双极性碳纳米管薄膜晶体管构建及电性能研究

本文用聚 (PFO-BT)分离的半导体碳纳米管作为有源层,通过气溶胶喷墨打印技术在刚性基体上构建出底栅结构的碳纳米管薄膜晶体管器件。用钛酸钡复合材料封装后,碳纳米管薄膜晶体管表现出很好的双极性、较高的开关比和零回滞特性,同时阈值电压能够控制在0 V附近。通过两个双极性薄膜晶体管连接而成的反相器表现出零回滞、高电压增益(V_dd=1.5 V时,其增益可达到35)和大噪声容限(V_dd=1 V时,最大噪声容限为0.44 V)。     

Fabrication of flexible thin organic transistors by trace water assisted transfer method

In this paper, we develop a facile peel-off method to transfer organic thin film to various substrates. Remarkably, the method uses only micro volume water as an assist to peel off PAN film, which reduces the risk of contamination by solvent and greatly contributes to the performance maintenance.     

Time-resolved electrochromic properties of MoO<Subscript>3</Subscript> thin films electrodeposited on a flexible substrate

In this paper, a MoO₃ thin film was firstly electrodeposited on flexible ITO/PET substrates. Its electrochromic properties were examined using an electrochemical workstation coupled in situ with a charge-coupled device (CCD) spectrophotometer. The film was characterized by XRD and AFM. The electrodeposited MoO₃ thin film on the ITO/PET substrate showed a large transmittance contrast between the colored and bleached states, a quick response, and good durability and reversibility. The low working potential range, –0.5 to 1.6 V (vs. Ag/AgCl), for the MoO₃/ITO/PET film prepared in this work makes it a good candidate for flexible smart windows, as well as other plastic electrochromic devices. Electronic Publication     

Inorganic oxide core, polymer shell nanocomposite as a high K gate dielectric for flexible electronics applications

Organic/inorganic core shell nanoparticles have been synthesized using high K TiO(2) as the core nanoparticle, and polystyrene as the shell. This material is easy to process and forms transparent continuous thin films, which exhibit a dielectric constant enhancement of over 3 times that of bulk polystyrene. This new dielectric material has been incorporated into capacitors and thin film transistors (TFTs). Mobilities approaching 0.2 cm(2)/V.s have been measured for pentacene TFTs incorporating the new TiO(2) polystyrene nanostructured gate dielectric, indicating good surface properties for pentacene film growth. This novel strategy for generating high K flexible gate dielectrics will be of value in improving organic and flexible electronic device performance.     

Interface-directed sol-gel: direct fabrication of the covalently attached ultraflat inorganic oxide pattern on functionalized plastics

For plastic electronics and optics, the fabrication of smooth, transparent and stable crack-free inorganic oxide films (and patterning) on flexible polymeric substrates with strong bonding strength and controllable thickness from nanometers to micrometers is a key but still remains a challenge. Among versatile inorganic oxides, silica oxide film as SiO _x is especially important because this semiconductor material could provide crucial properties in devices or serve as a base layer for further multilayer construction. In this paper, we describe a new interface-directed sol-gel method to fabricate flexible high quality silicon oxide film onto commodity plastics. The resulting crack-free silica film has strong covalent bonding with polymer substrates, homogeneous morphology with ultralow roughness, highly optical transparency, tunable thickness from nm to μm, and easy patterning ability. Such fabrication strategy relies on a novel photocatalytic oxidation reaction by photosensitive ammonium persulfate (APS), which is able to fabricate highly reactive hydroxyl monolayer surface on inert polymeric substrates. This kind of hydroxylated surface could serve as nucleation and growth sites to initiate surface sol-gel process. As a result, well-defined SiO _x film deposition (gelation) occurs, and patterned hydroxylation regions could be easily utilized to induce the formation of patterned oxide film arrays. Our strategy also excludes the requirements of clean room and vacuum devices so as to fulfill low-cost and fast fabrication demands. Two application examples from such high quality SiO _x layer onto plastics are given but should not be limited within these. One is that oxygen permeation rate of SiO _x deposited polymer film decreases 25 times than pristine polymer substrate, which is good for the potential packaging materials. The other one is that silanization monolayer, for example, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), could be successfully constructed onto silica layer through classical silanization reaction, which is applicable for many potential purposes, for instance, proteins could be accordingly immobilized onto plastic support with effective signal-to-background ratio. Moreover, we further demonstrate that this interface-directed sol-gel strategy is a general method which could be successfully extended to other high quality oxide film fabrication, e.g., TiO₂.     

