Vis-NIR characteristics of amorphous germanium films and electrical properties of a-Ge/<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-Si heterostructures obtained by pulsed-laser deposition method

Optical properties of a-Ge films (glass substrate) and electrical properties of a-Ge/p-Si heterostructures obtained by the pulsed-laser deposition method have been studied. It is shown that optical properties of a-Ge films can be well explained by the Tauc model for amorphous semiconductors. The dependence of optical gap on the film thickness is obtained for a-Ge films. Forward-bias current-voltage characteristics of the a-Ge/p-Si heterostructures are satisfactorily approximated by the relation for current density J = CV ^m , where m varies from 1.45 to 1.95 depending on the applied forward bias and a-Ge film thickness. Also, for the mentioned heterostructure (a-Ge film thickness is 400 nm) nearly quadratic dependence of the current density is observed, which indicates the predominance of the space-charge-limited current.     

New Chemical Transformations Involving SO2F2-Mediated Alcohol Activation

Sulfuryl fluoride is a gas produced on a multi-ton scale for its use as a fumigant. In the last decades, it has gained interest in organic synthesis as a reagent with unique properties in terms of stability and reactivity when compared to other sulfur-based reagents. Sulfuryl fluoride has not only been used for sulfur-fluoride exchange (SuFEx) chemistry but also encountered applications in classic organic synthesis as an efficient activator of both alcohols and phenols, forming a triflate surrogate, namely a fluorosulfonate. A long-standing industrial collaboration in our research group drove our work on the sulfuryl fluoride-mediated transformations that will be highlighted below. We will first describe recent works on metal-catalyzed transformations from aryl fluorosulfonates while emphasizing the one-pot processes from phenol derivatives. In a second section, nucleophilic substitution reactions on polyfluoroalkyl alcohols will be discussed and the value of polyfluoroalkyl fluorosulfonates in comparison to alternative triflate and halide reagents will be brought to light.