scholarly journals Structure-Dependent CO2 Gas Sensitivity of La2O2CO3 Thin Films

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margus Kodu ◽  
Tea Avarmaa ◽  
Hugo Mändar ◽  
Rando Saar ◽  
Raivo Jaaniso

Rare earth oxycarbonates are potential candidate materials for constructing simple and low-cost chemiresistive sensors for monitoring carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in the living and working environment for personal comfort and health reasons. Also, measurement of CO2 concentrations is needed in many industrial processes. Specifically, sol-gel made nanoparticles of Nd and La oxycarbonates have been studied previously as novel CO2 gas sensor materials. In this paper, pulsed laser deposition of La oxycarbonate (La2O2CO3) thin films was studied and structural properties of obtained thin films were characterized. Also, CO2 gas sensing ability of synthesized films was evaluated. The films deposited under CO2 partial pressure in various conditions were all Raman amorphous. In situ or ex situ annealing procedure at high CO2 partial pressure was needed for obtaining crystalline La2O2CO3 films, whereby hexagonal and monoclinic polymorphs were obtained in ex situ and in situ processes, respectively. Sensor structure, made using in situ process, was sensitive to CO2 gas and showed relatively fast response and recovery characteristics.

2000 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.P. Eakin ◽  
M.G. Norton ◽  
D.F. Bahr

AbstractThin films of PZT were deposited onto platinized and bare single crystal NaCl using spin coating and sol-gel precursors. These films were then analyzed using in situ heating in a transmission electron microscope. The results of in situ heating are compared with those of an ex situ heat treatment in a standard furnace, mimicking the heat treatment given to entire wafers of these materials for use in MEMS and ferroelectric applications. Films are shown to transform from amorphous to nanocrystalline over the course of days when held at room temperature. While chemical variations are found between films crystallized in ambient conditions and films crystallized in the vacuum conditions of the microscope, the resulting crystal structures appear to be insensitive to these differences. Significant changes in crystal structure are found at 500°C, primarily the change from largely amorphous to the beginnings of clearly crystalline films. Crystallization does occur over the course of weeks at room temperature in these films. Structural changes are more modest in these films when heated in the TEM then those observed on actual wafers. The presence of Pt significantly influences both the resulting structure and morphology in both in situ and ex situ heated films. Without Pt present, the films appear to form small, 10 nm grains consisting of both cubic and tetragonal phases, whereas in the case of the Pt larger, 100 nm grains of a tetragonal phase are formed.


Author(s):  
E. Zanchetta ◽  
G. Della Giustina ◽  
A. Gandin ◽  
V. Auzelyte ◽  
G. Brusatin

AbstractDirect printing of spin-on functional films is probably the most efficient method to develop low-cost novel photonic nanodevices, such as diffraction gratings, planar waveguides, nano- lasers, and antireflective coatings. For these applications high refractive index transparent materials are demanded; however, this class of materials generally requires inorganic oxides, well known for their hardness, typical of ceramic materials, and so incompatible with a soft character of printable resins. Herein, inorganic high refractive index TiO2 micro- and nano- structures, with unusual depth up to 600 nm and aspect ratio larger than 5, are obtained by combining thermal nanoimprint lithography (NIL) with UV curing. To achieve printed patterns, a hybrid organic-inorganic spin-on film is deposited at low-temperature by sol–gel processing. Two distinct bottom-up synthetic approaches are used, called in situ and ex situ, using titanium isopropoxide (90%) or TiO2 anatase nanoparticles (70%), respectively, and adding a silica sol modified by organic moieties. The two syntheses were optimized to obtain, after patterning by thermal imprint, amorphous or crystalline titania crack-free micro- and nano- patterns for in situ and ex situ, respectively. The further UV irradiation converts imprinted films to totally inorganic patterns, through the titania photocatalytic effect, allowing refractive indexes up to 1.82 at 632 nm to be achieved. This novel strategy of combining thermal imprint with UV exposure allows inorganic deep patterns to be fabricated without a calcination step, which is generally needed for inorganic resists processing. Eventually, a thermal treatment only at 300 °C can be applied to achieve a final refractive index of 2 at 632 nm.


