Explore the vast range of titles available.

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is an ultra-thin film deposition technique that has found many applications owing to its distinct abilities. They include uniform deposition of conformal films with controllable thickness, even on complex three-dimensional surfaces, and can improve the efficiency of electronic devices. This technology has attracted significant interest both for fundamental understanding how the new functional materials can be synthesized by ALD and for numerous practical applications, particularly in advanced nanopatterning for microelectronics, energy storage systems, desalinations, catalysis and medical fields. This review introduces the progress made in ALD, both for computational and experimental methodologies, and provides an outlook of this emerging technology in comparison with other film deposition methods. It discusses experimental approaches and factors that affect the deposition and presents simulation methods, such as molecular dynamics and computational fluid dynamics, which help determine and predict effective ways to optimize ALD processes, hence enabling the reduction in cost, energy waste and adverse environmental impacts. Specific examples are chosen to illustrate the progress in ALD processes and applications that showed a considerable impact on other technologies.

The growing demand of flexible electronic devices is increasing the requirements of their power sources. The effect of bending in thin-film batteries is still not well understood. Here, we successfully developed a high active area flexible all-solid-state battery as a model system that consists of thin-film layers of Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 , LiPON, and Lithium deposited on a novel flexible ceramic substrate. A systematic study on the bending state and performance of the battery is presented. The battery withstands bending radii of at least 14 mm achieving 70% of the theoretical capacity. Here, we reveal that convex bending has a positive effect on battery capacity showing an average increase of 5.5%, whereas concave bending decreases the capacity by 4% in contrast with recent studies. We show that the change in capacity upon bending may well be associated to the Li-ion diffusion kinetic change through the electrode when different external forces are applied. Finally, an encapsulation scheme is presented allowing sufficient bending of the device and operation for at least 500 cycles in air. The results are meant to improve the understanding of the phenomena present in thin-film batteries while undergoing bending rather than showing improvements in battery performance and lifetime.

Thin film sensors are used to monitor environmental conditions by measuring the physical parameters. By using thin film technology, the sensors are capable of conducting precise measurements. Moreover, the measurements are stable and dependable. Furthermore, inexpensive sensor devices can be produced. In this paper, thin film technology for the design and fabrication of sensors that are used in various applications is reviewed. Further, the applications of thin film sensors in the fields of biomedical, energy harvesting, optical, and corrosion applications are also presented. From the review, the future research needs and future perspectives are identified and discussed.

Pentacene is a well-known conjugated organic molecule with high mobility and a sensitive photo response. It is widely used in electronic devices, such as in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), photodetectors, and smart sensors. With the development of flexible and wearable electronics, the deposition of good-quality pentacene films in large-scale organic electronics at the industrial level has drawn more research attention. Several methods are used to deposit pentacene thin films. The thermal evaporation technique is the most frequently used method for depositing thin films, as it has low contamination rates and a well-controlled deposition rate. Solution-processable methods such as spin coating, dip coating, and inkjet printing have also been widely studied because they enable large-scale deposition and low-cost fabrication of devices. This review summarizes the deposition principles and control parameters of each deposition method for pentacene and its derivatives. Each method is discussed in terms of experimentation and theory. Based on film quality and device performance, the review also provides a comparison of each method to provide recommendations for specific device applications.

Nanometrically thin glassy films depart strikingly from the behavior of their bulk counterparts. We investigate whether the dynamical differences between a bulk and thin film polymeric glass former can be understood by differences in local microscopic structure. Machine learning methods have shown that local structure can serve as the foundation for successful, predictive models of particle rearrangement dynamics in bulk systems. By contrast, in thin glassy films, we find that particles at the center of the film and those near the surface are structurally indistinguishable despite exhibiting very different dynamics. Next, we show that structure-independent processes, already present in bulk systems and demonstrably different from simple facilitated dynamics, are crucial for understanding glassy dynamics in thin films. Our analysis suggests a picture of glassy dynamics in which two dynamical processes coexist, with relative strengths that depend on the distance from an interface. One of these processes depends on local structure and is unchanged throughout most of the film, while the other is purely Arrhenius, does not depend on local structure, and is strongly enhanced near the free surface of a film.

