Improvement of Transparent Conducting Performance on Oxygen-Activated Fluorine-Doped Tin Oxide Electrodes Formed by Horizontal Ultrasonic Spray Pyrolysis Deposition.

In this study, highly transparent conducting fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) electrodes were fabricated using the horizontal ultrasonic spray pyrolysis deposition. In order to improve their transparent conducting performances, we carried out oxygen activation by adjusting the ratio of O2/(O2+N2) in the carrier gas (0%, 20%, and 50%) used during the deposition process. The oxygen activation on the FTO electrodes accelerated the substitution concentration of F (FO•) into the oxygen sites in the FTO electrode while the oxygen vacancy (VO••) concentration was reduced. In addition, due to growth of pyramid-shaped crystallites with (200) preferred orientations, this oxygen activation caused the formation of a uniform surface structure. As a result, compared to others, the FTO electrode prepared at 50% O2 showed excellent electrical and optical properties (sheet resistance of ∼4.0 ± 0.14 Ω/□, optical transmittance of ∼85.3%, and figure of merit of ∼5.09 ± 0.19 × 10-2 Ω-1). This led to a superb photoconversion efficiency (∼7.03 ± 0.20%) as a result of the improved short-circuit current density. The photovoltaic performance improvement can be defined by the decreased sheet resistance of FTO used as a transparent conducting electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), which is due to the combined effect of the high carrier concentration by the improved FO• concentration on the FTO electrodes and the fasted Hall mobility by the formation of a uniform FTO surface structure and distortion relaxation on the FTO lattices resulting from the reduced VO••• concentration.

Effect of SiO2 layer intermediation on direct carbothermal synthesis of SiC nanopowders.

Beta-SiC was synthesized by direct carbothermal reaction using silicon and SiO2-layer-coated carbon powders. It is usually difficult to control the rate of the direct carbothermal reaction of silicon because the reaction rapidly progresses. Therefore coarse powders are obtained although it has the advantage of low synthesis temperature. To evade the above difficulty we tried to insert SiO2 layers between carbon and silicon powders, and the effect of SiO2 layer intermediation on the SiC synthesis was examined. SiO2 was coated on carbon black powders by using a 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) solution. The mixture of silicon and SiO2-coated carbon powders was reacted at 1200-1500 degrees C for 1 h in an Ar gas atmosphere. The morphologies of SiO2-coated carbon and synthesized SiC powders were observed. Thermal and phase evolution during the synthesis of SiC powders were analyzed. We obtained beta-SiC powders with a particle size of around 100 nm at the synthesis temperature of more than 1400 degrees C, which is a considerably lower reaction temperature than that of a usual carbothermal reaction.

Nanosurface-confined anisotropic growth and magnetism of ellipsoidal alpha-Fe nanogranules.

We have investigated the nanosurface-confined anisotropic growth of ordered-ellipsoidal Fe nanogranules when an Fe plume was deposited at a slanting angle onto an anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) film. Layer-by-layer growth was also investigated. This growth is driven by two critical factors: (1) a new rhombic AAO cell and (2) the slanting deposition of the Fe plume. During slanting deposition, the rhombic AAO cell induces strong restrictions in the nucleation site, growth direction, and granular size; therefore, the degree of freedom during growth is restricted. The magnetic dipoles of the ordered Fe nanogranules are placed along the long axis of the ellipsoid at an angle of 180 degrees (antiparallel) due to the demagnetizing field, shape anisotropy, and magnetic dipole-to-dipole interactions.