Gold have been used as an electrode materials having a good mechanical flexibility as well as electrical conductivity, however the stretchability of the gold on a flexible substrate is poor because of its small elastic modulus. To overcome this mechanical inferiority, the reinforcing gold is necessary for the stretchable electronics. Among the reinforcing materials having a large elastic modulus, carbon nanotube (CNT) is the best candidate due to its good electrical conductivity and nanoscale diameter. Therefore, similarly to ferroconcrete technology, here we demonstrated gold electrodes mechanically reinforced by inserting fabrics of CNTs into their bodies. Flexibility and stretchability of the electrodes were determined for various densities of CNT fabrics. The roles of CNTs in resisting electrical disconnection of gold electrodes from the mechanical stress were confirmed using field emission scanning electron microscope and optical microscope. The best mechanical stability was achieved at a density of CNT fabrics manufactured by 1.5 ml spraying. The concept of the mechanical reinforced metal electrode by CNT is the first trial for the high stretchable conductive materials, and can be applied as electrodes materials in various flexible and stretchable electronic devices such as transistor, diode, sensor and solar cell and so on.
Nanosized Pt, Pt-Ru and Pt-CeO2 electrocatalysts supported on acid-treated carbon nanotube (CNT) were synthesized by microwave-assisted heating of polyol process using H2Cl6Pt·6H2O, RuCl3, CeCl3 precursors, respectively, and were characterized by XRD and TEM. And then the electrochemical activity of methanol oxidation for catalyst/CNT nanocomposite electrodes was investigated. The microwave assisted polyol process produced the nano-sized crystalline catalysts particles on CNT. The size of Pt supported on CNT was 7~12 nm but it decreased to 3~5 nm in which 10wt% sodium acetate was added as a stabilizer during the polyol process. This fine Pt catalyst particles resulted in a higher current density for Pt/CNT electrode. It was also found that 10 nm size of PtRu alloys were formed by polyol process and the onset potential decreased with Ru addition. Cyclic voltammetry analysis revealed that the Pt75Ru25/CNT electrode had the highest electrochemical activity owing to a higher ratio of the forward to reverse anodic peak current. And the chronoamperemetry test showed that Pt75Ru25 catalyst had a good catalyst stability. The activity of Pt was also found to be improved with the addition of CeO2.
We have investigated the structural and optical properties of Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) thin films deposited by RFmagnetron sputtering at various deposition temperatures from 100 to 500oC. All the GZO thin films are grown as a hexagonalwurtzite phase with highly c-axis preferred parameter. The structural and electrical properties are strongly related to depositiontemperature. The grain size increases with the increasing deposition temperature up to 400oC and then decreases at 500oC. Thedependence of grain size on the deposition temperature results from the variation of thermal activation energy. The resistivityof GZO thin film decreases with the increasing deposition temperature up to 300oC and then decreases up to 500oC. GZO thinfilm shows the lowest resistivity of 4.3×10−4Ωcm and highest electron concentration of 1.0×1021cm−3 at 300oC. The mobilityof GZO thin films increases with the increasing deposition temperature up to 400oC and then decreases at 500oC. GZO thinfilm shows the highest resistivity of 14.1cm2/Vs. The transmittance of GZO thin films in the visible range is above 87% atall the deposition temperatures. GZO is a feasible transparent electrode for the application to the transparent electrode of thinfilm solar cells.
We investigated tribological characteristics of diamond-like carbon (DLC) in a condition with carbon nanotube (CNT) content of 1wt% in aqueous solution. Si-DLC films were deposited by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD) process on Al6061 aluminum alloy. In this study, the deposition of DLC films was carried out in vacuum with a chamber pressure of 10-5 to 10-3 Torr achieved by mechanical pump followed by turbo molecular pump. The surface adsorbed oxygen on the Aluminum substrates was removed by passing Ar gas for 10 minutes. The RF power was maintained at 500W throughout the experiment. A buffer layer of HMDSO was deposited on the substrate to improve the adhesion of DLC coating. At this point CH4 gas was introduced in the chamber using gas flow controller and DLC coating was deposited on the buffer layer along with HMDSO for 50 min. The thickness of 1 μm was obtained for DLC films on aluminum substrates The tribological properties of as synthesized DLC films were analyzed by wear test in the presence of dry air, water and lubricant such as CNT ink.
FePt nanoparticles suspension was synthesized by reduction of platinum acetylacetonate and decomposition of iron pentacarbonyl in the presence of oleic acid and oleyl amine. FePt nanoparticles were coated on a substrate by convective assembly from the suspension. To prevent the coalescence during the annealing of FePt nanoparticles double convective coatings were tried. First convective coating was for silica particle assembly on a silicon substrate and second one was for FePt nanoparticles on the previously coated silica layers. It was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) that FePt nanoparticles were dispersed on the silica particle surface. After annealing at 700˚C for 30 minutes under nitrogen atmosphere, FePt nanoparticles on silica particles were maintained in a dispersed state with slight increase of particle size. On the contrary, FePt nanoparticles that were directly coated on silicon substrate showed severe particle growth after annealing due to the close-packing of nanoparticles during assembly. The size variation during annealing was also verified by X-ray diffractometer (XRD). It was suggested that pre-coating, which offered solvent flux oppose to the capillary force between FePt nanoparticles, was an effective method to prevent coalescence of nano-sized particles under high temperature annealing.