This paper delves into a structural modification of dual‐gate oxide thin film transistor (TFT). Diverging from the conventional dual‐gate TFT structure, the authors’ approach connects the bottom and top gate electrodes, effectively enveloping all four sides of the a‐IGZO channel. This shielding configuration ensures stable operation, even under light illumination. Moreover, capitalizing on the stability under light conditions, the authors observed a remarkable threefold improvement in the mobility of the fabricated TFT with this proposed structure, resulting in a substantial 156% increase in current. Furthermore, in the negative bias illumination stress test, the proposed TFT exhibited minimal fluctuations when compared to its single‐gate counterpart, further underscoring its exceptional and robust performance.

Increasing performance demands and shorter use lifetimes of consumer electronics have resulted in the rapid growth of electronic waste. Currently, consumer electronics are typically made with nondecomposable, nonbiocompatible, and sometimes even toxic materials, leading to serious ecological challenges worldwide. Here, we report an example of totally disintegrable and biocompatible semiconducting polymers for thin-film transistors. The polymer consists of reversible imine bonds and building blocks that can be easily decomposed under mild acidic conditions. In addition, an ultrathin (800-nm) biodegradable cellulose substrate with high chemical and thermal stability is developed. Coupled with iron electrodes, we have successfully fabricated fully disintegrable and biocompatible polymer transistors. Furthermore, disintegrable and biocompatible pseudo-complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) flexible circuits are demonstrated. These flexible circuits are ultrathin (<1 μm) and ultralightweight (∼2 g/m²) with low operating voltage (4 V), yielding potential applications of these disintegrable semiconducting polymers in low-cost, biocompatible, and ultralightweight transient electronics.

Under strong optical excitation conditions, it is possible to create highly nonequilibrium states of matter. The nuclear response is determined by the rate of energy transfer from the excited electrons to the nuclei and the instantaneous effect of change in electron distribution on the interatomic potential energy landscape. We used femtosecond electron diffraction to follow the structural evolution of strongly excited gold under these transient electronic conditions. Generally, materials become softer with excitation. In contrast, the rate of disordering of the gold lattice is found to be retarded at excitation levels up to 2.85 megajoules per kilogram with respect to the degree of lattice heating, which is indicative of increased lattice stability at high effective electronic temperatures, a predicted effect that illustrates the strong correlation between electronic structure and lattice bonding.

For decades, nanoindentation has been used for measuring mechanical properties of films with the widely used assumption that if the indentation depth does not exceed 10% of the film thickness, the substrate influence is negligible. The 10% rule was originally deduced for much thicker metallic films on steel substrates and involved only the hardness measurement. Thus, the boundaries of usability for measuring thin film elastic modulus may differ. Two known material systems of Mo and MoTa thin films on Si substrates are examined with nanoindentation and numerical modeling to show the limitations in measuring elastic moduli. An assessment of the hardness and elastic modulus as a function of contact depth and accurate modeling of the film/substrate deformation confirms the 10% rule for hardness measurements. For elastic modulus, the indentation depths should be much smaller. Results provide a recommended testing protocol for accurate assessment of thin film elastic modulus using nanoindentation. Graphical abstract

Thin film transistors (TFTs) are indispensable building blocks in any electronic device and play vital roles in switching, processing, and transmitting electronic information. TFT fabrication processes inherently require the sequential deposition of metal, semiconductor, and dielectric layers and so on, which makes it difficult to achieve reliable production of highly integrated devices. The integration issues are more apparent in organic TFTs (OTFTs), particularly for solution-processed organic semiconductors due to limits on which underlayers are compatible with the printing technologies. We demonstrate a ground-breaking methodology to integrate an active, semiconducting layer of OTFTs. In this method, a solution-processed, semiconducting membrane composed of few-molecular-layer–thick single-crystal organic semiconductors is exfoliated by water as a self-standing ultrathin membrane on the water surface and then transferred directly to any given underlayer. The ultrathin, semiconducting membrane preserves its original single crystallinity, resulting in excellent electronic properties with a high mobility up to 12 cm²·V−1·s−1. The ability to achieve transfer of wafer-scale single crystals with almost no deterioration of electrical properties means the present method is scalable. The demonstrations in this study show that the present transfer method can revolutionize printed electronics and constitute a key step forward in TFT fabrication processes.