Carbon-free Cu_2ZnSn(S,Se)_4 film prepared via a non-hydrazine route

The kesterite Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4(CZTSSe) is an ideal candidate for light harvesting materials in earth-abundant low-cost thinfilm solar cells(TFSC). Although the solution-based processing is a most promising approach to achieve low-cost solar cells with high power conversion efficiency, the issues of poor crystallinity and carbon residue in CZTSSe thin films are still challenging. Herein, a non-hydrazine solution-based method was reported to fabricate highly crystallized and carbon-free kesterite CZTSSe thin films. Interestingly, it was found that the synthetic atmosphere of metal organic precursors have a dramatic impact on the morphology and crystallinity of CZTSSe films. By optimizing the processing parameters, we were able to obtain a kesterite CZTSSe film composed of compact large crystal grains with trace carbon residues. Also, a viable reactive ion etching(RIE) processing with optimized etching conditions was then developed to successfully eliminate trace carbon residues on the surface of the CZTSSe film.     

An inkjet printing soft photomask and its application on organic polymer substrates

This article presents a simple, fast and low-cost method to fabricate a flexible UV light photomask. The designed micropatterns were directly printed onto transparent hybrid composite film of biaxially oriented polypropylene coated with silica oxide (BOPP-SiO _x ) by an inkjet printer. Compared to the conventional chrome-mask, it is of advantages such as suitable for non-planar substrates, scalable for large area production, and extreme low cost. Combined with the confined photo-catalytic oxidation (CPO) reaction, the printed flexible BOPP-SiO _x photomask was successfully used to pattern the shape of wettability of organic polymer surfaces, and then polyaniline patterns were deposited on the modified substrates with strong adhesion. With the above photomasks, the polyacrylic acid graft chains were duplicated on the poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and BOPP substrates by photografting polymerization. We grafted polyacrylic acid (PAA) on a non-planar plastic substrate with this soft and thin plastic photomask. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy were used to characterize the surface morphology and thickness of ink layers of the printed photomask. Optical microscopy was used to characterize the deposition polyaniline micropatterns. It was found that the desired patterns were precisely printed on the modified polymer films and were applied in modifying organic polymer substrates. The printed photomask could be exploited in the fields such as prototype microfluidics, micro-sensors, optical structures and any other kind of microstructures which does not require high durability and dimensional stability.     

Sol–gel processed indium zinc oxide thin film and transparent thin-film transistors

Indium–zinc oxide (IZO) thin films were fabricated by spin coating using acetate- and nitrate-based precursors, and thin film transistors (TFTs) were further fabricated employing the IZO films as the active channel layer. The impact of the indium concentration on the properties of the solutions, the structure and optical transmittance properties of the IZO films and the IZO TFTs device properties were researched in this article. The IZO films with amorphous structure were obtained when the annealing temperature is 500 °C. The transmittance could reach ~90 % (including glass substrate) during the visible region of 400–760 nm. Higher indium concentration can improve the IZO TFTs’ filed effect mobility. A I_on–I_off of 6.0 × 10⁶ and a mobility of 0.13 cm²/Vs were obtained when the indium concentration is 60 %. IZO TFTs’ performance could deteriorate when the indium concentration more than 60 %.     

印刷半导体碳纳米管薄膜晶体管光电性能研究

本文研究了聚[(2,7-9,9-二辛基芴基)-4,7-双(噻吩-2-基)苯并-2,1,3-噻二唑]（PFO-DBT）分离的半导体碳纳米管薄膜晶体管的光电性能。在超声和高速离心辅助下,PFO-DBT能够从商业化单壁碳纳米管中选择性分离出高纯的半导体碳纳米管。用得到的半导体碳纳米管溶液通过气溶胶喷墨印刷方法构建出高性能印刷薄膜晶体管器件。印刷碳纳米管薄膜晶体管表现出高的开关比（10⁷）和高迁移率（15.6 cm²·V^-1·s^-1）。并且所有制备的印刷薄膜晶体管具有很好的光敏感特性和很好的稳定性。     

Molecular dynamics simulation of thin film formation by energetic cluster impact (ECI)

Langevin Molecular Dynamics Simulations have been performed in order to understand thin film formation by impact of energetic clusters. The impact of Mo₁₀₂₄ clusters on a Mo surface is simulated at kinetic energies between 1 and 10 eV per atom. The results are in qualitative agreement with the experiments. Due to the high temperature induced locally at the impact zone, the method can be used to form compact, smooth, and strongly adhering thin films on room temperature substrates.     

