nano-scale surface modification of polycrystalline tin sulphide films during plasma treatment

Effects of Surface Modification on the Recovery Time and Stability of Nanostructured Tin Oxide Thick Films Gas Sensors

Along with high sensitivity in detecting gas, the response and recovery times of semiconductor gas sensors are of considerable importance for real life applications. In most cases, the recovery time is more than the response time. At the same time, water vapor present in the ambient, is chemisorbed on the tin oxide, SnO2 surface and the water molecules dissociate into hydroxyl species, which ac...

Research on Polycrystalline Films for Micro- and Nano-Systems

Polycrystalline films are used in a wide array of microand nano-scale devices, for electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photonic and chemical functions. Increasingly, the properties, performance, and reliability of films in these systems depend on nano-scale structure. In collaborative research with a number of SMA Fellows, Associates, and students, our group is carrying out research focused on pr...

Surface modification of polymers using a multi-step plasma treatment

We report a simple method for fabrication of one-dimensional, two-dimensional and nested hierarchical wrinkling patterns on polymeric surfaces using plasma treatment. The morphology of wrinkle patterns, specifically the wavelength and amplitude of each wrinkle generation, is controlled by the treatment time and stretching release after each treatment step. By systematically varying these two ke...

Plasma-surface modification of biomaterials

Plasma-surface modification (PSM) is an effective and economical surface treatment technique for many materials and of growing interests in biomedical engineering. This article reviews the various common plasma techniques and experimental methods as applied to biomedical materials research, such as plasma sputtering and etching, plasma implantation, plasma deposition, plasma polymerization, las...

Intrinsic stress, island coalescence, and surface roughness during the growth of polycrystalline films

Residual Stress and Surface Energy of Sputtered TiN Films

Morphology, structure, residual stress, and surface energy of magnetron-sputtered titanium nitride (TiN) thin films, deposited at 300 C with a thickness in the 0.5-1.7 lm range, were characterized. Film microstructure, the origin of residual stress, and its effect on the surface energy were analyzed. The grain size increased with the film thickness. X-ray diffraction showed (200) to (111) prefe...