Photonic and Electronic Multilayer Thin Films: Growth, Properties, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The advance of electronic industries replies heavily on the devoplment of thin film growth and characterization techniques. Recent theoretical and experimental developments in solar cell thin film coatings and light emitting diodes (LED) as multilayers on oxide substrates and covering transparent conducting layers are among the most highly exploited research systems in the field. In addition, recent research topics such as photocatalysts to convert carbon dioxide into synthesis fuel or water splitting to generate hydrogen are active research areas for renewable energy. The efficiency and cost of solar light harvest and LED are improved year after year. The need to maintain structural material integrity, reliability assets, and the durability of new nanostructured coating systems have seen a huge demand for future industries. Furthermore, recent developments in electronic industries, such as the mini-LED display, the organic LED display, resistive random-access memory, and magnetoresistive random-access memory are all on the horizon for next decade. Nanoscale multilayer devices have become fashionable in the scientific comminuity, and as the thin film has become thinner, the interface properties, such as band bending and the interdiffusion of atoms, have increased in importance. To grow ultra-thin films with defects in a controllable way and to characterize these ultra-thin films and low concentration impurities at the interface are challenges in the near future.

This scope of this Special Issue will serve as a forum for papers including the manufacture, design, and characterization of high-performance thin film materials. Correlations among the growth methods, physical properties, and charaterization techniques are to be explored. The goal is to shed light on these correlations through an understanding of electronic and atomic structures and also the morphology of the untra thin films, expecially the interfaces between thin films.

Prof. Dr. Chih-Hao Lee
Dr. Florin Nastase
Guest Editors

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