Polyelectrolyte multilayers built via the layer-by-layer (LbL) method has been one of the most promising systems in the field of materials science. Layered structures can be constructed by the adsorption of various polyelectrolyte species onto the surface of a solid or liquid material by means of electrostatic interaction. The thickness of the adsorbed layers can be tuned precisely in the nanom...

Conditions for the transfer printing of patterned carbon nanotube (CNT) films, along with a Au-gate, a poly methylmethacrylate (PMMA) dielectric layer and Au source-drain electrodes have been developed for the fabrication of thin-film transistors on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown CNTs were patterned using a photolithographic method. Transfer ...

Nanoscale morphology is of significance to the electronic properties of semiconducting polymers. Solution-processed poly-3-hexylthiophene (P3HT) has been demonstrated as a promising active-layer material in organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) and solar cells. Controlling the crystallinity of P3HT chains is critical for gaining high-performance devices. Here we demonstrated the immediate cryst...

A general approach is demonstrated for the formation of monolayers comprised of free-base and metalated Bacteriochlorophyll-based derivatives providing a new vehicle for studying photosynthetic motifs and chromophore thin-film interactions. Accessibility to covalent and self-assembled systems on conducting, semiconducting, and insulating substrates is realized utilizing identical molecular buil...

We describe a straightforward approach to the characterization of individual thin-film NiFe ferromagnets, useful from cryogenic to room temperature. The technique is based upon the local Hall effect (LHE), in which strong fringe fields present near the edge of a ferromagnet induce a Hall voltage in a nanoscale semiconducting cross-junction. Hysteresis loops are obtained for individual nanomagne...

The discovery of electric field induced band gap opening in bilayer graphene opens a new door for making semiconducting graphene without aggressive size scaling or using expensive substrates. However, bilayer graphene samples have been limited to μm(2) size scale thus far, and synthesis of wafer scale bilayer graphene poses a tremendous challenge. Here we report homogeneous bilayer graphene fil...

This report presents biotin-functionalized semiconducting polymers that are based on fluorene and bithiophene co-polymers (F8T2). Also presented is the application of these polymers to an organic thin film transistor used as a biosensor. The side chains of fluorene were partially biotinylated after the esterification of the biotin with corresponding alcohol-groups at the side chain in F8T2. The...

Carbon nanotube networks in thin-film type transistors were studied experimentally, comparing the use of pre-separated semiconducting enriched nanotubes (90% and 99% purity) to examine how topology affects the properties of the devices. Measurements are reported for two deposition methods used for network formation: random and spin-aligned deposition methods. The results show that the thin-film...

A simple solvothermal approach has been developed to successfully synthesize n-type α-In2Te3 thermoelectric nanomaterials. The nanostring-cluster hierarchical structures were prepared using In(NO3)3 and Na2TeO3 as the reactants in a mixed solvent of ethylenediamine and ethylene glycol at 200°C for 24 h. A diffusion-limited reaction mechanism was proposed to explain the formation of the hierarch...