Polycrystalline δ-phase Sc4Zr3O12 was irradiated with 200 keV Ne+ ions at cryogenic temperature to fluences ranging from 2 × 1018 to 1 × 1021 Ne/m2. Irradiation-induced structural evolution was examined by using grazing incidence x-ray diffraction and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. An order-to-disorder (O-D) crystal structure transformation (from an ordered δ-phase to a disordered, fluorite phase) was observed to initiate by a fluence of 2 × 1018 Ne/m2, corresponding to a peak ballistic damage dose of ∼0.075 displacements per atom. This displacement damage dose is much lower than the O-D transformation dose threshold found in previous heavy ion irradiation experiments on δ-Sc4Zr3O12 [J.A. Valdez et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods B250, 148 (2006); K.E. Sickafus et al., Nat. Mater.6, 217 (2007)]. In this study, we contrast the O-D transformation efficiency of the light Ne ions used in these experiments, to the heavy (Kr) ions used previously, and interpret the differences in terms of enhanced damage efficiency for light ions (greater fraction of surviving defects per defect produced). To better quantify this surviving defect phenomenon, we also present new, additional ion irradiation results on δ-Sc4Zr3O12, obtained from 300 keV Kr2+ and 100 keV He+ ion irradiation experiments.

Type II ZnO/ZnSe core/shell nanowire arrays were grown by a two-step chemical vapor deposition. The nanowire arrays with dense nanoislands on the surface are well aligned and normal to the substrate imaged by scanning electron microscopy. The core/shell structure of nanowires was identified by a high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The structure and composition of the shell were confirmed to be wurtzite ZnSe by x-ray diffraction, Raman scattering and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. Moreover, an intense emission was observed at 1.89 eV smaller than the band gaps of core and shell materials by photoluminescence, indicating the achievement of the type II band alignment at the interface. This study is expected to contribute to the potential applications in novel photovoltaic devices.

In the spirit of the theoretical evolution from the Helmholtz model to the Gouy–Chapman–Stern model for electric double-layer capacitors, we explored the effect of a diffuse layer on the capacitance of mesoporous carbon supercapacitors by solving the Poisson–Boltzmann (PB) equation in mesopores of diameters from 2 to 20 nm. To evaluate the effect of pore shape, both slit and cylindrical pores were considered. We found that the diffuse layer does not affect the capacitance significantly. For slit pores, the area-normalized capacitance is nearly independent of pore size, which is not experimentally observed for template carbons. In comparison, for cylindrical pores, PB simulations produce a trend of slightly increasing area-normalized capacitance with pore size, similar to that depicted by the electric double-cylinder capacitor model proposed earlier. These results indicate that it is appropriate to approximate the pore shape of mesoporous carbons as being cylindrical and the electric double-cylinder capacitor model should be used for mesoporous carbons as a replacement of the traditional Helmholtz model.

Hierarchically structured zinc oxide was prepared from zinc acetylacetonate by a microwave-assisted process. The zinc oxide formed nanoparticles that are packed in substructured spherical agglomerates with a diameter of 0.5 μm. Nitrogen adsorption, x-ray diffraction, and dilatometry were used to investigate the densification. Ion beam method was applied to prepare cross sections and enable microstructural analysis. Three regimes of microstructural evolution were identified on different scales during sintering. In the first regime, nanoparticles changed morphology and densification occurred only in the interiors of the agglomerates. In the second regime, agglomerates became hollow and built necks. Simultaneously, densification set in on the macroscopic scale. A drastic homogenization of the microstructure was observed that marked the beginning of the third regime, where densification and grain growth occurred.

