The cadmium chloride annealing treatment is an essential step in the manufacture of efficient thin film CdTe solar cells. In previous work we have shown that the primary effect of the treatment is to remove high densities of stacking faults from the as-deposited material. Use of density functional theory has shown that some of the higher energy stacking faults are hole traps. Removal of these defects dramatically improves cell efficiency. In this study we focus on the effect of the activation treatment on the underlying n-type cadmium sulphide layer. A range of techniques has been used to observe the changes to the microstructure as well as the chemical and crystallographic changes as a function of treatment parameters. Electrical tests that link the device performance with the micro-structural properties of the cells have also been undertaken. Techniques used include High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM) for sub-grain analysis, EDX for chemical analysis and XPS and SIMS for composition-depth profiling. By studying the effect of increasing the treatment time and temperature, we will show that the cadmium sulphide layer depletes to the point of complete dissolution into the absorber layer. We will also show that chlorine penetrates and decorates the grain boundaries in the cadmium sulphide. In addition we will show that chlorine builds up at the heterojunction and concentrates in voids at the cadmium telluride/cadmium sulphide interface. A combination of these effects damages the electrical performance of the solar cell.

Nitrogen-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond/hydrogenated amorphous carbon composite (UNCD/a-C:H) films were deposited in nitrogen and hydrogen mixed gas atmospheres by coaxial arc plasma deposition (CAPD). Nitrogen-doped films with nitrogen contents of 3 and 8 at.% possessed n-type conduction. The electrical conductivity increased with increasing nitrogen content. Heterojunction diodes with p-type Si exhibited typical rectifying action. From the capacitance-voltage measurement, it was confirmed that the carrier density increases with the nitrogen content.

We develop theoretical descriptions for charge transport in organic semiconductors and carbon nanomaterials. For the localized charges, we found the quantum nuclear tunneling effect is essential which could manifest isotope effect for mobility as well as exotic optical feature. Because the nuclear tunneling tends to favor electron transfer while heavier nuclei decrease the quantum effect, isotopic substitution should reduce carrier mobility. Moreover, the isotopic effect only occurs when the substituted nuclei contribute actively to vibrations with appreciable charge reorganization energy and coupling with carrier motion. For the band-like transport, we propose a Wannier extrapolation scheme for computing the electron-phonon interaction matrix for the Boltzmann equation. Our calculation indicates that the intrinsic electron-phonon scatterings in two-dimensional carbon materials are dominated by low-energy longitudinal-acoustic phonon scatterings over a wide range of temperatures, while by high-frequency optical phonons at high temperature. The electron mobilities of α- and γ-graphynes are predicted to be ca.104 cm2V-1s-1 at room temperature.

Although the presence of oxygen reservoir is assumed in many theoretical models which explain resistive switching of ReRAM with an electrode/metal oxide (MO)/electrode structure, the location of oxygen reservoir is not clear. We have previously reported a method for preparing an extremely small ReRAM cell which has removable bottom electrode (BE), by using AFM cantilever. In this study, we used this cell structure to specify the location of oxygen reservoir. Since an anode is assumed to work as an oxygen reservoir in most models, we investigated the effect of changing anodes for the same filament on the presence or absence of the occurrence of reset switching. It was revealed that reset occurred independently of catalytic ability and Gibbs free energy (ΔG) of anode material. However, reset was caused by repairing oxygen vacancies of which filament consists when metals with high ΔG is used as an anode, whereas by oxidizing an anode when metals with low ΔG is used as an anode. This result suggests that the MO film works as an oxygen reservoir for anode with high ΔG, whereas an anode works as an oxygen reservoir for anode with low ΔG.

In this study wet chemical methods combined with UV-Vis spectroscopy were performed to quantify Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratios and total iron content of quenched alkali alumino-boro-silicate (simulated nuclear waste) glasses, applying a colorimetric method. We report lessons learned from experimental challenges encountered associated with the colorimetric method, where 1,10 phenanthroline method is complexed with dissolved glass powder and the resulting solution measured for absorbance at 520 nm to determine Fe(II). To obtain total iron, the solution was then equilibrated with a mild reducing agent to chance all Fe to Fe(II), and the absorbance measured again at 520 nm. These absorbance values allowed for calculation of the Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratio, and the total iron content in the glasses. Total Fe measured is somewhat higher than as-batched target values for waste glasses, but very accurate for reference BCR-2G glass. All quenched alumino-boro-silicate glasses analyzed showed a Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratio between 0.06 (± 0.01) and 0.04 (± 0.01). These values are consistent with those obtained for similar glass compositions melted under analogous conditions, indicating a composition of ca. 94-96% Fe(III).

