Nanocrystalline (nc ) thin films exhibit a wide range of enhanced mechanical properties compared to their coarse-grained counterparts. Furthermore, the mechanical behavior and microstructure of nc films is intimately related. Thus, precise control of the size, aspect ratio and spatial distribution of grains can enable the synthesis of thin films with exceptional mechanical properties. However, ...

We demonstrate remarkably fast incorporation and high loading of cytochrome c within thin films of periodically ordered nanocrystalline TiO(2) deposited on transparent electrodes. The immobilized cytochrome c is not denaturated and it can be reversibly reduced without mediator over the time scale of a few seconds as evidenced by spectroelectrochemistry.

A pump-probe method, whereby trapped charges are optically induced to contribute to the total photocurrent, is applied to quantitatively determine the trap density in small-molecule organic semiconductor thin films and donor-acceptor blends used in organic solar cells. The trapped charge density is correlated to the cell performance, and the dependence of charge trapping on the presence of nano...

Semiconducting zinc sulphide (ZnS) has been demonstrated that is an excellent candidate for substituting the possible toxic materials as CdS as n-type material on optoelectronic devices, and photocatalytic materials. The Chemical Bath Deposition technique (CBD) is very simple: it requires temperatures below 100°C, a reactor that can be a beaker and the reaction can be carried out at atmospheric...

Nanocrystalline metals demonstrate a range of fascinating properties, including high levels of mechanical strength. However, as these materials are exposed to high temperatures, it is critical to determine the grain size evolution, as this process can drastically change the mechanical properties. In this work, nanocrystalline sputtered Cu thin films with 43 +/- 2 nm grain size were produced by ...

Combining sol-gel chemistry with polymer templating strategies enables production of CuFe(2)O(4) thin films with both an ordered cubic network of 17 nm diameter pores and tunable spinel domain sizes. These nanocrystalline materials contain only minor structural defects with λ = 0.85 ± 0.02 and exhibit multiple functionalities, including superparamagnetic behavior (T(B)≈ 310 K) and redox- and ph...

This paper reports the improvement in the sensing performance of nanocrystalline SnO(2)-based liquid petroleum gas (LPG) sensors by doping with fluorine (F). Un-doped and F-doped tin oxide films were prepared on glass substrates by the dip-coating technique using a layer-by-layer deposition cycle (alternating between dip-coating a thin layer followed by a drying in air after each new layer). Th...

Nanostructured Si thin films, also referred as polymorphous Si, were grown by chemical vapor deposition using modulated radiofrequency (rf) plasmas of SiH4 highly diluted in Ar. The plasma conditions were adapted to obtain a new type of Si thin films between the amorphous and the microcrystalline ones, by allowing the formation of nanocrystalline Si particles in the plasma gas phase and their i...

We report the evolution of electrical transport and grain size during the sintering of thin films spin-cast from soluble phosphine and amine-bound, chloride-terminated cadmium selenide nanocrystals. Sintering of the nanocrystals occurs in three distinct stages as the annealing temperature is increased: (1) reversible desorption of the organic ligands (≤150 °C), (2) irreversible particle fusion ...

Multi-layer hydrogen storage thin films with Mg and MmNi3.5(CoAlMn)1.5 (here Mm denotes La-rich mischmetal) as alternative layers were prepared by direct current magnetron sputtering. Transmission electron microscopy investigation shows that the microstructure of the MmNi3.5(CoAlMn)1.5 and Mg layers are significantly different although their deposition conditions are the same. The MmNi3.5(CoAlM...