Post annealing effect on the electrical properties of top-gate SWNT network transistors

High performance top-gate single walled carbon nanotube network transistors are fabricated with aluminum oxide (Al2O3) layer as a gate dielectric by atomic layer deposition. It exhibits large on/off ratio (>10(4)) due to selective growth of semiconducting tubes by the plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. I-V characteristics show p-type or n-type depending on the deposition temperature. We investigate the type dependent characteristics for the carrier polarities with the post annealing effect on the top-gate SWNT network transistors. The dramatic change in the polarity of the top-gate SWNT network transistors, from n-type to p-type due to conversion of I-V characteristics is observed by post-annealing at 350 degrees C for 30 minutes under vacuum. Our observation suggests that competition between electron transfer from the Al2O3 layers to the SWNT surface and electron capture by oxygen molecules adsorbed on the tube walls seems to be the key point for the V(th) change as a function of Al2O3 deposition temperature.     

The effects of CNT alignment on electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of SWNT/epoxy nanocomposites

The single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) filled nanocomposite SWNT/epoxy resin composite with good uniformity, dispersion and alignment of SWNTs and with different SWNTs concentrations was produced by solution casting technique. Subsequently, the semidried mixture was stretched repeatedly along one direction at a large draw-ratio of 50 for 100 times at ambient atmosphere manually to achieve a good alignment and to promote dispersion of SWNTs in the composite matrix. Composite showed higher electrical conductivities and mechanical properties such as the Young’s modulus and tensile strength along the stretched direction than perpendicular to it, and the electrical property of composite rise with the increase of SWNT concentration. The percolation threshold value of electrical conductivity along the stretching direction is lower than the value perpendicular to the SWNTs orientation. In addition, the anisotropic electric and mechanical properties results, SEM micrograph and the polarized Raman spectra of the SWNT/epoxy composite reveal that SWNTs were well dispersed and aligned in the composites by the repeated stretching process.     

Nanowire encapsulation with polymer for electrical isolation and enhanced optical properties

Light management and electrical isolation are essential for the majority of optoelectronic nanowire (NW) devices.Here,we present a cost-effective technique,based on vapor-phase deposition of parylene-C and subsequent annealing,that provides conformal encapsulation,anti-reflective coating,improved optical properties,and electrical insulation for GaAs nanowires.The process presented allows facile encapsulation and insulation that is suitable for any nanowire structure.In particular,the parylene-C encapsulation functions as an efficient antireflection coating for the nanowires,with reflectivity down to ＜1％ in the visible spectrum.Furthermore,the parylene-C coating increases photoluminescence intensity,suggesting improved light guiding to the NWs.Finally,based on this process,a NW LED was fabricated,which showed good diode performance and a clear electroluminescence signal.We believe the process can expand the fabrication possibilities and improve the performance of optoelectronic nanowire devices.     

Temperature dependant structural and electrical properties of ZnO nanowire networks

In this paper, we report a successful growth of zinc oxide nanowire networks by simple thermal evaporation process using metallic zinc powder in the presence of oxygen. The morphological investigations of the synthesized nanowire networks are conducted by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) which reveals that the grown products are in high-density over the whole substrate surface and possessing nanowire networks like structures. The structural and compositional properties of the grown nanowire networks are analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), respectively which confirm that the synthesized products are well-crystalline, with wurtzite hexagonal phase ZnO. The as-grown ZnO nanowire networks grown on silicon substrate are utilized to fabricate n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode and presented in this paper. The I-V characteristics of the fabricated heterojunction diode at different temperatures (77 K-477 K) are also investigated. High values of quality factor, which are obtained from this study, indicate a non-ideal behavior of the fabricated device. The mean barrier height of -0.84 eV is also estimated and presented in this paper.     

TCP-friendly congestion control for streaming real-time applications over wireless networks

Congestion control for streaming real-time applications, which need smoothness of the transmission rate, should be transmission control protocol (TCP)-friendly. Moreover, in wireless networks, TCP-friendly congestion control should be based on differentiation of packet losses due to congestion and wireless link error to improve network utilisation. The authors propose a TCP-friendly congestion control algorithm based on explicit congestion notification over the wireless networks. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm utilises the link bandwidth efficiently, providing smoothness of the transmission rate.     