To efficiently vitrify Hanford waste, the melting process (i.e., melter feed turning into waste glass) must be modeled and optimized. The rate of heat transfer to the melter feed in a waste glass melter, and thus the rate of melting, is strongly affected by the melter feed porosity, especially in the final stages where the glass-forming melt produces foam that insulates the feed from the molten glass. The volume expansion test allows the determination of the melter feed porosity as a function of temperature. This test measures the profile area of the feed pellet as it turns into glass. This contribution presents the calculation of the void fraction (porosity) of the melter feed as a function of temperature, heating rate, and material parameters. The process of finding the void fraction is described as well as results from the application of this process.

We demonstrate an effective recombination zone consisting of Mg:Ag (1:3) alloy and MoO3 layers with 0.8 nm and 3 nm respectively for application in tandem organic photovoltaic devices based on zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) donor and fullerene C60 acceptor. The Mg:Ag layer ensures an optimum electron selectivity, while MoO3 layer effectively selects holes. A conversion efficiency of 2.2% has been achieved under an illumination of 100 mW/cm2 at room temperature. The open circuit voltage of 810 mV is close to the sum of the open circuit voltages of the constituent single cells. The recombination Mg:Ag-MoO3 layer system is investigated with regard to the requirements of high optical transparency, work function compatibility, and facilitation of light absorption. The respective characterizations were carried out by UV-Visible spectroscopy, Kelvin probe force microscopy in ultrahigh vacuum, current-voltage and external quantum efficiency methods.

The antibacterial properties of boron-containing compounds are well known although there are limited studies available on the pure boron nanoparticles. In this study boron nano-particles were characterized in terms of their particle size, shape, stability and surface charge before and after they are applied to textile surfaces to study their impact on antibacterial activity in addition to cytotoxicity. It was observed that the boron nano-particles are affective in limiting bacteria growth on both gram-negative and gram-positive species without requiring any stimulation to initiate the antibacterial action. It was also found that the application of boron nano-particles on the textile surfaces through mixing them in hydrophobic finishing solutions helped improve the wettability performance of the textiles while showing no change in the physical and colour fastness properties at an optimal concentration of 0.02 % w/v of finishing solution.

Transparent conducting thin-films of SnO2: F were grown on preheated glass, Al2O3 coated glass, and quartz substrates by Streaming Process for Electrodeless Electrochemical Deposition (SPEED). Stannic chloride (SnCl4) and ammonium fluoride (NH4F) dissolved in a mixture of deionized water and organic solvents were used as precursors. The preheated substrate temperature was varied between 440 and 500 °C. High quality SnO2:F films were grown at all the substrate temperatures studied. The resulting typical film thickness was 250 nm. X-ray diffraction shows that the grown films are polycrystalline SnO2 with a tetragonal crystal structure. The average optical transmission of the films was around 93% throughout the wavelength range 400 to 1000 nm. The lowest electrical resistivity achieved was 6 × 10-4 Ω-cm. The Hall measurements showed that the film is an n-type semiconductor, with carrier mobility of 8.3 cm2/V-s, and carrier concentration of 1 × 1021 cm-3. The direct bandgap was determined to be 4.0 eV from the transmittance spectrum.

Oxidation behavior of aggregated aluminum nanoparticles (Al-NPs), specifically the combustion propagation, is studied, when only part of the aggregated Al-NPs is heated to 1100 K and the rest of the system is kept at 300 K. Here, multi-million atoms molecular dynamics (MD) simulation reveals the sintering/coalescence phenomena for the different diameters (D = 26, 36 and 46 nm) aggregated systems. Various consuming rates of core aluminum are investigated for different layers and different diameters aggregated systems. The formation of Al2O3 fragments outside the shell (the largest covalently bonded aluminum-oxide cluster) structure is confirmed from AlO and AlO2 intermediates. The smaller size of Al-NPs results in faster trend of transition from Al-rich to O-rich for most outside small clusters. However, more core aluminum reacts with shell oxygen leads to faster decreasing of the ratio of O/Al in the shell fragment for larger Al-NPs system.

