Surface Properties and Mechanical Performance of Ti-Based Dental Materials: Comparative Effect of Valve Alloying Elements and Structural Defects

Two approaches can be taken when designing properties of the native oxide layers formed on Ti-based biomedical materials: (i) changing the chemical composition of the substrate by adding biocompatible, valve alloying elements, and (ii) changing the microstructure of the substrate—especially its level of defectiveness—through large plastic deformation. However, especially in the aggressive fluoridated oral environment, it is still unknown what factor is more effective in terms of enhancing oxide layer protectiveness against biocorrosion: (i) the presence of valve alloying elements, or (ii) a high number of structural defects. To gain knowledge about the separate influence of both of these factors, surface properties were examined for commercially pure Ti and Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr alloy in microcrystalline state as well as after multiple-pass cold rolling, a process that can be readily scaled up to the industrial level. This study showed that while valve-alloying elements and structural defects individually have a beneficial effect on Ti oxide layer properties in fluoridated medium, they not have to act in a synergistic manner. These findings have to be taken into account when designing future Ti-based dental materials together with analyzing their mechanical performance with respect to mechanical strength and elastic properties.

Enhanced Hole Injection Characteristics of a Top Emission Organic Light-Emitting Diode with Pure Aluminum Anode

A top emitting organic light-emitting diode (OLED) device with pure aluminum (Al) anode for high-resolution microdisplays was proposed and fabricated. The low work function of the Al anode, even with a native oxide formed on the Al anode surface, increases the energy barrier of the interface between the anode and hole injection layer, and has poor hole-injection properties, which causes the low efficiency of the device. To enhance the hole-injection characteristics of the Al anode, we applied hexaazatriphenylene hexacarbonitrile (HATCN) as the hole-injection layer material. The proposed OLED device with a pure Al anode and native oxide on the anode surface improved efficiency by up to 35 cd/A at 1000 nit, which is 78% of the level of normal OLEDs with indium tin oxide (ITO) anode.

Reversed Phase Transformation of β→α-Sn at Elevated Temperatures towards Quantum Material Integration on Silicon

α-Sn and SnGe alloys have recently attracted much attention as a new family of topological quantum materials. However, bulk α-Sn is thermodynamically stable only at <13°C. Moreover, scalable integration of α-Sn quantum materials/devices on Si has been hindered by a large lattice mismatch. To address these challenges, we demonstrate compressively strained α-Sn doped with 2-4 at.% Ge on a native oxide layer on Si, grown at 300-500°C through a reversed β-to-α-Sn phase transformation without relying on epitaxy. The size of α-Sn microdots reaches up to 200 nm, ~10x larger than the upper size limit for α-Sn formation reported before. Furthermore, the compressive strain makes it one of the few candidates for 3D topological Dirac semimetals with interesting applications in spintronics. We find that Ge-rich GeSn nanoclusters in the as-deposited materials seeded the reversed β-to-α-Sn transition at elevated temperatures. This process can be further optimized for SnGe quantum material and device integration on Si.

Two-Dimensional Materials for Advanced Solar Cells

Inorganic crystalline silicon solar cells account for more than 90% of the market despite a recent surge in research efforts to develop new architectures and materials such as organics and perovskites. The reason why most commercial solar cells are using crystalline silicon as the absorber layer include long-term stability, the abundance of silicone, relatively low manufacturing costs, ability for doping by other elements, and native oxide passivation layer. However, the indirect band gap nature of crystalline silicon makes it a poor light emitter, limiting its solar conversion efficiency. For instance, compared to the extraordinary high light absorption coefficient of perovskites, silicon requires 1000 times more material to absorb the same amount of sunlight. In order to reduce the cost per watt and improve watt per gram utilization of future generations of solar cells, reducing the active absorber thickness is a key design requirement. This is where novel two-dimensional (2d) materials like graphene, MoS2 come into play because they could lead to thinner, lightweight and flexible solar cells. In this chapter, we aim to follow up on the most important and novel developments that have been recently reported on solar cells. Section-2 is devoted to the properties, synthesis techniques of different 2d materials like graphene, TMDs, and perovskites. In the next section-3, various types of photovoltaic cells, 2d Schottky, 2d homojunction, and 2d heterojunction have been described. Systematic development to enhance the PCE with recent techniques has been discussed in section-4. Also, 2d Ruddlesden-Popper perovskite explained briefly. New developments in the field of the solar cell via upconversion and downconversion processes are illustrated and described in section-5. The next section is dedicated to the recent developments and challenges in the fabrication of 2d photovoltaic cells, additionally with various applications. Finally, we will also address future directions yet to be explored for enhancing the performance of solar cells.

Surface Functionalization of Silicon MEMS Biochemical Sensors for the Detection of Foodborne Pathogens

This work presents the surface modification of silicon chips as a platform for silicon-based biosensors with applications aiming for the detection of foodborne bacteria in aqueous solution. The detection requires high selectivity as the solution may contain a variety of biological species, which affect the outcome of the sensing process. The silicon surface is functionalized by a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) with thiol groups followed by immobilizing a thiol-linked DNA aptamer. The DNA aptamer used in this work has reported to recognize a biological species, E. coli ATCC 25922. The presence of DNA aptamer on the sensor surface allows the capture of the specific E. coli cells on the surface, while other potential biological (and chemical) species would not attach to the sensor surface, thus improving the selectivity of the sensor. The uniform formation of the SAM on the surface is an important step toward uniformly coating the sensor surface with the desired DNA aptamer. The SAM is created on the silicon surface by surface modification with the MPTS (3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxy silane) solution. Then the aptamer DNA solution is applied as droplets on the chip followed by a cure process. The attachment of the SAM and DNA aptamers are verified by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The surface functionalization presented in this work can be used for sensors made of silicon coated with a thin layer of native oxide, and can be adopted for detection of other cells and biological agents using the proper SAM and DNA aptamer.