Graphene oxide (GO) powder processed by Hummer's method is mixed with p-type Bi2Te3 based thermoelectric materials by a high-energy ball milling process. The synthesized GO-dispersed p-type Bi2Te3 composite powder has a composition of Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 (BSbT), and the powder is consolidated into composites with different contents of GO powder by using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) process. It is found that the addition of GO powder significantly decreases the thermal conductivity of the pure BSbT material through active phonon scattering at the newly formed interfaces. In addition, the electrical properties of the GO/BSbT composites are degraded by the addition of GO powder except in the case of the 0.1 wt% GO/BSbT composite. It is found that defects on the surface of GO powder hinder the electrical transport properties. As a result, the maximum thermoelectric performance (ZT value of 0.91) is achieved from the 0.1% GO/BSbT composite at 398 K. These results indicate that introducing GO powder into thermoelectric materials is a promising method to achieve enhanced thermoelectric performance due to the reduction in thermal conductivity.

In this study, mammography was conducted with Lorad Selenia from HOLOGIC. The phantoms used were Female rando phantom from THE PHANTOM LABORATORY and ACR phantom from GAMMEX RMI. The dosimeters used were the glass dosimeter reader FDG1000 and PLD from CHIYODA TECHNOL. The shielding used to compare and determine the amount of scattered ray in this study were lead shielding gear with a thickness of 0.25mm from INFAB and a customized bismuth shielding with a thickness of 0.2mm(2 layers of 0.1mm). The conditions were 28kVp, 65mAs for CC view and 30kVp, 85mAs for MLO view. The exposure dose by scattered ray were measured from thyroid, breast on the opposite side and gonad (hereafter called critical organs) without any shieldings for the first experiment, then measured four times each with lead shielding for the next experiment, and measured four times each with bismuth shielding for the third experiment. The average dose for each critical organ without shieldings were 135.75μGy, 649.67μGy and 546.25μGy, With lead shielding, the numbers were 0μGy, 63μGy and 1.5μGy, and 6.25μGy, 12.25μGy and 26.5μGy with bismuth shielding. Therefore, the lead and bismuth shielding have reduced 95.364% and 93.550% of exposure dose. Use of shielding s during mammography reduces the exposure dose on critical organs and other organs of the patient, and despite the similar shielding rate, the new shielding using bismuth is useful in shielding thyroid and gonad considering the mobility of the patient, light weight and thickness of the shielding.

We report the structural characterization of BixZn1-xO thin films grown on c-plane sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy. By increasing the Bi flux during the growth process, BixZn1-xO thin films with various Bi contents (x = 0~13.17 atomic %) were prepared. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements revealed the formation of Bi-oxide phase in (Bi)ZnO after increasing the Bi content. However, it was impossible to determine whether the formed Bi-oxide phase was the monoclinic structure α-Bi2O3 or the tetragonal structure β-Bi2O3 by means of XRD θ-2θ measurements, as the observed diffraction peaks of the 2θ value at ~28 were very close to reflection of the (012) plane for the monoclinic structure α-Bi2O3 at 28.064 and the reflection of the (201) plane for the tetragonal structure β-Bi2O3 at 27.946. By means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) using a diffraction pattern analysis and a high-resolution lattice image, it was finally determined as the monoclinic structure α-Bi2O3 phase. To investigate the distribution of the Bi and Bi-oxide phases in BiZnO films, elemental mapping using energy dispersive spectroscopy equipped with TEM was performed. Considering both the XRD and the elemental mapping results, it was concluded that hexagonal-structure wurtzite BixZn1-xO thin films were grown at a low Bi content (x = ~2.37 atomic %) without the formation of α-Bi2O3. However, the increased Bi content (x = 4.63~13.17 atomic %) resulted in the formation of the α-Bi2O3 phase in the wurtzite (Bi)ZnO matrix.

In the present work, bismuth nanopowders with various particle size distributions were synthesized by controlling argon (Ar) gas flow rate and chamber pressure of a gas condensation (GC) apparatus. From the analyses of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and nitrogen gas adsorption results, it was found that as Ar gas flow rate increased, the specific surface area of bismuth increased and the average particles size decreased. On the other hand, as the chamber pressure increased, the specific surface area of bismuth decreased and the average particles size increased. The optimum gas flow rate and chamber pressure for the maximized electrochemical active surface area were determined to be 8 L/min and 50 torr, respectively. The bismuth nanopowders synthesized at the above condition exhibit 13.47 of specific surface area and 45.6 nm of average particles diameter.

Carbon-nanotube-embedded bismuth telluride (CNT/) matrix composites were fabricated by a powder metallurgy process. Composite powders, whereby 5 vol.% of functionalized CNTs were homogeneously mixed with alloying powders, were successfully synthesized by using high-energy ball milling process. The powders were consolidated into bulk CNT/ composites by spark plasma sintering process at for 10 min. The fabricated composites showed the uniform mixing and homogeneous dispersion of CNTs in the matrix. Seebeck coefficient of CNT/ composites reveals that the composite has n-type semiconducting characteristics with values ranging to with increasing temperature. Furthermore, the significant reduction in thermal conductivity has been clearly observed in the composites. The results showed that CNT addition to thermoelectric materials could be useful method to obtain high thermoelectric performance.

Trace analysis of Cd and Pb at surface modified thick film graphite electrode with Bi nanopowder has been carried out using square-wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV) technique. Bi nanopowder synthesized by gas condensation (GC) method showed the size of nm with BET surface area, . For a strong adhesion of the Bi nanopowder onto the screen printed carbon paste electrode, nafion solution was added into Bi-containing suspension. From the SWASV, it was found that the Bi nanopowder electrode exhibited a well-defined responses relating to the oxidations of Cd and Pb. The current peak intensity increased with increasing concentration of Cd and Pb. From the linear relationship between Cd/Pb concentrations and peak current, the sensitivity of the Bi nanopowder electrode was quantitatively estimated. The detection limit of the electrode was estimated to be and for Cd and Pb, respectively, on the basis of the signal-to-noise characteristics (S/N=3) of the response for the solution under a 10 min accumulation.

The magneto-transport properties of an individual single crystalline Bi nanowire grown by aspontaneous growth method are reported. A four-terminal device based on an individual 400-nm-diameternanowire was successfully fabricated using a plasma etching technique that removed an oxide layer that hadformed on the surface of the nanowire. Large transverse ordinary magnetoresistance (1401%) and negativelongitudinal ordinary magnetoresistance (−38%) were measured at 2K. It was observed that the period ofShubnikov-de Haas oscillations in transverse geometry was 0.074T−1, 0.16T−1 and 0.77T−1, which is in goodagreement with those of bulk Bi. However, it was found that the period of SdH oscillation in longitudinalgeometry is 0.24T−1, which is larger than the value of 0.16T−1 reported for bulk Bi. The deviation is attributableto the spatial confinement arising from scattering at the nanowire surface boundary.