By varying the ratio of the constituents, compound films can exhibit a widely tunable range of physical properties. Atomic layer deposition ~ALD! techniques are based on sequential, self-limiting surface reactions and can grow compound films. In this study, ZnO/Al2O3 alloy films were prepared using ALD techniques. By adjusting the ALD pulse sequence, the ZnO/Al2O3 alloy film composition was var...

Triboluminescence (TL) is an optical phenomenon that has a long and varied history with broad applications, such as damage detection, X-ray source, and mass health monitoring sensor. So far, the properties and mechanisms of TL remain not completely understood. The TL properties emitted during the sliding contact between Al2O3 and SiO2 surfaces were studied along different crystallographic orien...

A series of ceria nanocatalysts have been prepared to study the structure dependency of the CO oxidation reaction. The ceria samples with well-defined nanostructures (nanocubes/Ce-NC and nanorods/Ce-NR) have been prepared using the hydrothermal method. Mesoporous ceria (Ce-MES) and ceria synthesized with solution combustion technique (Ce-SCS) have also been prepared for comparison. The lowest C...

The East Asian summer monsoon controls the climatic regime of an extended region through temperature and precipitation changes. As the East Asian summer monsoon is primarily driven by the northern hemisphere summer insolation, such meteorological variables are expected to significantly change on the orbital timescale, influencing the composition of terrestrial sediments in terms of both mineral...

Electrical properties, current transport mechanism, and stress induced leakage current (SILC) effect of Al2O3 gate dielectric thin films deposited by reactive dc magnetron sputtering were studied. The results show that annealing in O2 ambient can effectively reduce the oxygen vacancy in Al2O3 films but may not result in additional interfacial layer form at Al2O3/Si interface. In the fresh devic...

Alumina (Al2O3) decorated anatase TiO2 nanotubes with ordered mesoporous pore walls (Al2O3/meso-TiO2 nanotubes) are successfully synthesized through vacuum pressure induction technology, and then combined with the thermal decomposition of a mesoporous TiO2 sol precursor, inside the cylindrical nanochannels of an anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) template. The decorated Al2O3 was formed by in situ de...