Ambipolar organic field-effect transistors with air stability, high mobility, and balanced transport

Ambipolar organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on the organic heterojunction of copper-hexadecafluoro-phthalocyanine (F16CuPc) and 2,5-bis(4-biphenylyl) bithiophene (BP2T) were fabricated. The ambipolar OFETs eliminated the injection barrier for the electrons and holes though symmetrical Au source and drain electrodes were used, and exhibited air stability and balanced ambipolar transport behavior. High field-effect mobilities of 0.04 cm(2)/V s for the holes and 0.036 cm(2)/V s for the electrons were obtained. The capacitance-voltage characteristic of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) diode confirmed that electrons and holes are transported at F16CuPc and BP2T layers, respectively. On this ground, complementary MOS-like inverters comprising two identical ambipolar OFETs were constructed.

ENHANCED AMPEROMETRIC DETECTOR FOR LOCAL-ANESTHETICS IN LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH METAL-OXIDE DISPERSED GLASSY-CARBON ELECTRODES

Chemically modified electrodes (CMEs) prepared by the dispersion of metal oxide particles on a glassy carbon (GC) substrate greatly enhance the voltammetric response and amperometric detection of local anesthetics following liquid chromatography (LC). The enhancement is more pronounced with the GC electrodes dispersed by the metal oxides of higher oxidation states (+3, +4) and for the species exhibiting relatively slow electrode kinetics under given conditions. With an applied potential of 1.2 V (vs. SCE), LC amperometric detection of the analytes at the alpha-alumina modified GC surface gives detection limits 2-5 times lower than those obtained at the bare electrode. The metal oxide-dispersed electrodes display significant improvement in sensitivity, and selectivity and indicate excellent preparation reproducibility and performance stability.

Partial oxidation of ethane to syngas over nickel-based catalysts modified by alkali metal oxide and rare earth metal oxide

The catalytic activity, thermal stability and carbon deposition of various modified NiO/gamma-Al2O3 and unmodified NiO/gamma-Al2O3 catalysts were investigated with a flow reactor, XRD, TG and UVRRS analysis. The activity and selectivity of the NiO/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst showed little difference from those of the modified nickel-based catalysts. However, modification with alkali metal oxide (Li, Na, K) and rare earth metal oxide (La, Ce, Y, Sm) can improve the thermal stability of the NiO/gamma-Al2O3 and enhance its ability to suppress carbon deposition during the partial oxidation of ethane (POE). The carbon deposition contains graphite-like species that were detected by UVRRS. The nickel-based catalysts modified by alkali metal oxide and rare earth metal oxide have excellent catalytic activities (C2H6 conversion of similar to 100%, CO selectivity of similar to 94%, 7x 10(4) l/(kg h), 1123 K), good thermal stability and carbon-deposition resistance.

VAMP - a vision based sensor network for health care hygiene

Adequate hand-washing has been shown to be a critical activity in preventing the transmission of infections such as MRSA in health-care environments. Hand-washing guidelines published by various health-care related institutions recommend a technique incorporating six hand-washing poses that ensure all areas of the hands are thoroughly cleaned. In this paper, an embedded wireless vision system (VAMP) capable of accurately monitoring hand-washing quality is presented. The VAMP system hardware consists of a low resolution CMOS image sensor and FPGA processor which are integrated with a microcontroller and ZigBee standard wireless transceiver to create a wireless sensor network (WSN) based vision system that can be retargeted at a variety of health care applications. The device captures and processes images locally in real-time, determines if hand-washing procedures have been correctly undertaken and then passes the resulting high-level data over a low-bandwidth wireless link. The paper outlines the hardware and software mechanisms of the VAMP system and illustrates that it offers an easy to integrate sensor solution to adequately monitor and improve hand hygiene quality. Future work to develop a miniaturized, low cost system capable of being integrated into everyday products is also discussed.

Accommodating curvature in a highly ordered functionalized metal oxide nanofiber: synthesis, characterization and multi-scale modeling of layered nanosheets

A key element in the rational design of hybrid organic-inorganic nanostructures, is control of surfactant packing and adsorption onto the inorganic phase in crystal growth and assembly. In layered single crystal nanofibers and bilayered 2D nanosheets of vanadium oxide, we show how the chemisorption of preferred densities of surfactant molecules can direct formation of ordered, curved layers. The atom-scale features of the structures are described using molecular dynamics simulations that quantify surfactant packing effects and confirm the preference for a density of 5 dodecanethiol molecules per 8 vanadium attachment sites in the synthesised structures. This assembly maintains a remarkably well ordered interlayer spacing, even when curved. The assemblies of interdigitated organic bilayers on V2O5 are shown to be sufficiently flexible to tolerate curvature while maintaining a constant interlayer distance without rupture, delamination or cleavage. The accommodation of curvature and invariant structural integrity points to a beneficial role for oxide-directed organic film packing effects in layered architectures such as stacked nanofibers and hybrid 2D nanosheet systems.