Author(s):  
K. Barmak

Generally, processing of thin films involves several annealing steps in addition to the deposition step. During the annealing steps, diffusion, transformations and reactions take place. In this paper, examples of the use of TEM and AEM for ex situ and in situ studies of reactions and phase transformations in thin films will be presented.The ex situ studies were carried out on Nb/Al multilayer thin films annealed to different stages of reaction. Figure 1 shows a multilayer with dNb = 383 and dAl = 117 nm annealed at 750°C for 4 hours. As can be seen in the micrograph, there are four phases, Nb/Nb3-xAl/Nb2-xAl/NbAl3, present in the film at this stage of the reaction. The composition of each of the four regions marked 1-4 was obtained by EDX analysis. The absolute concentration in each region could not be determined due to the lack of thickness and geometry parameters that were required to make the necessary absorption and fluorescence corrections.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Atiqur Rahman ◽  
Mohammad Tariqul Islam ◽  
Mandeep Singh Jit Singh ◽  
Md Samsuzzaman ◽  
Muhammad E. H. Chowdhury

AbstractIn this article, we propose SNG (single negative) metamaterial fabricated on Mg–Zn ferrite-based flexible microwave composites. Firstly, the flexible composites are synthesized by the sol-gel method having four different molecular compositions of MgxZn(1−x)Fe2O4, which are denoted as Mg20, Mg40, Mg60, and Mg80. The structural, morphological, and microwave properties of the synthesized flexible composites are analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and conventional dielectric assessment kit (DAK) to justify their possible application as dielectric substrate at microwave frequency regime. Thus the average grain size is found from 20 to 24 nm, and the dielectric constants are 6.01, 5.10, 4.19, and 3.28, as well as loss tangents, are 0.002, 0.004, 0.006, and 0.008 for the prepared Mg–Zn ferrites, i.e., Mg20, Mg40, Mg60, and Mg80 respectively. Besides, the prepared low-cost Mg–Zn ferrite composites exhibit high flexibility and lightweight, which makes them a potential candidate as a metamaterial substrate. Furthermore, a single negative (SNG) metamaterial unit cell is fabricated on the prepared, flexible microwave composites, and their essential electromagnetic behaviors are observed. Very good effective medium ratios (EMR) vales are obtained from 14.65 to 18.47, which ensure the compactness of the fabricated prototypes with a physical dimension of 8 × 6.5 mm2. Also, the proposed materials have shown better performances comparing with conventional FR4 and RO4533 materials, and they have covered S-, C-, X-, Ku-, and K-band of microwave frequency region. Thus, the prepared, flexible SNG metamaterials on MgxZn(1−x)Fe2O4 composites are suitable for microwave and flexible technologies.


1984 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo G. Pantano ◽  
C. A. Houser ◽  
R. K. Brow

ABSTRACTThe application of surface analysis techniques to the characterization of sol/gel surfaces and thin films is described. Secondary-ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and sputter-induced photon spectroscopy (SIPS) are used to measure the composition of multicomponent silicate films, the relative water content of alumina films, the nitrogen content of ammonia treated silica films, and the depth profiles for films on black chrome. The determination of chemical structure using XPS and SIMS is also discussed. Finally, a brief introduction to temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and its potential for studying surface chemical reactions, in situ, is presented.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chee Yong Fong ◽  
Sha Shiong Ng ◽  
NurFahana Mohd Amin ◽  
Fong Kwong Yam ◽  
Zainuriah Hassan