A late porogen removal scheme was used to make low-k materials (k = 2.72 to 2.02) using methylsilsesquioxane (MSQ) and a high-temperature porogen, poly(styrene-b-4-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P4VP), to circumvent the reliability issues related to as-deposited porous dielectric. Based on the nanoindentation and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis, the moduli of the hybrid films were found to be higher than their porous forms, and even better than the dense MSQ film, for porogen loading below a critical level (˜69.5 vol%). This could be attributed to their enhanced degree of cross-linking in MSQ as evidenced by the network/cage structural ratios. Besides, high-temperature porogen plays different roles during the cross-linking of MSQ depending on its loadings. In this study, with immediate loading at 16.7 vol%, PS-b-P4VP can serve as plasticizer to enhance the degree of cross-linking, but at a large loading >16.7 vol%, it becomes a steric hindrance reducing the degree of cross-linking.

In order to evaluate the characteristics of photocatalysts such as TiO2, it is important to separately estimate the oxidation and reduction reaction rates, since the overall reaction rate is limited by the rate-determining step. In this study, photoelectrochemical techniques were applied to thin films of crystalline oriented anatase TiO2 with polycrystalline aggregations deposited on the transparent conductive oxide (TCO) glass substrate, fabricated by the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) in a strong magnetic field. The influence of the plane orientation on the photocatalytic reaction rates was discovered for both oxidation and reduction with respect to current through the electrochemical measurements. The maximum photocurrent for the (001) plane orientation is three times higher than that for the (100) plane orientation, and is comparable with that of the random orientation. The rate of the anodic reaction determines the rate of the overall photocatalytic reaction, therefore affecting the photopotential.

YB22C2N is one of a series of rare earth borocarbonitrides and is potentially the long awaited n-type counterpart to boron carbide. We conducted studies on YB22C2N spark plasma sintered with additions of YB4 and YB25C, including the investigations of the densification process and the thermoelectric properties of the material. We discovered that a small amount of dopants can lower the starting temperature of densification during spark plasma sintering (SPS). Variations of pressure and temperature during the sintering process are also found to have an effect. Electrical conductivity of the dense samples has increased due to insertion of metal borides and also because of the improvement of the relative density. At the same time, only a slight reduction was observed for the Seebeck coefficient leading to an important improvement of power factor. The highest density of more than 95% was achieved with 5 wt% of YB25(C) dopant.

Halloysite nanotubes (HNT) reinforced polylactic acid (PLA) nanocomposite fibers were produced using an electrospinning approach for biomedical applications. The PLA/HNT nanocomposite fibers were characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The various factors such as type of solvent, solution concentration, HNT loading and feed rate, affecting the electrospinning process, and the morphology of the nanofibers were investigated, and the optimum values for these parameters are suggested. The results indicated that the addition of dimethylformamide (DMF) to chloroform facilitated the electrospinning process because of the improvement in electrical conductivity and viscosity of the solution. Nanometer-sized fibers were obtained by the addition of HNT to PLA. HNT loadings had a significant effect on the morphology of the nanofibers. Bead-free fibers were produced at feed rates between 1 and 4 mL/h.

Highly dispersed ZnO/TiO2 nanotube composites (NTCs) were successfully synthesized by a facile ethylenediamine-assisted deposition-precipitation route. The characterizations from x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, Fourier transform infrared, and ultraviolet-visible spectra revealed that hexagonal wurtzite phase ZnO NPs with an average size of about 2 nm were homogeneously dispersed and anchored on the surface of TiO2 nanotubes (NTs) to form ZnO/TiO2 NTCs. The as-prepared ZnO/TiO2 NTCs with the atom ratio Zn/Ti of 1:4 exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity for photodegradation of methyl orange compared with P25 and pure TiO2 NTs, which were mainly caused by an increase of interfacial charge transfer reactions and a decrease of electron-hole pair recombination on ZnO-TNTs heterojunction. Furthermore, ZnO/TiO2 NTCs possessed favorable recycle efficiency due to their relatively high sedimentation rate and only a slight decrease of photocatalytic activity after a six time recycle.

This study examined the performance of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl)(P3HT)- and [6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM)-based organic solar cells (OSCs) with a pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) cathode interfacial layer between the active layer and cathode. The effect of inserting the cathode interfacial layer with different thicknesses was investigated. For the OSC samples with a 0.5 nm thick PMDA layer, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) was approximately 2.77% under 100 mW/cm2 (AM1.5) simulated illumination. It was suggested that the PMDA cathode interfacial layer acts as an exciton blocking layer, leading to an enhancement of the OSC performance.