Nanoinfiltration behavior of carbon nanotube based nanocomposites with enhanced mechanical and electrical properties

In this work,carbon nanotube (CNT) based nanocomposites with high mass fraction are proposed by in-situ bridging carbon matrix into CNT paper through optimized chemical vapor infiltration (CVI).Nanoinfiltration behavior of CNTs is basically investigated under the CVI process.The contact between each CNT can be strengthened and the conductive pathways can be established,resulting in the better mechanical and electrical properties.Compared with the pristine CNT paper,the CNT/C composite after pyrolysis process confirms a remarkable advance in tensile strength (up to 310 ± 13 MPa) and Young's modulus (up to 2.4 ± 0.1 GPa).Besides,a notable feature of electrical conductivity also shows an improvement up to 8.5 S/cm,which can be attributed to the mass fraction of CNT (41 wt％) breaking the limits of percolation thresholds and the efficient densification of this sample to establish the conductive pathways.This study has a broad application in the development of the multi-functional electrical and engineering materials.     

Defect-density control of platinum-based nanoframes with high-index facets for enhanced electrochemical properties

Nano Research - Structure-engineered platinum-based nanoframes (NFs) at the atomic level can effectively improve the catalytic performance for fuel cells and other heterogeneous catalytic fields....     

Force modulation for enhanced nanoscale electrical sensing

Scanning probe microscopy employing conductive probes is a powerful tool for the investigation and modification of electrical properties at the nanoscale. Application areas include semiconductor metrology, probe-based data storage and materials research. Conductive probes can also be used to emulate nanoscale electrical contacts. However, unreliable electrical contact and tip wear have severely hampered the widespread usage of conductive probes for these applications. In this paper we introduce a force modulation technique for enhanced nanoscale electrical sensing using conductive probes. This technique results in lower friction, reduced tip wear and enhanced electrical contact quality. Experimental results using phase-change material stacks and platinum silicide conductive probes clearly demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed technique. Furthermore, conductive-mode imaging experiments on specially prepared platinum/carbon samples are presented to demonstrate the widespread applicability of this technique.     

Influence of the nature and density of defects on the thermodynamic and electrical properties of semiconductor materials

This paper examines the use of coulometric titration in studies of the nonstoichiometry, defect structure, and thermodynamic properties of semiconductor materials and also for doping of a number of chalcogenides with lead, copper, and germanium. A direct relationship is established between the thermodynamic and electrical properties of the binary compound semiconductors Pb_{1 ± δ}X (X = S, Se, Te), Cu_{2 ± δ}Se, and Cd_{2 ± δ}Se and the ternary spinel semiconductors Cd_{1 ? δ}Cr₂Se₄ and Cu_{1 ± δ}Cr₂S₄ within their homogeneity ranges. The width and symmetry of the homogeneity range of these semiconductor materials are determined using coulometric titration in combination with emf and electrical conductivity measurements. Electrochemically doped nonstoichiometric copper selenide samples are shown to have compositions in the range Cu_1.27Se–Cu_2.73Se.     

Young's modulus,density and material properties in cancellous bone over a large density range

Data on the compressive properties of cancellous bone cubes with a large range of densities (relative densities compared with compact bone of 0.04–0.60) show that the exponent relating the Young's modulus to the density is close to quadratic and that it is improbable that the material Young's modulus of our specimens was less than 8 GPa, and was probably considerably higher.     

Quantum-confined nanowires as vehicles for enhanced electrical transport

Electrical transport in semiconductor nanowires taking quantum confinement and dielectric confinement into account has been studied. A distinctly new route has been employed for the study. The fundamental science underlying the model is based on a relationship between the quantum confinement and the structural disorder of the nanowire surface. The role of surface energy and thermodynamic imbalance in nanowire structural disorder has been described. A model for the diameter dependence of energy bandgap of nanowires has been developed. Ionized impurity scattering, dislocation scattering and acoustic phonon scattering have been taken into account to study carrier mobility. A series of calculations on silicon nanowires show that carrier mobility in nanowires can be greatly enhanced by quantum confinement and dielectric confinement. The electron mobility can, for example, be a factor of 2-10 higher at room temperature than the mobility in a free-standing silicon nanowire. The calculated results agree well with almost all experimental and theoretical results available in the literature. They successfully explain experimental observations not understood before. The model is general and applicable to nanowires from all possible semiconductors. It is perhaps the first physical model highlighting the impact of both quantum confinement and dielectric confinement on carrier transport. It underscores the basic causes of thin, lowly doped nanowires in the temperature range 200?K?≤?T?≤?500?K yielding very high carrier mobility. It suggests that the scattering by dislocations (stacking faults) can be very detrimental for carrier mobility.     

