A luminescent multilayer film has been fabricated from the polyoxometalate anion α[PMo12O40]3− (α-PMo12) and the cation Fuchsin Basic (FB) through an electrostatic layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly method and characterized by UV/Vis spectra, atomic force microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectra. The fluorescence properties of the LbL film have also been investigated. Cyclic voltammetry measu...

We report the significant improvement of the ferroelectric properties of BiFeO3thin film through control of electrical leakage by Nb doping. A very large remanent electrical polarization value of 80 μC/cm2 was observed in Bi0.8La0.2Nb0.01Fe0.99O3 thin film on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrate. The doping effect of Nb in reducing the movable charge density due to oxygen vacancies in BiFeO3 was confirmed b...

Methanol (CH3OH) is a colorless liquid with a mild odor. The wide ranges of applications, toxicity and clinical implications of methanol have made necessary to develop reliable and high-performance methanol sensors. In this paper, WO3 thin films were deposited on SiO2/Si substrates by e-beam evaporation technique under normal and oblique angles and then post-annealed at 500 °C with a flow of ox...

We study the effect of surface fields on the interfacial properties of a binary polymer melt confined between two parallel walls. Each wall attracts a different component of the blend by a non-retarded van der Waals potential. An interface which runs parallel to the surfaces is stabilized in the center of the film. Using extensive Monte Carlo simulations we study the interfacial properties as a...

Texture etched zinc oxide is often used as transparent front contact for silicon thin film solar cells. Reactive sputtering is a potentially low-cost process. However, process stability, film uniformity, and reproducibility are challenges to be solved. Oscillations of the control signal and subsequent reaction of the plasma emission control with moving substrates from rotatable metallic targets...

Superhydrophobic polymethylene (PM) films provide remarkable protection against the transport of aqueous redox probes as a result of entrapped air at the water/polymer interface. The wetting properties and the topography for a set of superhydrophobic (SH) and nonsuperhydrophobic (NSH) PM films were established to compare their interfacial behavior using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (E...

In this paper, a series of well-defined polyethylene-b-polytetrafluoroethylene diblock copolymers (PE–b– PTFEs) were prepared by a coupling reaction of hydroxyl-terminated polyethylene (PE–OH) and isocyanateterminated 1H,1H-perfluoro-1-tetradecanol (PFDO–NCO). PE–OH was prepared by the coordination chain transfer polymerization using 2,6-bis[1-(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imino ethyl] pyridine iron (...

Electrical and morphological properties of polypyrrole (PPy) films were studied during and after their electrochemical growth under various experimental conditions on a nanometer scale using a current-sensing atomic force microscope (CS-AFM). Of acetonitrile (ACN) solutions containing various amounts of water, one that contained 1.0% water produced the best quality films in their electrical and...

Silver-tetracyanoquinodimethane(Ag-TCNQ) nanostructured arrays with different morphologies were grown by an organic vapor-transport reaction under different conditions. The field emission properties of nanostructured arrays were studied systematically. Their morphology and crystal structure were characterized by SEM and XRD, respectively. It was found that the field emission properties were str...

We report on the fabrication and characterization of iron oxide nanoparticle thin film superlattices. The formation into different film morphologies is controlled by tuning the particle plus solvent-to-substrate interaction. It turns out that the wetting vs dewetting properties of the solvent before the self-assembly process during solvent evaporation plays a major role in determining the resul...