Tight networks of interwoven carbon nanotube bundles are formed in our highly conductive composite. The composite possesses properties suggesting a two-dimensional percolative network rather than other reported dispersions displaying three-dimensional networks. Binding nanotubes into large but tight bundles dramatically alters the morphology and electronic transport dynamics of the composite. This enables it to carry higher levels of charge in the macroscale leading to conductivities as high as 1600 S/cm. We now discuss in further detail, the electronic and physical properties of the nanotube composites through Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy analysis. When controlled and used appropriately, the interesting properties of these composites reveal their potential for practical device applications. For instance, we used this composite to fabricate coatings, which improve the properties of an electromagnetic antenna/amplifier transducer. The resulting transducer possesses a broadband range up to GHz frequencies. A strain gauge transducer was also fabricated using changes in conductivity to monitor structural deformations in the composite coatings.

ZnO thin films with significantly reduced band gaps were synthesized by doping N and codoping Al and N at 100 °C. All the films were synthesized by radiofrequency magnetron sputtering on F-doped tin-oxide-coated glass. We found that codoped ZnO:(Al,N) thin films exhibited significantly enhanced crystallinity compared with ZnO doped solely with N, ZnO:N, at the same growth conditions. Furthermore, annealed ZnO:(Al,N) thin films exhibited enhanced N incorporation over ZnO:N films. As a result, ZnO:(Al,N) films exhibited better photocurrents than ZnO:N films grown with pure N doping, suggesting that charge-compensated donor–acceptor codoping could be a potential method for band gap reduction of wide-band gap oxide materials to improve their photoelectrochemical performance.

The authors report a study of molecular beam deposition of MgO films on amorphous SiO2 and (0001) GaN surfaces over a large range of temperatures (25–400 °C) and molecular oxygen growth pressures (10−7–10−4 Torr). This study provides insight into the growth behavior of an oxide with volatile metal constituents. Unlike other materials containing volatile constituents (e.g., GaAs, PbTiO3), all components of MgO become volatile at normal epitaxial growth temperatures (≥250 °C). Consequently, defining which species is the adsorption controller becomes ambiguous. Different growth regimes are delineated by the critical substrate temperature for Mg re-evaporation and the Mg:O flux ratio. These regimes have impact on phase purity, quartz crystal microbalance calibration, and film microstructure. The universal decay in deposition rate above growth 10−5 Torr O2 is also considered. By introducing a third flux of inert argon gas, rate reduction is attributed to increased molecular scattering and not oxidation of the metal source.

Resistance degradation of Ca-doped BaTiO3 ceramics was investigated. A series of coarse and fine-grained (Ba1–xCax)TiO3 with only Ba site incorporation ranging x from 0 to 0.1, and Ba(Ti1–yCay)O3 ceramics with only Ti site incorporation ranging y from 0 to 0.015, were prepared with similar grain sizes. The increase of x did not cause any distinct difference in degradation, whereas an increase in y caused a significant resistance degradation in both coarse and fine-grained specimens. The variation of ionic transference number (tion) as evaluated by the Warburg impedance was negligible with increase in x, but significantly increased with the increase in y. These results demonstrate that the decrease of lattice parameters and lattice shrinkage by the Ba site incorporation of Ca has little influence on the resistance degradation, and that the oxygen vacancy concentration generated by the Ti site incorporation of acceptor Ca is a very important factor that governs resistance degradation.

This paper reports that the homogeneous nanocrystalline LCMO(core)/SFMO(shell) and SFMO(core)/LCMO(shell) series composites are successively synthesized using polymer-network sol-gel method. With the increase of SFMO content in the composites, the remanence magnetization Mr increases while the coercivity Hc decreases. This fact indicates that the ferromagnetic phase boosts up. Moreover, the LFMR (1 T) of the composites succeeds the preponderances of both SFMO and LCMO; i.e., the magnetoresistance (MR) value increases from 300 to 5 K and keeps a high level. In particular, the MR value of the LS-8 composite reaches 55% at 5 K and 7 T.

