The structural and optical properties of Ge quantum dots (QDs) grown on Si(001) for mid-infrared photodetector and Ge nanocrystals embedded in oxide matrices for floating gate memory devices are presented. The infrared photoluminescence (PL) signal from Ge islands has been studied at a low temperature. The temperature- and bias-dependent photocurrent spectra of a capped Si/SiGe/Si(001) QDs infr...

X-ray fluorescence spectra obtained by the MESSENGER spacecraft orbiting Mercury indicate that the planet's surface differs in composition from those of other terrestrial planets. Relatively high Mg/Si and low Al/Si and Ca/Si ratios rule out a lunarlike feldspar-rich crust. The sulfur abundance is at least 10 times higher than that of the silicate portion of Earth or the Moon, and this observat...

Abstract—The origin of negative flat-band shift using La2O3 incorporation in HfO2 dielectrics has been extensively examined. From careful extraction of effective work function of gate electrode and fixed charges at each interface, it has been revealed that La2O3 at high-k/Si substrate or high-k/SiO2 interface has either large amount of positive fixed charges or an additional dipole of 0.36 V co...

Electrochemically induced mechanical degradation hinders the application of Si anodes in advanced lithium-ion batteries. Hollow structures and surface coatings have been often used to mitigate the degradation of Si-based anodes. However, the structural change and degradation mechanism during lithiation/delithiation of hollow Si structures with coatings remain unclear. Here, we combine in situ T...

Modern quasiparticle theory based on hybrid functionals and the GW approximation yields electronic band structures with a high accuracy for silicon but also for oxides applied as transparent electrodes or layers in solar cells. The quasiparticle electronic structures are used to derive natural band discontinuities applying two different methods, a modified Tersoff method for the branch-point en...

Dilution of the intake air of the SI engine with the inert gases is one of the emission control techniques like exhaust gas recirculation, water injection into combustion chamber and cyclic variability, without scarifying power output and/or thermal efficiency (TE). This paper investigates the effects of using argon (Ar) gas to mitigate the spark ignition engine intake air to enhance the perfor...

Organocatalysts have attracted enormous interest in the water-crosslinking reaction in silane-grafted polyolefins (SGPOs) system owing to their simplicity, low toxicity and environmentally benign nature compared to organotin catalysts, which are most used in SGPOs system. We focus on organophosphorus compounds including four structure types as organocatalysts; phosphoric acids, phosphoric ester...

High quality epitaxial indium zinc oxide (heavily indium oxide doped) (epi-n-IZO) thin films were optimized by laser-molecular beam epitaxy (L-MBE) i.e., pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique for fabricating novel isoand hetero-semiconductor–insulator–semiconductor (SIS) type solar cells using Johnson Matthey ‘‘specpure’’grade 90% In2O3 mixed 10% ZnO (as commercial indium tin oxide (ITO) comp...

Mixed-oxides and the coprecipitation procedure were used to prepare PLZT x/65/35 powders. Transparent samples were obtained by hot-pressing. The influence of processing parameters on the microstructure and electrical properties was studied.