The effect of amine protonation on the electrical properties of spin-assembled single-walled carbon nanotube networks

Amine-terminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have been shown to selectively adsorb semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (sc-SWNTs). Previous studies have shown that when deposited by spin coating, the resulting nanotube networks (SWNTnts) can be strongly influenced by the charge state of the amine (primary, secondary, and tertiary). When the amine surfaces were exposed to varying pH solutions, the conductivity and overall quality of the resulting fabricated networks were altered. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) topography had shown that the density of the SWNTnts was reduced as the amine protonation decreased, indicating that the electrostatic attraction between the SWNTs in solution and the surface influenced the adsorption. Simultaneously, μ-Raman analysis had suggested that when exposed to more basic conditions, the resulting networks were enhanced with sc-SWNTs. To directly confirm this enhancement, Ti/Pd contacts were deposited and devices were tested in air. Key device characteristics were found to match the enhancement trends previously observed by spectroscopy. For the primary and secondary amines, on/off current ratios were commensurate with the Raman trends in metallic contribution, while no trends were observed on the tertiary amine (due to weaker interactions). Finally, differing SWNT solution volumes were used to compensate for adsorption differences and yielded identical SWNTnt densities on the various pH-treated samples to eliminate the influence of network density. These results further the understanding of the amine-SWNT interaction during the spin coating process. Overall, we provide a convenient route to provide SWNT-based TFTs with highly tunable electronic charge transport through better understanding of the influence of these specific interactions.     

Anisotropic properties of aligned SWNT modified poly (methyl methacrylate) nanocomposites

The poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) composites with good uniformity, dispersion and alignment of SWNT were fabricated in an improved figuration process. The semidried mixture was stretched along one direction at a drawing ratio of 50 before it was dried, and then folded along the same direction stretching repeatedly for 100 times. The transmission electron microscopic (TEM) observation demonstrated that SWNT in the PMMA/SWNT composite tends to align in the stretching direction owing to a torque exerting on it in the stretching process. The electrical and mechanical properties of PMMA/SWNT composite were studied as a function of SWNT orientation and concentration. The aligned SWNT modified PMMA/SWNT composite presented highly anisotropic properties. The experimental results showed that the electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of composite rise with the increase of SWNT concentration, and that composite films showed higher conductivity and higher mechanical draw ratios along the stretched direction than perpendicular to it. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) revealed that embedding the SWNTs into the PMMA matrix also improves the thermal stability of the composite.     

On window control algorithm for TCP efficiency over wireless networks with high bandwidth-delay product

The existing congestion control algorithms such as TCP Reno are not suitable for efficient utilisation of networks with a high bandwidth-delay product because it takes a very long time to achieve the full link utilisation. Furthermore, it is difficult to guarantee the fairness among the TCP connections with different round-trip times. To overcome these problems, a new window control algorithm using the buffer state and variable gains is proposed. The simulation results show that our algorithm improves the performance of TCP in the wireless networks     

Robust end-to-end loss differentiation scheme for transport control protocol over wired/wireless networks

The authors propose a robust end-to-end loss differentiation scheme to identify the packet losses because of congestion for transport control protocol (TCP) connections over wired/wireless networks. The authors use the measured round trip time (RTT) values to determine whether the cause of packet loss is because of the congestion over wired path or regular bit errors over wireless paths. The classification should be as accurate as possible to achieve high throughput and maximum fairness for the TCP connections sharing the wired/wireless paths. The accuracies of previous schemes in the literature depends on varying network parameters such as RTT, buffer size, amount of cross traffic, wireless loss rate and congestion loss rate. The proposed scheme is robust in that the accuracy remains rather stable under varying network parameters. The basic idea behind the scheme is to set the threshold for the classification to be a function of the minimum RTT and the current sample RTT, so that it may automatically adapt itself to the current congestion level. When the congestion level of the path is estimated to be low, the threshold for a packet loss to be classified as a congestion loss is increased. This avoids unnecessary halving of the congestion window on packet loss because of the regular bit errors over the wireless path and hence improves the TCP throughput. When the congestion level of the path is estimated to be high, the threshold for a packet loss to be classified as the congestion loss not to miss any congestion loss is decreased and hence improves the TCP fairness. In ns 2 simulations, the proposed scheme correctly classifies the congestion losses under varying network parameters whereas the previous schemes show some dependency on subsets of parameters.     