Holmium-doped BaTiO3 with composition Ba0.97Ho0.03TiO3 was prepared by sol-gel combustion method. A molar ratio of citrate/nitrate (CA/NO3− = 1.3) was used to prepare nanopowders of (Ba,Ho)TiO3. The structure and microstructure of (Ba,Ho)TiO3 powders and ceramics were investigated. The ceramics exhibit a dielectric constant of about 4400 and dielectric loss (tan δ = 0.267) at 10 Hz, and at the Curie temperature (Tc = 132 °C). The remanent polarization and the coercive field of Ba0.97Ho0.03TiO3 ceramics, at 1 kHz, were Pr = 6 μC/cm2 and EC = 0.75 kV/cm. The dielectric and ferroelectric behavior of the holmium-doped BaTiO3 is influenced by the amphoteric character of Ho3+ ions.

Hafnium oxide films doubly doped with CeCl3 and TbCl3 and triply doped with CeCl3, TbCl3, and MnCl2 were deposited at 300 °C with the ultrasonic spray pyrolysis technique. The green and yellow emissions of Tb3+ ions and the yellow-red emission of Mn2+ ions can be generated upon ultraviolet (UV) excitation via a nonradiative energy transfer from Ce3+ to Tb3+ and Ce3+ to Mn2+. In the doubly doped film Ce3+ → Tb3+ energy transfer via an electric dipole–quadrupole interaction appears to be the most probable transfer mechanism; the efficiency of this transfer is about 81% upon excitation at 270 nm. In the HfO2 films activated with Ce3+, Tb3+, and Mn2+ the efficiency of energy transfer from Ce3+ to Tb3+ and Mn2+ ions is enhanced by increasing the Mn2+ concentration, up to about 76% for the film with the highest manganese content (1.6 at.%). In addition, it is demonstrated that these triply doped films can generate cold white light emission upon excitation at 270 nm (peak emission wave length of an AlGaN/GaN-based LEDs).

A new Pd79Au1.5Ag3Si16.5 bulk metallic glass was successfully synthesized in a maximum casting thickness range to 3 mm. Upon heating, the single glassy phase decomposed into Pd-rich crystalline phases and a Si-rich amorphous phase due to solute partitioning. In addition to high thermal stability, this bulk glassy alloy also exhibited a high degree of ductility and excellent corrosion resistance, showing potential applications as biomaterials.

Carbonaceous sphere@MnO2 rattle-type hollow spheres were synthesized under mild experimental conditions. The as-prepared hollow structures were characterized using scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and nitrogen adsorption techniques. The characterization data showed the formation of rattle-type hollow structures with a mesoporous MnO2 shell and a carbonaceous sphere core. The composition and shell thickness of the hollow spheres can be controlled experimentally. The capacitive performance of the hollow structures was evaluated by using both cycle voltammetry and charge–discharge methods. The results demonstrated a specific capacitance as high as 184 F/g at a current density of 125 mA/g. The good electrocapacitive performance resulted from the mesoporous structure and high surface area of the MnO2-based hollow spheres.

CrAlSiN/W2N nanolayered coatings were prepared by direct current magnetron sputtering. The modulation periods of multilayer coatings were controlled in the range from 3 to 20 nm. From the low angle x-ray diffraction and high angle x-ray diffraction (XRD) satellite peaks, the superlattice structure of these coatings was evidenced. The modulation periods of multilayer coatings were obtained precisely by the low angle XRD and high angle XRD satellite peaks methods. The detailed layered structure was further investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Because of the dense and smooth nanolayered microstructure, the CrAlSiN/W2N multilayer films exhibited excellent microhardness. With an appropriate modulation period of 8 nm, the hardness reached a maximum around 40 GPa. The hardness enhancement is attributed to the large lattice mismatch and strengthening of superlattice structure, which is confirmed by XRD and transmission electron microscopy.