Engineering of metal oxide interfaces for renewable energy applications

Diminishing non-renewable energy resources and planet-wide de-pollution on our planet are among the major problems which mankind faces into the future. To solve these problems, renewable energy sources such as readily available and inexhaustible sunlight will have to be used. There are however no readily available photocatalysts that are photocatalytically active under visible light; it is well established that the band gap of the prototypical photocatalyst, titanium dioxide, is the UV region with the consequence that only 4% of sun light is utilized. For this reason, this PhD project focused on developing new materials, based on titanium dioxide, which can be used in visible light activated photocatalytic hydrogen production and destruction of pollutant molecules. The main goal of this project is to use simulations based on first principles to engineer and understand rationally, materials based on modifying TiO2 that will have the following properties: (1) a suitable band gap in order to increase the efficiency of visible light absorption, with a gap around 2 – 2.5 eV considered optimum. (2). The second key aspect in the photocatalytic process is electron and hole separation after photoexcitation, which enable oxidation/reduction reactions necessary to i.e. decompose pollutants. (3) Enhanced activity over unmodified TiO2. In this thesis I present results on new materials based on modifying TiO2 with supported metal oxide nanoclusters, from two classes, namely: transition metal oxides (Ti, Ni, Cu) and p-block metal oxides (Sn, Pb, Bi). We find that the deposited metal oxide nanoclusters are stable at rutile and anatase TiO2 surfaces and present an analysis of changes to the band gap of TiO2, identifying those modifiers that can change the band gap to the desirable range and the origin of this. A successful collaboration with experimental researchers in Japan confirms many of the simulation results where the origin of improved visible light photocatalytic activity of oxide nanocluster-modified TiO2 is now well understood. The work presented in this thesis, creates a road map for the design of materials with desired photocatalytic properties and contributes to better understanding these properties which are of great application in renewable energy utilization.

Synthesis of Epitaxial Metal Oxide Nanocrystals via a Phase Separation Approach

Perovskite phase instability of BiMnO3 has been exploited to synthesize epitaxial metal oxide magnetic nanocrystals. Thin film processing conditions are tuned to promote the breakdown of the perovskite precursor into Bi2O3 matrix and magnetic manganese oxide islands. Subsequent cooling in vacuum ensures complete volatization of the Bi2O3, thus leaving behind an array of self-assembled magnetic Mn3O4 nanostructures. Both shape and size can be systematically controlled by the ambient oxygen environments and deposition time.As such, this approach can be extended to any other Bi-based complex ternary oxide system as it primarily hinges on the breakdown of parent Bi-based precursor and subsequent Bi2O3 volatization.

Metal Oxide Nanoparticle Mediated Enhanced Raman Scattering and Its Use in Direct Monitoring of Interfacial Chemical Reactions

Metal oxide nanoparticles (MONPs) have widespread usage across many disciplines, but monitoring molecular processes at their surfaces in situ has not been possible. Here we demonstrate that MONPs give highly enhanced (X10(4)) Raman scattering signals from molecules at the interface permitting direct monitoring of their reactions, when placed on top of flat metallic surfaces. Experiments with different metal oxide materials and molecules indicate that the enhancement is generic and operates at the single nanoparticle level. Simulations confirm that the amplification is principally electromagnetic and is a result of optical modulation of the underlying plasmonic metallic surface by MONPs, which act as scattering antennae and couple light into the confined region sandwiched by the underlying surface. Because of additional functionalities of metal oxides as magnetic, photoelectrochemical and catalytic materials, enhanced Raman scattering mediated by MONPs opens up significant opportunities in fundamental science, allowing direct tracking and understanding of application-specific transformations at such interfaces. We show a first example by monitoring the MONP-assisted photocatalytic decomposition reaction of an organic dye by individual nanoparticles.

Ferroelectric hafnium oxide: A CMOS-compatible and highly scalable approach to future ferroelectric memories

With the ability to engineer ferroelectricity in HfO2 thin films, manufacturable and highly scaled MFM capacitors and MFIS-FETs can be implemented into a CMOS-environment. NVM properties of the resulting devices are discussed and contrasted to existing perovskite based FRAM.