plasmon resonance wavelength for liquids and polymers with different dielectric constants. A nonlinear optical polymer P3HT coated onto the plasmonic crystal and pumped with 475 nm laser was found to modulate the transmission of a normally incident red light at 670 nm.

Large-area vertically aligned silicon nanowire (Si NW) arrays were synthesized with a controlled length (0.3 ˜ 9 μm) by the chemical etching of n-type silicon substrates. Upon their excitation using a fs Ti-sapphire laser pulse (800 nm), their THz emission intensity exhibits strong dependence on their length; the intensity increases sharply up to a length of 3 μm and then decreases slightly, due to the complete absorption of the optical pump power. The Raman scattering spectrum exhibits the same behavior as that of the THz emission. We suggest that the field enhancement by localized surface plasmons induces more efficient THz emission or Raman scattering for the longer Si NWs. The photocurrent measured in a photoelectrochemical cell showed consistently the length dependence with a maximum value at the length of 5 μm.

Al-doped ZnO (AZO) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by the solvothermal decomposition. The as-synthesized AZO NPs were characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. These NPs were well dispersible in non-polar solvents at high concentration to produce AZO nanoink. The AZO nanoparticulate films were prepared from AZO nanoink by spin coating technique. Thickness, surface morphology, optical transparency and conductivity of the films were characterized by surface profilometer, scanning electron microscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy and Hall measurements. The AZO nanoparticlulate films had highly optical transmittance and well electrical conductivity, which are potential for optoelectronic applications.

Since their appearance during in the 1940 decade, nickel-base alloys are appreciated for their superior mechanical properties and microstructural stability at elevated temperatures and high stresses. They are typically used in jet-engines and land-based turbines for energy generation. Such materials, known as superalloys are in constant evolution as designers are encouraged to propose more efficient and powerful systems of propulsion and energy generation. This evolution leads to conceive and manufacture new superalloys capable to fulfill higher requirements. Alloy 718Plus® is emerging as an alternative material for the design and construction of components to be used in jet-engines and land-based turbines for energy generation. 718Plus® is a precipitation hardened nickel-base alloy designed to have the stability of superalloys similar to Waspaloy and the good processing characteristics of other materials as the 718 alloy. Since the early 2000 decade, ATI Allvac has lead a complete program in order to validate capabilities and properties of the 718Plus® alloy. Objectives for this effort include a characterization and its introduction as a viable material for the design and manufacture of components to be installed technologically. As part of this project, contoured rings made of 718Plus® are rolled considering industrial conditions. Several heat treatments, involving solution and precipitation processes are performed on segments extracted from involved contoured rings. Effects of such hot-working conditions and heat treatment procedures on properties as forgeability, tensile, hardness and stress-rupture characteristics are evaluated. Optical and electron microscopy are performed to evaluate microstructural properties as grain size and promotion of precipitates, in order to complement reported results.

This study presents a very cost effective template-based electrochemical technique to synthesize the nano heterojunctions of cadmium sulfide (CdS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe). SEM analysis revealed that the average length of CdS nanowires varied from 500 nm to 4 μm depending on the deposition time and voltage. Also, average diameter of the CdS nanowires ranged between 100 and 200 nm. The structures of CdS nanowires have been confirmed by XRD and EDX analysis. Photoelectrochemical performances of CdS nanowires revealed that there is a dramatic change in the photoelectrochemical performances with the change in deposition time and voltage. The maximum fill factor (FF) and power efficiency (η) of the CdS nanowires has been calculated as 45 % and 1.36 %, respectively. After the optimization of the CdS nanowire deposition conditions based on the PEC performance, CdTe nanostructures have been deposited on CdS nanowires at various deposition time. SEM analysis showed that CdTe nanostructures have a tendency to grow as nanoclusters. It was observed that the density and the average diameter of the clusters was a strong function of the deposition time. The average diameter of the CdTe nanoclusters after 9-hour deposition reached about 260 nm. The successful heterojunction of CdS nanowires with CdTe nanoclusters have been observed in the SEM analysis. It has been concluded that the PEC performances of the CdS nanowires improved significantly after CdTe deposition. The maximum η, obtained in this study is about 8.04 %. This is one of the highest efficiencies reported in the literature for the nanowire array photoelectrochemical cells.

