No Arabic abstract
A novel technique to deposit metals on highly conjugated polyaniline films has been developed. In general, electrodeposition of metals, having low reduction potential, from aqueous solution, is difficult due to disruptive effect of hydrogen which evolves during the process. This difficulty is avoided using conducting polymers films with high surface mass density. The polymer chains of these films possess a high degree of conjugation. Such a polymer produces highly stable polarons and therefore has the ability to perform underpotential deposition. Our method involves reduction of polyaniline film with formic acid followed by dipping the coated electrode in the metal salt solution. Deposition of the metal is monitored by rise in the open circuit potential of the electrode. Deposition of metals with high surface mass density has been achieved. The metal is most likely present in the polymer as a coordination complex with amine nitrogen. Such form of metal is expected to have higher catalytic activity than the zero-valent metal. We have been able to deposit metals such as Mn and Cu. Among these, Mn cannot be deposited on polymer by any other method.
We report here a quantitative method of Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to measure the shapes, sizes and volumes of nanoparticles which are responsible for their properties. Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) acting as nucleating agents for the electroless deposition of silver NPs on SU-8 polymers were analyzed in this project. The atomic-number contrast (Z-contrast) imaging technique reveals the height and effective diameter of each Au NP and a volume distribution is obtained. Varying the reducing agents produced Au NPs of different sizes which were found both on the polymer surface and in some cases buried several nanometers below the surface. The morphology of Au NPs is an important factor for systems that use surface-bound nanoparticles as nucleation sites as in electroless metallization. Electrolessly deposited silver layers reduced by hydroquinone on SU-8 polymer are analyzed in this project.
We introduce a novel nanofabrication technique to directly deposit catalyst pads for the chemical vapor deposition synthesis of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) at any desired position on a substrate by Gallium focused ion beam (FIB) induced deposition of silicon oxide thin films from the metalorganic Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) precursor. A high resolution in the positioning of the SWCNTs is naturally achieved as the imaging and deposition by FIB are conducted concurrently in situ at the same selected point on the substrate. This technique has substantial advantages over the current state-of-the-art methods that are based on complex and multistep lithography processes.
Ammonia (NH3) is commonly used as group V precursor in gallium nitride (GaN) metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The high background carbon (C) impurity in MOCVD GaN is related to the low pyrolysis efficiency of NH3, which represents one of the fundamental challenges hindering the development of high purity thick GaN for vertical high power device applications. This work uses a laser-assisted MOCVD (LA-MOCVD) growth technique to address the high-C issue in MOCVD GaN. Carbon dioxide (CO2) laser with wavelength of 9.219 um was utilized to facilitate NH3 decomposition via resonant vibrational excitation. The LA-MOCVD GaN growth rate (as high as 10 um/hr) shows a strong linear relationship with the trimethylgallium (TMGa) flow rate, indicating high effective V/III ratios and hence efficient NH3 decomposition. Pits-free surface morphology of LA-MOCVD GaN was demonstrated for films with growth rate as high as 8.5 um/hr. The background [C] in LA-MOCVD GaN films decreases monotonically as the laser power increases. A low [C] at 5.5E15 cm-3 was achieved in LA-MOCVD GaN film grown with the growth rate of 4 um/hr. Charge transport characterization of LA-MOCVD GaN films reveals high crystalline quality with room temperature mobility >1000 cm2/Vs. LA-MOCVD growth technique provides an enabling route to achieve high quality GaN epitaxy with low-C impurity and fast growth rate simultaneously. This technique can also be extended for epitaxy of other nitride-based semiconductors.
Transition metal nitrides have recently gained attention in the fields of plasmonics, plasmon-enhanced photocatalysis, photothermal applications, and nonlinear optics because of their suitable optical properties, refractory nature, and large laser damage thresholds. This work reports comparative studies of the transient response of films of titanium nitride, zirconium nitride, and Au under femtosecond excitation. Broadband transient optical characterization helps to adjudicate earlier, somewhat inconsistent reports regarding hot electron lifetimes based upon single wavelength measurements. These pump-probe experiments show sub-picosecond transient dynamics only within the epsilon-near-zero window of the refractory metals. The dynamics are dominated by photoinduced interband transitions resulting from ultrafast electron energy redistribution. The enhanced reflection modulation in the epsilon-near-zero window makes it possible to observe the ultrafast optical response of these films at low pump fluences. These results indicate that electron-phonon coupling in TiN and ZrN is 25-100 times greater than in Au. Strong electron-phonon coupling drives the sub-picosecond optical response and facilitates greater lattice heating compared to Au, making TiN and ZrN promising for photothermal applications. The spectral response and dynamics of TiN and ZrN are only weakly sensitive to pump fluence and pump excitation energy. However, the magnitude of the response is much greater at higher pump photon energies and higher fluences, reaching peak observed values of 15 % in TiN and 50 % in ZrN in the epsilon-near-zero window.
Inkjet printing of 8% Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2 (YSZ) thin films is achieved by designing a novel water-based reactive ink for Drop-on-Demand (DoD) inkjet printing. The ink formulation is based on a novel chemical strategy that consists of a combination of metal oxide precursors (zirconium alkoxide and yttrium salt), water and a nucleophilic agent, i.e. n-methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). This chemistry leads to metal-organic complexes with long term ink stability and high precision printability. Ink rheology and chemical reactivity are analyzed and controlled in terms of metal-organic interactions in the solutions. Thin dense nanocrystalline YSZ film below 150 nm are obtained by low temperature calcination treatments (400-500 {deg}C), making the deposition suitable for a large variety of substrates, including silicon, glass and metals. Thin films and printed patterns achieve full densification with no lateral shrinkage and high ionic conductivity.