The effects of different post-deposition annealing ambients (oxygen, argon, forming gas (95% N2 + 5% H2), and nitrogen) on radio frequency magnetron-sputtered yttrium oxide (Y2O3) films on n-type gallium nitride (GaN) substrate were studied in this work. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was utilized to extract the bandgap of Y2O3 and interfacial layer as well as establishing the energy band ali...

Solid-state lithium (Li) metal batteries are prominent among next-generation energy storage technologies due to their significantly high energy density and reduced safety risks. Previously, solid electrolytes have been intensively studied and several materials with high ionic conductivity have been identified. However, there are still at least three obstacles before making the Li metal foil-bas...

Experimental observations have shown the size-dependent residual surface stresses on spherical nanoparticles and their influence on the effective modulus of heterogeneous nanostructures. Based on these experimental findings, this paper proposes a new interface stress theory that considers the curvature effect on the interfacial energy. To investigate this curvature-dependent interfacial energy,...

Quenching a multi-component alloy produces a supersaturated metastable solid which under annealing nucleates small randomly dispersed precipitates. The precipitate morphology then evolves by diffusional mass transport as the multi-phase mixture tends to minimize its energy. During this postphase-transformation morphological evolution, the phase fractions of the matrix and precipitates remain co...

To make a uniform AlOx barrier layer in tunnel junctions, a thin layer of Al is often sputtered first and then oxidized. In this study, we sputtered a thick layer of Al onto Fe3O4 and then employed high resolution transmission electron microscopy and x-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy to investigate the interfacial microstructures. Two new layers have been found and investigated at the Al/Fe3...

We examine the thermodynamics of the liquid-vapor interface by direct calculation of the surface entropy, enthalpy, and free energy from extensive molecular dynamics simulations using the two-phase thermodynamics (2PT) method. Results for water, acetonitrile, cyclohexane, dimethyl sulfoxide, hexanol, N-methyl acetamide, and toluene are presented. We validate our approach by predicting the inter...

Using molecular simulations the interaction between a noncharged nanoparticle and an ideal liquid-liquid interface is studied. The free energy profile as function of nanoparticle-interface separation is determined using Wang-Landau sampling. Comparison between the simulation results and macroscopic theories shows that the latter give a poor description of the free energy profile. In particular,...

Nematic-isotropic interfaces exhibit novel dynamics due to anchoring of the liquid crystal molecules on the interface. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the consequences of such dynamics in the flow field created by an elongated nematic drop retracting in an isotropic matrix. This is accomplished by two-dimensional flow simulations using a diffuse-interface model. By exploring the c...

We discuss several new results concerning free boundary problems for free anisotropic surface energies. The boundary terms contain wetting and line tension. Introduction An anisotropic surface energy is one that depends on the direction of a surface at each point. They were introduced by Josiah Gibbs to model the equilibrium shape of a crystal [16]. Whereas the surface energy of a liquid drop i...