Pulsed laser deposition was used to create 0.1-Bi(Zn₀.₅ Ti₀.₅)O₃-0.9-BaTiO₃ (BZT-BT) thin films to examine the effects of laser energy (2.25 or 2.5 J/cm²) , pulse frequency (2 Hz or 5 Hz), and deposition temperature (550, 600, 650, and 700°C) on the electrical properties of the films. These effects were analyzed...
Amorphous multicomponent metals have promising applications in novel electronic devices because of their atomically smooth surface morphology and lack of grain boundaries. It is important to understand the thermal transport properties of amorphous metals and an accurate measurement of their thermal conductivity will be essential for further improvement of device...
Taking long-term electrical measurements of a large number of neurons simultaneously is required for many modern neuroscience experiments. However, such experiments are currently limited by the shortcomings of traditional neurosensing technology. For example, there is a significant mechanical mismatch between rigid silicon probes and soft biological tissues. This mismatch can...
Low-dimensional electronic materials offer a platform to observe biological processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are the closest physical analog to an ideal 1D system and can be scaled and integrated into multiplexed electronic circuitry. The molecular structure of a CNT is also biocompatible, making them...
This work explores the synthesis and characterization of the metastable alloys Sn1-xCaxCh (Ch= S, Se) and nitride compounds Zn-W-Mo-N, which have recently been predicted by theorists. Single phase thin films of Sn1-xCaxS are prepared by pulsed laser deposition and radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and of Sn1-xCaxSe are prepared by pulsed laser...
BiCuOSe and SnS are layered, moderate band gap (ε[subscript G] ≈ 1 eV) semiconductors that exhibit intrinsic p type conductivity. Doping of BiCuOSe with Ca results in a slight expansion of the lattice and an increase of the hole concentration from 10¹⁸ cm⁻³ to greater than 10²⁰ cm⁻³. The large...
Structure-specific synthesis processes are of key importance to the growth of polymorphic functional compounds such as TiO₂, where material properties strongly depend on structure as well as chemistry. The robust growth of the brookite polymorph of TiO₂, a promising photocatalyst, has been difficult in both powder and thin-film forms due...
Understanding the impact of inter-molecular orientation on the optical proper-ties of organic semiconductors is important for designing next-generation organic (opto)electronic and photonic devices. However, fundamental aspects of how various features of molecular packing in crystalline systems determine the nature and dynamics of excitons have been a subject of debate. Toward...
Several topics are presented in this dissertation, each of which has applications to solar cells and photodetectors. First, we discuss the growth of Cu10Te4S13, copper tellurium tetrahedrite. This material has interesting optical properties; it has a large joint density of states at the conduction band maximum and valence band minimum,...