Purpose This study aims to explore the applicability of the sol-gel-derived GaN thin films for UV photodetection. Design/methodology/approach GaN-based ultraviolet (UV) photodetector with Pt Schottky contacts was fabricated and its applicability was investigated. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the GaN-based UV photodetector under the dark current and photocurrent were measured. Findings The ideality factors of GaN-based UV photodetector under dark current and photocurrent were 6.93 and 5.62, respectively. While the Schottky barrier heights (SBH) for GaN-based UV photodetector under dark current and photocurrent were 0.35 eV and 0.34 eV, respectively. The contrast ratio and responsivity of this UV photodetector measured at 5 V were found to be 1.36 and 1.68 μA/W, respectively. The photoresponse as a function of time was measured by switching the UV light on and off continuously at different forward biases of 1, 3 and 6 V. The results showed that the fabricated UV photodetector has reasonable stability and repeatability. Originality/value This work demonstrated that GaN-based UV photodetector can be fabricated by using the GaN thin film grown by low-cost and simple sol-gel spin coating method.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Tkach ◽  
André Santos ◽  
Sebastian Zlotnik ◽  
Ricardo Serrazina ◽  
Olena Okhay ◽  
...  

If piezoelectric micro-devices based on K0.5Na0.5NbO3 (KNN) thin films are to achieve commercialization, it is critical to optimize the films’ performance using low-cost scalable processing conditions. Here, sol–gel derived KNN thin films are deposited using 0.2 and 0.4 M precursor solutions with 5% solely potassium excess and 20% alkali (both potassium and sodium) excess on platinized sapphire substrates with reduced thermal expansion mismatch in relation to KNN. Being then rapid thermal annealed at 750 °C for 5 min, the films revealed an identical thickness of ~340 nm but different properties. An average grain size of ~100 nm and nearly stoichiometric KNN films are obtained when using 5% potassium excess solution, while 20% alkali excess solutions give the grain size of 500–600 nm and (Na + K)/Nb ratio of 1.07–1.08 in the prepared films. Moreover, the 5% potassium excess solution films have a perovskite structure without clear preferential orientation, whereas a (100) texture appears for 20% alkali excess solutions, being particularly strong for the 0.4 M solution concentration. As a result of the grain size and (100) texturing competition, the highest room-temperature dielectric permittivity and lowest dissipation factor measured in the parallel-plate-capacitor geometry were obtained for KNN films using 0.2 M precursor solutions with 20% alkali excess. These films were also shown to possess more quadratic-like and less coercive local piezoelectric loops, compared to those from 5% potassium excess solution. Furthermore, KNN films with large (100)-textured grains prepared from 0.4 M precursor solution with 20% alkali excess were found to possess superior local piezoresponse attributed to multiscale domain microstructures.


1988 ◽  
Vol 121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariquita A. Accibal ◽  
Jonathan W. Draxton ◽  
Allen H. Gabor ◽  
Wayne L. Gladfelter ◽  
Beth Anne Hassler ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTA comparison of the use of three different coordination compounds of copper as precursors for the sol-gel synthesis of YBa2Cu3O7-δ has been made. For yttrium, the tris(isopropoxide) was used exclusively, while the use of both Ba(O-i-Pr)2 and Ba(OCH2CH2OEt)2 (prepared in situ from Ba metal) as sources for Ba were studied. After dissolving Y(O-i-pr)3, a Ba source, and the copper(I) alkoxide, [Cu(O-i-Bu)]4, hydrolysis led immediately to an orange gelatinous solid which yielded YBa2Cu3O7-δ upon firing in oxygen. Copper(II) acetate was found to give heterogeneous mixtures under our conditions and was not further studied. Copper(II) acac (acac = acetylacetonate) yielded the best results. Partially hydrolyzed solutions of Cu(acac)2, Ba(OCH2CH2OEt)2, and Y(O-i-pr)3 were spin coated on SrTi03 (100) and fired under oxygen to give oriented (b axis normal to the surface) thin films of YBa2Cu3O7-δ. The onset of superconductivity for the films was 92 K, but they did not reach zero resistance until much lower temperatures.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document