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Metal Oxide Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure, and Applications
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Metal Oxide Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure, and Applications

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Electronic Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 November 2025 | Viewed by 3357

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Stephane Kenmoe

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 2, D-45141 Essen, Germany
Interests: oxides; electronic structure; surfaces; heterogeneous; catalysis; solvation; dynamics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue “Metal Oxide Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure, and Applications”. Oxides find applications in many areas of technological relevance. This stems from their abundance and their many beneficial properties (structural, electronic, magnetic, etc.) which make them potential candidates for many applications.

This Special Issue is dedicated to recent developments in the synthesis of oxidic materials, their relationship with synthesis routes, their structure (e.g., at the electronic level), and their performance in operando. This Special issue aims to report on efficient characterization techniques, both at theoretical and experimental levels, of different class of oxides, including bulk and material systems with low dimensions (2D, 1D, and 0D), that allow a rational design of, and provide fundamental insights into, key properties governing their performance in operando.

In this Special Issue, original research articles, communications, and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: surface science, heterogeneous catalysis, energy conversion, electronics, optoelectronics, spintronics, corrosion, environmental science, and tribology.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Stephane Kenmoe
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • metal oxides
  • synthesis
  • characterization
  • structure
  • spectroscopy
  • operando
  • electronics
  • optics
  • catalysis
  • energy conversion