The stress-strain responses and oxidation properties of cold-rolled Zr-1.5Nb-O and Zr-1.5Nb-O-S alloys were studied. The U.T.S. (ultimate tensile strength) of cold-rolled Zr-1.5Nb-O-S alloy with 160 ppm sulfur (765 MPa) were greater than that of Zr-1Nb-1Sn-0.1Fe alloy (750 MPa), achieving an excellent mechanical strength even after the elimination of Sn, an effective solution strengthening element. The addition of sulfur increased the strength at the expense of ductility. However, the ductile fracture behavior was observed both in Zr-Nb-O and Zr-Nb-O-S alloys. The beneficial effect of sulphur on the strengthening was observed in the cold rolled Zr-1.5Nb-O-S alloys. The activation volume of cold-rolled Zr-1.5Nb decreased with sulfur content in the temperature region of dynamic strain aging associated with oxygen atoms. Insensitivity of the activation volume to the dislocation density and the decrease of the activation volume at a higher temperature where the dynamic strain aging occurs support the suggestion linking the activation volume with the activated bulge of dislocations limited by segregation of oxygen and sulfur atoms. The addition of sulfur was also found to improve the oxidation resistance of Zr-Nb-O alloys.
Precipitation of the ordered icosahedral quasicrystal in Mg-6wt%Zn-1wt%Y alloy has been characterized bytransmission electron microscopy observations. The lamellar-type icosahedral qusicrystal phases (I-phase) with the face-centeredicosahedral (FCI) structure are observed in alloy after solution treatment at 550oC. In the alloy annealed at 400oC, polygon-shaped I-phases are observed in the α-Mg matrix. The interfaces of the I-phase with the matrix are facetted and the facets areon five-fold and two- fold plane of the I-phase. The orientation relationship of the I-phase with the matrix is determined tobe [I5]I//[001]Mg, (2f)I//()Mg and [I2]I//[311]Mg, (5f)I//()Mg. The icosahedral grains are occasionally found to be twinnedwith one of the five-fold axis as the twin axis. The twin boundaries appear to be fairly straight and perpendicular to the five-fold twin axis. The icosahedral twin can be expressed as a rotation of 63.4o or 116.6o around two fold zone axis.
Ultra-thin aluminum (Al) and tin (Sn) films were grown by dc magnetron sputtering on a glass substrate. The electrical resistance R of films was measured in-situ method during the film growth. Also transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study was carried out to observe the microstructure of the films. In the ultra-thin film study, an exact determination of a coalescence thickness and a continuous film thickness is very important. Therefore, we tried to measure the minimum thickness for continuous film (dmin) by means of a graphical method using a number of different y-values as a function of film thickness. The raw date obtained in this study provides a graph of in-situ resistance of metal film as a function of film thickness. For the Al film, there occurs a maximum value in a graph of in-situ electrical resistance versus film thickness. Using the results in this study, we could define clearly the minimum thickness for continuous film where the position of minimum values in the graph when we put the value of Rd3 to y-axis and the film thickness to x-axis. The measured values for the minimum thickness for continuous film are 21 nm and 16 nm for sputtered Al and Sn films, respectively. The new method for defining the minimum thickness for continuous film in this study can be utilized in a basic data when we design an ultra-thin film for the metallization application in nano-scale devices.
This study is aimed to increase the activity of cathodic catalysts for PEMFCs(Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells). we investigated the temperature effect of 20wt% Pt/C catalysts at five different temperatures. The catalysts were synthesized by using chemical reduction method. Before adding the formaldehyde as reducing agent, process was undergone for 2 hours at the room temperature (RT), 40˚C, 60˚C, 80˚C and 100˚C, respectively. The performances of synthesize catalysts are compared. The electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) was studied on 20wt% Pt/C catalysts by using a glassy carbon electrode through cyclic voltammetric curves (CV) in a 1M H2SO4 solution. The ORR specific activities of 20wt% Pt/C catalysts increased to give a relative ORR catalytic activity ordering of 80˚C > 100˚C > 60˚C > 40˚C > RT. Electrochemical active surface area (EAS) was calculated with cyclic voltammetry analysis. Prepared Pt/C (at 80˚C, 100˚C) catalysts has higher ESA than other catalysts. Physical characterization was made by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The TEM images of the carbon supported platinum electrocatalysts (80˚C, 100˚C) showed homogenous particle distribution with particle size of about 2~3.5 nm. We found that a higher reaction temperature resulted in more uniform particle distribution than lower reaction temperature and then the XRD results showed that the crystalline structure of the synthesized catalysts are seen FCC structure.