Phase change memory (PCM) devices are based on the electrically-induced change of phase within an active chalcogenide material. PCM features large resistance window, fast threshold/phase switching and high endurance, thus motivating a broad interest as potential Flash replacement and/or nonvolatile storage class memory. Despite the relatively mature progress of research and technology, there is still a wide debate about the ultimate scaling perspective for PCMs. Structural relaxation, crystallization and noise affecting the amorphous chalcogenide phase need to be addressed by accurate physical models for a realistic scaling projection. This work discusses the scaling of PCM devices in terms of the conduction mechanisms and structural stability of the amorphous chalcogenide phase. Resistance window narrowing, current fluctuations, resistance drift and crystallization in the amorphous phase will be explained by a unified model for thermal excitation of the structure by many-phonon phenomena. The downscaling of the reset current, needed to reduce the cell area in memory arrays, and thermal disturb between adjacent cells during reset will be finally addressed to assess the scaling capability of high-density PCM crossbar architectures.

We have investigated a point defect, common to all SiC substrates, that is thought to be a broken carbon bond. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy performed in combination with three different etching methods using p-type, n-type, and semi-insulating substrates demonstrate that the center lies near the surface of a wafer. The results suggest that on the order of 1013 cm-2 defects are removed within the first micron of the surface of a wafer.

Light emission from Si nanocrystals ( SiNCs ) embedded in Si oxide was studied in this work. SiNCs were fabricated by annealing a Si-rich oxide ( SRO ) deposited by a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition ( PECVD ) system. The gas flow ratio between SiH4 and N2O of a precursor gas was changed by varying a N2O gas flow rate and the annealing temperature was varied from 800 to 1100°C. The highest PL intensity was obtained with a N2O flow rate of 125sccm, a SiH4 flow rate of 1400sccm and annealing temperature of 900°C. The PL wavelength was also controlled by N2O gas flow rate and annealing temperature, with blue shifting to the visible wavelengths for increasing N2O flow rate and decreasing annealing temperature. In addition, forming gas ( 4% H2 ) anneal for 1 hour, which is a common method to passivate Si surface, at 500°C to SiNCs was used to further enhance the emission intensity. To approach emission at shorter wavelength, the Si oxide with SiNCs / SiO2 multi layer structure ( MLS ) was also fabricated by similar methods. The SiO2 layer was used as a diffusion barrier to extra Si on vertical direction during the annealing process. Such a barrier can effectively reduce the diameter of SiNCs and shift the emission peak to shorter wavelength. A blue shift from PL was clearly observed as the thickness of Si oxide layer with SiNCs in MLS reduces. Finally, the PIN light emitting diode which consisted of n-type poly-Si / Si oxide with SiNCs / p-type poly-Si structure was also fabricated to study the electroluminescence ( EL ) of SiNCs. The current under the forward bias was about 10 times higher than under the reverse bias. The carrier injection mechanism assumed that Poole-Frenkel type conduction or hopping conduction dominates under a low electric field and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling dominates under a high electric field. EL was obtained with a forward bias voltage of around 6V and EL emission efficiency was proportional to the current density.

Embedded piezoresistive microcantilever (EPM) sensors were used to detect the presence of the compound estrogen in water samples. The sensor was fabricated with a host material hydrogel (Hypol) functionalized with estrogen antibody. This sensor was able to detect 1 ppm of estrogen in water, responding almost immediately to the estrogen addition, with a full sensor response (saturation) occurring after two minutes of exposure.