Strontium titanate (SrTiO3) is a wide-band-gap semiconductor with a variety of novel properties. In this work, bulk single crystal SrTiO3 samples were heated to 1200°C, resulting in the creation of point defects. These thermally treated samples showed large persistent photoconductivity (PPC) at room temperature. Illumination with sub-gap light (>2.9 eV) caused an increase in free-electron concentration by over two orders of magnitude. After the light is turned off, the conductivity persists at room temperature, with essentially zero decay over several days. The results of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements suggest that a point defect is responsible for PPC because the photo-induced response of one of the EPR signals is similar to that seen for the PPC. Due to a large barrier for recapture, the photo-excited electron remains in the conduction band, where it contributes to the conductivity.

Thermoelectric (TE) materials have gained renewed interests in last decades for both power generation and energy conservation from waste-heat harvesting. Research in the discovery of best TE materials such as, bulk materials, complex structures, and low dimensional play crucial role to achieve high efficiency TE materials. Wide bandgap materials like ZnO can be promising candidate for high efficiency TE power generation owing to its low-cost, nontoxicity, and stability at high temperatures. In this paper, room temperature TE properties of thin film ZnO grown by metal organic vapor deposition (MOCVD) are reported. TE properties of thin film GaN are also studied as reference to that of thin film ZnO. Moreover, high resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD), room temperature photoluminescence (PL) with deep ultraviolet (DUV) spectroscopy (excitation at 248nm), hall effect, and thermal gradient methods have been employed to investigate the effect of structural, optical, electrical, and thermal properties of the samples, respectively. The effect of doping concentrations and structural defects on Seebeck coefficients of thin film ZnO are systematically studied and discussed in this work.

Silicon-germanium (SiGe) superlattices (SLs) have been proposed for application as efficient thermoelectrics because of their low thermal conductivity, below that of bulk SiGe alloys. However, the cost of growing SLs is prohibitive, so nanocomposites, made by a ball-milling and sintering, have been proposed as a cost-effective replacement with similar properties. Lattice thermal conductivity in SiGe SLs is reduced by scattering from the rough interfaces between layers. Therefore, it is expected that interface properties, such as roughness, orientation, and composition, will play a significant role in thermal transport in nanocomposites and offer many additional degrees of freedom to control the thermal conductivity in nanocomposites by tailoring grain size, shape, and crystal angle distributions. We previously demonstrated the sensitivity of the lattice thermal conductivity in SLs to the interface properties, based on solving the phonon Boltzmann transport equation under the relaxation time approximation. Here we adapt the model to a broad range of SiGe nanocomposites. We model nanocomposite structures using a Voronoi tessellation to mimic the grains and their distribution in the nanocomposite and show excellent agreement with experimentally observed structures, while for nanowires we use the Monte Carlo method to solve the phonon Boltzmann equation. In order to accurately treat phonon scattering from a series of atomically rough interfaces between the grains in the nanocomposite and at the boundaries of nanowires, we employ a momentum-dependent specularity parameter. Our results show thermal transport in SiGe nanocomposites and nanowires is reduced significantly below their bulk alloy counterparts.

High-Mn austenitic twinning induced plasticity (TWIP) steels are the object of intense worldwide scientific study due to the promising combination of strength and ductility of these alloys. Mechanical behavior of this family of new generation steels has been extensively studied recently. However, limited information regarding their tribological properties is available in the literature. The aim of this research work is to study the wear behavior of a high-Mn austenitic Fe–20Mn–1.5Si–1.5Al–0.4C TWIP steel microalloyed with Ti. The wear behavior was evaluated under dry sliding condition by the ‘‘pin-on-ring’’ method. For this purpose, solution-treated samples were worn for 10 km against a counterface disc made of hardened AISI M2 steel, under loads of 52, 103 and 154 N, and at speeds of 0.20, 0.60 and 0.86 m/s. The wear resistance was evaluated from the average wear rate. Wear debris and worn surfaces were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). The Ti addition to TWIP steel slightly improved the wear resistance particularly at a speed of 0.86 m/s and at loads of 52 and 103 N. Results show that the wear resistance increases with increasing sliding speed. This is attributed to the formation of an oxide layer acting as a protective layer against wear, which suggests that the main wear mechanism for the studied TWIP steel under these conditions is oxidative.