Samarium-decorated ZrO2@SnO2 nanostructures,their electrical,optical and enhanced photoluminescence properties

In the present work, pure ZrO₂@SnO₂ and Samarium (Sm_x) (x?=?1%, 8% and 12%)-doped ZrO₂@SnO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) successfully synthesized by facile low-cost co-precipitation technique. As-synthesized nanostructures (NS) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), UV–visible, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) spectroscopic investigation. The tetragonal crystal phase of the as-synthesized Sm_x:ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS confirmed by XRD analysis. The observed peak shift in the XRD patterns confirmed incorporation of dopant into host lattice. The Sm_x:ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS present irregular spherical morphology and high agglomeration confirmed by FESEM microscope analysis. The presence of functional groups, chemical bonding, chemical constituents and valence state of the NS confirmed by FT-IR and XPS analysis. The Sm_x:ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS showed higher surface area and smaller optical band gap (454 cm²/g and 2.12 eV) than the pure ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS (189–196 cm²/g and 2.84 eV). Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of undoped ZrO₂@SnO₂ and Sm_x:ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS exhibited oxygen vacancies. Undoped ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS exhibited emission intensity at 370.6 nm (λ_excitation?=?300 nm) whereas, Sm_x:ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS showed emission intensities at 453.4 nm, 476.3 nm, 601.3 nm (λ_excitation?=?300 nm). Electrical property studies of Sm_x:ZrO₂:SnO₂ (1%, 8% and 12%) NS showed large variation in Hall constant (0.125?×?10⁶ cm²/coulomb to 0.647?×?10⁶ cm²/coulomb) with proportionately large variation in the resistivity (147.8 Ω-cm to 456.8 Ω-cm) for all the doped samples as compared with pure ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS. The Sm³⁺-doped ZrO₂@SnO₂ NS showed higher stability, intense PL emission and enhanced electrical properties.

     

Ladder-like metal oxide nanowires: Synthesis,electrical transport,and enhanced light absorption properties

Transparent metal oxide nanowires （NWs） have attracted intense research interest in recent years. We report here the synthesis of interesting ladder-like metal oxide NWs, including In2O3, SnO2, ZnO, and Ga2O3, via a facile chemical vapor deposition （CVD） method. Their structural features and growth mechanism are demonstrated in detail by using the ladder-like In2O3 NWs as an example. Single ladder-like NW-based field-effect transistors （FETs） and photodetectors （PDs） of SnO2 were fabricated in order to investigate their electrical transport and light absorption properties. Compared with straight NW-based FETs which operate in an enhancement mode （E-mode）, FETs build on ladder-like NWs operate in a depletion mode （D-mode）. The ladder-like NWs also give higher carrier concentrations than conventional single nanowires. Finite-difference time-domain （FDTD） simulations have been performed on the ladder-like NWs and the results reveal a great enhancement of light absorption with both transverse-electric （TE） and transverse-magnetic （TM） polarization modes, which is in good agreement with the experimental results.     

Tuning the mechanical properties of SWNT/nylon 6,10 composites with flexible spacers at the interface

We have prepared nylon 6,10 nanocomposites using functionalized single wall carbon nanotubes and our interfacial in situ polycondensation method. The specific functional groups -(CH2)nCOCl [n = 4 and 9] on the sidewalls of SWNT were designed to covalently link nanotubes to the nylon matrix via alkyl segments. The composites with functionalized SWNT show significant improvements in tensile modulus, strength, and toughness relative to nylon and nylon modified with non-functionalized SWNT. The alkyl linkages at the SWNT/nylon 6,10 interface contribute significantly to improving the toughness of the composites.