In an attempt to produce low cost and high quality polymer/nanoparticle blends for use in hybrid organic/inorganic photovoltaic devices we prepared blends of dihexylsexithiophene and tetragonal barium titanate particles. These polymer nanoparticle blends were deposited as films by spin coating and sublimation. The films were characterised and compared using a wide range of techniques; The electrical photoconductivity analysis of these structures carried out using an HP4140B picoammeter and a solar simulator after aluminium gap cell electrodes had been deposited on the films by sublimation, spectroscopic studies (FTIR and UV-VIS) were carried out to understand the photoconductivity measurements and ellipsometry was used to determine the thickness of the films. The photoconductivity of the spin coated films was the highest reaching 8.5x 10-10A at 20 V, the sublimed films reached ~4 x 10-10A at 40V. This is thought to be due to the thinness of the sublimed films combined with the inhomogeneous distribution of nanoparticles compared with the spin coated film. Sublimed films have been shown by others to be better structured than spin coated films, if this property can be utilized with further optimization of the sublimation process then this technique offers the potential to produce very thin high quality films for use in organic and hybrid photovoltaic devices.

100 nm-thick GeSbN films with high Sb content were investigated by XRD and TEM in order to investigate crystalline phases. We observe the crystallization of the two phases separatly. First, Sb rhomboedral crystallizes at 250°C and then cubic Ge appears at 340°C according to Reflectivity and X-Ray Diffraction measurements. With the incorporation of nitrogen in the thick films, a delay to crystallization of the two phases is observed. Grain size measurements with Scherrer formula support the decrease of grain crystallization with N content. Moreover, TEM observations show clearly the separation of the two phases in the layer and the reduction in size of the grains with nitrogen content. This allows a better re-amorphization than films without nitrogen.

The results of calorimetric and electrical studies of bulk Ge2Sb2Te5 and GeSb2Te4 alloys around melting temperature Tm are presented together with characteristics of phase-change memory devices from such alloys. The endothermic melting region is wider in Ge2Sb2Te5 than GeSb2Te4. Electrical resistivities of the alloys in this region have semiconductor characteristics. The width of the melting region correlates with breadth of set to reset transition in devices. This empirical correlation is probably important for alloy selection for multi-level memory cells.

PbTe-based materials are promising for efficient heat energy to electricity conversion. We present studies of the thermoelectric properties of the PbTe-SrTe system. X-ray diffraction patterns reveal that all the samples crystallize in the rock salt structure without noticeable secondary phase. Na2Te doping of the PbTe-SrTe materials resulting in a positive sign Hall coefficient indicating p-type conduction. Lattice thermal conductivity is significantly decreased with the insertion of SrTe in PbTe lattice. The ZT ∼ 1.3 of these materials is derived from their very low thermal conductivities and reasonably high power factor at 800 K.

The short circuit density (JSC) and open circuit voltage (VOC) of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were improved from 9.8 to 17.8 mA/cm2 and 728 to 743 mV by depositing an ultra thin SiO2 layer on mesoporous TiO2 using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) method. X ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirmed the growth of SiO2 on mesoporous TiO2 surface. It was also observed that the enhancement in DSSC performance highly depends on the thickness of the ALD grown SiO2 layers on mesoporous TiO2. Compared to the reference DSSC which used untreated TiO2, incorporation of 5 ALD cycles (about 5 atomic layers) of SiO2 on mesoporous TiO2 resulted in 80 % enhancement (E) in the photoconversion efficiency from 4 to 7.2%. It is believed that the deposition of the ultra thin SiO2 film on mesoporous TiO2 modifies the density and activity of the surface states and an optimized layer thickness (5 cycles) leads to significant improvement in the DSSC performance. The enhanced photovoltaic performance was confirmed by dark and illuminated I-V and external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements.

Several different hydrogel compositions have been incorporated into magnetic vesicle gels and the resulting “smart” biomaterials assessed as cell culture scaffolds. The compatibility of these hydrogels with the “smart” component of these biomaterials, thermally sensitive vesicles (TSVs) crosslinked by magnetic nanoparticles, was assessed by the leakage of fluorescent 5/6-carboxyfluorescein from the TSVs under cell culture conditions. Subsequently the ability of the hydrogels to support 3T3 fibroblast and chondrocyte viability was assessed. These studies revealed that alginate-based gels were the most compatible with both the TSVs and the cultured cells, with an alginate:fibronectin mix proving to be the most versatile. Nonetheless these studies also suggest that TSV composition needs to be modified to improve the performance of these “smart” cell culture scaffolds in future applications.