Preparation of nanocrystalline TiO2 thin film at low temperature and its application in dye-sensitized solar cell

The electrophoretic deposition combined with common pressure hydrothermal treatment was employed to prepare nanocrystalline TiO₂ thin film from suspension of tetra-n-butyl titanate and P25 at low temperature. The tetra-n-butyl titanate was hydrolyzed and crystallized into anatase to interconnect nanocrystalline TiO₂ particles and to stick them to a conductive substrate by common pressure hydrothermal treatment to improve the electron transport properties of the deposited thin film. A dye-sensitized solar cell based on TiO₂ thin film prepared by the low temperature method yielded the conversion efficiency of 6.12%. Due to the relative slower electron transport rate in the deposited film, its conversion efficiency was slightly lower than that of the cell with TiO₂ thin film prepared by the conventional high temperature sintering method. Since it is free of high temperature sintering step, this method can be used to prepare nanocrystalline TiO₂ thin film on plastic polymer conductive substrate for fabrication of flexible dye-sensitized solar cell.     

Electrochemical properties of a fully integrated, singlewalled carbon nanotube coplanar three-electrode system on glass substrate

Fully integrated carbon nanotube-based three-electrode electrochemical systems were photolithographically prepared on glass substrates and electrochemically characterized. O₂ plasma treatment of the transferred single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film was voltammetrically optimized in terms of applied plasma power and the elapsed time. The patterned thin film Ag layer was chemically oxidized in an acidic solution for various dip times to form a chlorinated Ag layer. The Nernstian behavior of as-prepared and seven-day-aged Ag/AgCl thin-film electrodes was investigated for optimization, and the electrode's electrochemical attributes were compared to a commercial reference electrode. A quality control evaluation and a performance assessment of the fully integrated SWCNT-transferred sensing systems were performed using cyclic voltammetry. The proposed SWCNT-based three-electrode device exhibited clear electrochemistry under voltammetric conditions, and is therefore a candidate for use in all electrochemical biosensors.     

Impact of substrate on some physical properties of PrFe0.5Ni0.5O3 thin films

We carried out the structural, morphological and transport study of PrFe_0.5Ni_0.5O₃ thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) over various substrates. Different substrates like LaAlO₃ (001),GaAs(001) and Si(001) were used for deposition to understand effect of lattice mismatch on various physical properties. The film deposited on LaAlO₃ was of best quality with well (001)-oriented and having good crystalline properties. Whereas, film deposited on GaAs(001) is well textured. Both films shows semiconducting behavior and resistance of the film deposited on GaAs(001) shows larger than that of film deposited on LAO. However, film deposited on Si, also shows polycrystalline growth with unusual metallic behavior. We tried to correlate this behavior with strain-induced growth of these films. Other possibilities for this unusual trend is also explored.     

Highly Catalytic Carbon Nanotube/Pt Nanohybrid‐Based Transparent Counter Electrode for Efficient Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Low‐cost transparent counter electrodes (CEs) for efficient dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are prepared by using nanohybrids of carbon nanotube (CNT)‐supported platinum nanoparticles as highly active catalysts. The nanohybrids, synthesized by an ionic‐liquid‐assisted sonochemical method, are directly deposited on either rigid glass or flexible plastic substrates by a facile electrospray method for operation as CEs. Their electrochemical performances are examined by cyclic voltammetry, current density–voltage characteristics, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The CNT/Pt hybrid films exhibit high electrocatalytic activity for I^?/I₃^? with a weak dependence on film thickness. A transparent CNT/Pt hybrid CE film about 100 nm thick with a transparency of about 70 % (at 550 nm) can result in a high power conversion efficiency (η) of over 8.5 %, which is comparable to that of pyrolysis platinum‐based DSSCs, but lower cost. Furthermore, DSSC based on flexible CNT/Pt hybrid CE using indium‐doped tin oxide‐coated polyethylene terephthalate as the substrate also exhibits η=8.43 % with J_sc=16.85 mA cm^?2, V_oc=780 mV, and FF=0.64, and this shows great potential in developing highly efficient flexible DSSCs.     

Solution-based assembly of conductive gold film on flexible polymer substrates

Conductive films of gold were assembled on flexible polymer substrates such as Kapton and polyethylene using a solution-based process. The polymer substrates were modified by using argon plasma and subsequent coupling of silanes with amino- or mercapto- terminal groups. These modified surfaces were examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and contact angle measurements. Colloidal gold was assembled onto the silane-modified surface from solution. The gold particles are attached to the surface by covalent interactions with the thiol or amine group. Formation of a conductive film is achieved by increasing the coverage of gold by using a "seeding" method to increase the size of the attached gold particles. Field emission scanning electron microscopy was used to follow the growth of the film. The surface resistance of the films, measured using a four-point probe, was about 1 Omega/sq.     

Unexpected formation by pulsed laser deposition of nanostructured Fe/olivine thin films on MgO substrates

Olivine-type LiFePO₄ thin films were grown on MgO (1 0 0) substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The formation of an original nanostructure is evidenced by transmission electron microscopy measurements. Indeed, on focused ion beam prepared cross sections of the thin film, we observe, the amazing formation of metallic iron/olivine nanostructures. The appearance of such a structure is explained owing to a topotactic relation between the two phases as well as a strong Mg diffusion from the substrate to the film surface. Magnesium migration is thus concomitant with the creation of metallic iron domains that grow from the core of the film to the surface leading to large protuberances. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on iron extrusion from the olivine-type LiFePO₄.     