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 5953 KiB  
Article
Memory Devices with HfO2 Charge-Trapping and TiO2 Channel Layers: Fabrication via Remote and Direct Plasma Atomic Layer Deposition and Comparative Performance Evaluation
by Inkook Hwang, Jiwon Kim, Joungho Lee, Yeonwoong Jung and Changbun Yoon
Materials 2025, 18(5), 948; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18050948 - 21 Feb 2025
Viewed by 540
Abstract
With the improvement of integration levels to several nanometers or less, semiconductor leakage current has become an important issue, and oxide-based semiconductors, which have replaced Si-based channel layer semiconductors, have attracted attention. Herein, we fabricated capacitors with a metal–insulator–semiconductor–metal structure using HfO2 [...] Read more.
With the improvement of integration levels to several nanometers or less, semiconductor leakage current has become an important issue, and oxide-based semiconductors, which have replaced Si-based channel layer semiconductors, have attracted attention. Herein, we fabricated capacitors with a metal–insulator–semiconductor–metal structure using HfO2 thin films deposited at 240 °C and TiO2 thin films deposited at 300 °C via remote plasma (RP) and direct plasma (DP) atomic layer deposition and analyzed the effects of the charge-trapping and semiconducting properties of these films. Charge-trapping memory (CTM) devices with HfO2 (charge-trapping layer) and TiO2 (semiconductor) films were fabricated and characterized in terms of their memory properties. Al2O3 thin films were used as blocking and tunneling layers to prevent the leakage of charges stored in the charge-trapping layer. For the TiO2 layer, the heat-treatment temperature was optimized to obtain an anatase phase with optimal semiconductor properties. The memory characteristics of the RP HfO2–TiO2 CTM devices were superior to those of the DP HfO2–TiO2 CTM devices. This result was ascribed to the decrease in the extent of damage and contamination observed when the plasma was spaced apart from the deposited HfO2 and TiO2 layers (i.e., in the case of RP deposition) and the reduction in the concentration of oxygen vacancies at the interface and in the films. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metal Oxide Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure, and Applications)
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14 pages, 779 KiB  
Article
Quantitative Analysis of the Synergy of Doping and Nanostructuring of Oxide Photocatalysts
by Nicola Seriani, Paola Delcompare-Rodriguez, Dhanshree Pandey, Abhishek Kumar Adak, Vikram Mahamiya, Carlos Pinilla and Hala J. El-Khozondar
Materials 2024, 17(14), 3460; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17143460 - 12 Jul 2024
Viewed by 890
Abstract
In this paper, the effect of doping and nanostructuring on the electrostatic potential across the electrochemical interface between a transition metal oxide and a water electrolyte is investigated by means of the Poisson–Boltzmann model. For spherical nanoparticles and nanorods, compact expressions for the [...] Read more.
In this paper, the effect of doping and nanostructuring on the electrostatic potential across the electrochemical interface between a transition metal oxide and a water electrolyte is investigated by means of the Poisson–Boltzmann model. For spherical nanoparticles and nanorods, compact expressions for the limiting potentials at which the space charge layer includes the whole semiconductor are reported. We provide a quantitative analysis of the distribution of the potential drop between the solid and the liquid and show that the relative importance changes with doping. It is usually assumed that high doping improves charge dynamics in the semiconductor but reduces the width of the space charge layer. However, nanostructuring counterbalances the latter negative effect; we show quantitatively that in highly doped nanoparticles the space charge layer can occupy a similar volume fraction as in low-doped microparticles. Moreover, as shown by some recent experiments, under conditions of high doping the electric fields in the Helmholtz layer can be as high as 100 mV/Å, comparable to electric fields inducing freezing in water. This work provides a systematic quantitative framework for understanding the effects of doping and nanostructuring on electrochemical interfaces, and suggests that it is necessary to better characterize the interface at the atomistic level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metal Oxide Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure, and Applications)
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12 pages, 1833 KiB  
Article
Adsorption Behaviour of Pb and Cd on Graphene Oxide Nanoparticle from First-Principle Investigations
by Preslie Sala Nianga-Obambi, Dick Hartmann Douma, Anne Justine Etindele, Abdulrafiu Tunde Raji, Brice Rodrigue Malonda-Boungou, Bernard M’Passi-Mabiala and Stephane Kenmoe
Materials 2024, 17(12), 2831; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17122831 - 10 Jun 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1222
Abstract
Graphene oxide (GO) is considered as a promising adsorbent material for the removal of metal from aqueous environments. Here, we have used the density functional theory (DFT) approach and a combination of parameters to characterise the interactions of GO with lead (Pb) and [...] Read more.
Graphene oxide (GO) is considered as a promising adsorbent material for the removal of metal from aqueous environments. Here, we have used the density functional theory (DFT) approach and a combination of parameters to characterise the interactions of GO with lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd), i.e., typical harmful metals often found in water. Our model systems consist of a singly and doubly adsorbed neutral (Pb0, Cd0) and charged (Pb2+, Cd2+) atoms adsorbed on the GO nanoparticle of the chemical formula C30H14O15. We show that a single charged metal ion binds more strongly than a neutral atom of the same type. Moreover, to determine the possibility of multiple adsorptions of the GO nanoparticle, two metal atoms of the same species were co-adsorbed on its surface. We found a site-dependent adsorption energy such that when two atoms of the same specie are adsorbed at sites Si and Sj, the binding energy per atom depends on whether one of the two atoms is adsorbed firstly on the Si or Sj sites. Furthermore, the binding energy per atom for the two co-adsorbed atoms of the same specie (i.e., neutral or charged) is less than the binding energy of a singly adsorbed atom. This suggests that atoms may become less likely to be adsorbed on the GO nanoparticle when their concentration increases. We adduce the origin of this observation to be interplay between the metal–metal interaction on the one hand and GO–metal on the other, with the former resulting in less binding for the charged adsorbed metals in particular, due to repulsive interaction between two positively charged ions. The frontier molecular orbitals analysis and the calculated global reactivity descriptors of the respective GO–metal complexes revealed that all the GO–metal complexes have a smaller HOMO–LUMO gap (HLG) relative to that of pristine metal-free GO nanoparticle. This may indicate that although the GO–metal complexes are stable, they are less stable compared to metal-free GO nanoparticles. The negative values of the chemical potentials obtained for all the GO–metal complexes further confirm their stability. Our work differs from previous experimental studies in that those lacked details of the interaction mechanisms between GO, Pb and Cd, as well as previous theoretical studies which used limited numbers of parameters to characterise the GO–metal interactions. Rather, we present a set of parameters or descriptors which provide comprehensive physical and electronic characterisation of GO–metal systems as obtained via the DFT calculations. These parameters, along with those reported in previous studies, may find applications in rational design and high-throughput screening of graphene-based materials for water purification, as an example. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Metal Oxide Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure, and Applications)
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