Micron-size talc samples were ground using a high-intensity planetary ball mill at different milling times as an attempt to reduce particle size and study the effect on the corresponding hydrophobicity. XRD and SEM results confirmed the decrease in the particle size. FTIR spectroscopy analyses revealed the talc characteristic bands centered on 669 cm-1 for the O-H bonds and 1018 cm-1 for the Si-O bonds, as well as a degradation in the talc structure for prolonged milling times. BET results indicate an increase of specific surface area, which also confirms particle size reduction, reaching a maximum at 1 h, after which the particles agglomerate. Contact angle measurements show a decrease in the hydrophobicity of talc after milling. Although talc retains its hydrophobicity after short milling periods, prolonged grinding causes the mineral to have a more hydrophilic character.

Data on a viscous flow model based on network defects – broken bonds termed configurons – were analysed. An universal equation has been derived for the variable activation energy of viscous flow Q(T) of the generic Frenkel equation of viscosity η(T)=A∙exp(Q/RT) which is known to have two constant asymptotes – high QH at low temperatures and low QL at high temperatures. The defect model of flow used by e.g. Doremus, Mott, Nemilov, Sanditov states that higher the concentration of defects (e.g. configurons) the lower the viscosity. We have used the configuron percolation theory (CPT) which treats glass–liquid transition as a percolation-type phase transition. Additionally the CPT results in a continuous temperature relationship for viscosity valid for both glassy and liquid amorphous materials. We show that a particular result of CPT is the universal temperature relationship for the activation energy of viscous flow: Q(T)=QL+RT∙ln[1+exp(-Sd/R) exp((QH-QL)/RT)] which depends on asymptotic energies QL (for the liquid phase) and QH (for the glassy phase), and on entropy of configurons Sd. This equation has two asymptotes, namely Q(T<<Tg) = QH, and Q(T>>Tg) = QL. Moreover we demonstrate that the equation for Q(T) practically coincides in the transition range of temperatures with known Sanditov equation.

Fe K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) was applied to study the structural response of iron phosphate glasses to atomic displacements arising from ion beam irradiation, as an analogue of α-recoil damage arising from actinide immobilization. Analysis of XAS spectra demonstrated reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+ as a consequence of 2 MeV Kr+ and 2 MeV Au+ implantation to a fluence of 2 x 1016 ions / cm2 and 5 x 1015 ions / cm2, respectively.

Integrated ferroelectric capacitors Pt/PZT/Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si with sol-gel deposited PZT films are studied. The (111) textured polycrystalline films are shown to have nonconductive PZT grain boundaries. The short-circuited photocurrents measured under illumination of the films by light with the quantum energy of 2.7 eV indicate the polarization inside the film directed from the top to the bottom electrode. Using the modified method of depolarization hysteresis loops, we found a non-switchable part of polarization which was measured to be -16 μC/cm2 and directed from the top to the bottom electrode. We consider this result to be a giant self-polarization and explain it in terms of flexoelectricity caused by lattice mismatch between the PZT and bottom Pt layers. The strain gradient across the PZT film thickness is estimated from the in-plane lattice constants measured in Pt and PZT films to be ∼103cm-1, which can produce the downward flexoelectric polarization of ∼14 μC/cm2, coinciding well with the measured one. Nonsymmetrical depolarization loops are found in the films when the polarization switching itself becomes more difficult under the negative or positive driving voltage. We show experimentally how depolarization with compensating bias or film illumination can affect the film polarization switching.

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) exhibit exceptional properties in terms of high strength-to-weight, high electrical conductivity, and high thermal conductivity, and have been employed as a reinforcement in various composites and other materials. Their tolerance to radiation environments may be suggested by their response to energetic ion bombardment. We discuss the effects of argon ion bombardment of both thin and thick multiwall carbon nanotube films over a range of 4 to 11 keV at fluence levels up to the order of 1021 ions/cm2. While individual carbon atoms are readily displaced from a carbon nanotube by bombardment at these energies, these nanotubes also exhibit a self-healing capability. At moderate energies and fluence, if two or more carbon nanotubes are touching and an ion strikes this point, they heal together where a junction or cross-link between them is created and the nanotubes interpenetrate. Even though some of the properties of the carbon nanotubes may be degraded by ion bombardment at non-junction regions, we have demonstrated a bulk cross-linked thin film of randomly oriented multiwall carbon nanotubes with an isotropic thermal conductivity of 2150 W/m K. At higher energies and fluence, the carbon nanotubes appear to collapse and reform aligned parallel to the incoming ion bombardment trajectory, producing high aspect ratio tapered structures. These structures are, in general, fully dense, unlike the loosely packed random carbon nanotube array from which they originated. There is also a sharp transition at the base of these structures from the dense form to the loose-packed form, suggesting that these structures may inhibit further penetration of the energetic ions.