Synthesis and Properties of Highly Conductive Thin Films as Buffer Layer from Sol-Gel Process

We prepared epitaxial growth SrRuO₃ thin film on LaAlO₃ (001) (LAO) single crystal substrate and highly oriented BaTiO₃ ferroelectric thin film on the epitaxial SrRuO₃ thin film. A homogeneous precursor solution for preparing SrRuO₃ thin film was prepared with Sr(O—i—C₃H₇)₂ and Ru(NO)(NO₃)₃ as starting materials, and 2-methoxy ethanol as solvents. The as-coated thin films were heat treated at temperatures from 723 to 1273 K for 1 h in air. SrRuO₃ grew epitaxially on LAO(001) substrate, which were confirmed by XRD theta-2theta method and XRD pole figure analysis. The crystallographic relationship of the film and substrate was SrRuO₃(001) parallel to LAO(001) and SrRuO₃[110] parallel to LAO[100]. A homogeneous precursor solution for preparing BaTiO₃ thin film was prepared with Ti[O—n—(CH₂)₃CH₃]₄ and Ba(OCOCH₃)₂ as starting materials, and acetic acid, 2-methoxy ethanol. SrRuO₃ coated LAO substrates were coated by spin-coating method with the coating solution. The as-coated thin films were heat treated at temperatures from 973 to 1173 K in air. It was confirmed that the thin films were growing orientated for c-axis by measurement of XRD theta-2theta method.     

Cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic cycling characteristics of LiNiVO4 thin films during lithium insertion and re/de-insertion

In this communication, we investigated the effects of LiNiVO₄ thin film electrodes composition, thickness, electrolytes, cycling temperature, crystallization of films, and substrates on the kinetics during lithium insertion/de-insertion behaviour, which were studied in detail by cyclic voltammetry. The stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric thin films were formed by using rf-sputtering by varying the partial pressure of oxygen, and the host films were characterized by a variety of methods like Nuclear techniques and surface science analytical methods. The galvanostatic studies give the lithium insertion amounts and the best electrochemical performance of 1300 mAh/g capacity has been obtained from the stoichiometric film deposited on a stainless steel substrate during the first discharge cycle. The lithium diffusion coefficients of the film during the first discharge–charge cycle were measured by using galvanostatic intermediate titration method. Overall, the voltammetric behaviours of LiNiVO₄ thin film electrodes are highly sensitive to the composition, thickness, cycling temperature, scan rate, substrates and crystal structure, and the above observed behaviours are discussed.     

Are redox probes a useful indicator of film stability? An electrochemical,AFM and XPS study of electrografted amine films on carbon

The electrochemical response of solution-based redox probes is commonly used to detect and monitor the formation and stability of films grafted to conducting substrates. In this work we examine redox probe responses at films grafted to glassy carbon (GC) and pyrolysed photoresist film (PPF) by electrooxidation of aliphatic primary amines. Cyclic voltammograms are obtained before and after soaking the modified surfaces in phosphate buffer and acetonitrile. For conditions where films exhibit large changes in electrochemical blocking properties, AFM measurements of film thickness and surface roughness, and XPS measurements of surface composition, are used to monitor the stability of the films. No changes in film structure or composition can be detected, demonstrating that electrochemical loss of blocking properties cannot be equated with large-scale loss of surface film. The origin of changes in probe response is discussed.     

Bent-core liquid crystal-functionalised flexible polymer substrates for liquid crystal alignment

ABSTRACT

A transparent flexible polymer film is chemically functionalised with a bent-core liquid crystal (BCLC) compound for effective alignment of the bulk BCLC sample at the substrate–LC interface. The surface attachment was achieved via a simple procedure which involved pre-treatment of the polymer film (commercial name: over head projector film) using piranha solution followed by chemically attaching the BCLC compound through silane condensation reaction. Surface characterisation of the unmodified and BC-modified flexible films was carried out through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), attenuated total reflectance fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, contact angle (CA) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques. The BC-modified flexible substrates are analysed for their efficiency to orient the bulk LC sample. Remarkably, the chemically modified polymer substrates are highly efficient in vertically aligning both the BC and rod-like LC samples at the substrate–LC interface, in comparison to their unmodified counterparts. The described method is simple, reproducible, surface modified substrates are highly stable and more importantly reusable. The demonstrated method for the alignment of BCLCs advances a step forward towards the realisation of applications proposed for these fascinating compounds.