Nanostructured Thin Films: Growth, Properties and Applications

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanocomposite Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2024) | Viewed by 1647

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore 138634, Singapore
Interests: nanostructures; thin films; coatings; optoelectronics

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Guest Editor
Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China
Interests: smart windows; sensor; thermochromic materials; resistive switching

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Guest Editor
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
Interests: nanostructures; optoelectronics; thermoelectrics; magnonics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Due to their special nanostructures, nanostructured thin films behave differently than bulk materials of equivalent chemical composition. The ability to control or modify the morphology, microstructures, and chemical composition of thin films at the micrometer and/or nanometer scale opens vast opportunities to tailor the properties of the thin films. Thin films have been developed as an enabling component for a wide range of applications, including solar cells, light-emitting diodes, smart windows, sensors, batteries, and photocatalytic platforms. Nanostructured thin films will not only enhance these traditional applications, but also enable emerging applications such as metamaterials, flat optics, thermoelectric, etc.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the state of knowledge in the growth, characterization, properties, and potential applications of nanostructured thin films. It is our pleasure to invite you to submit your work to this Special Issue. Original research articles and reviews are both welcome. We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Xiao-Hu Huang
Dr. Ming Li
Dr. Chen Zhang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • nanostructured thin films
  • growth
  • microstructures
  • properties

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

10 pages, 3898 KiB  
Article
The Bonding State and Surface Roughness of Carbon-Doped TiZrN Coatings for Hydrogen Permeation Barriers
by Seonghoon Kim, Taewoo Kim, Seungjae Lee and Heesoo Lee
Nanomaterials 2023, 13(21), 2905; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano13212905 - 5 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1236
Abstract
We doped carbon into a TiZrN coating to reduce hydrogen permeability, and investigated the phase formation, bonding state, microstructure, and surface roughness of the carbon-doped TiZrN. The laser output for laser carburization was limited to a range of 20–50%. The grain size of [...] Read more.
We doped carbon into a TiZrN coating to reduce hydrogen permeability, and investigated the phase formation, bonding state, microstructure, and surface roughness of the carbon-doped TiZrN. The laser output for laser carburization was limited to a range of 20–50%. The grain size of the TiZrN coatings decreased from 26.49 nm before carburization to 18.31 nm after carburization. For XPS analysis, the sp2/sp3 ratio was 1.23 at 20% laser output, but it showed 2.64 at 40% laser output, which means that amorphous carbon was formed. As the grain size decreased with the formation of amorphous carbon, the surface microstructure of the carbon-doped TiZrN coatings transitioned to an intergranular structure, indicating the creation of amorphous carbon-embedded (Ti, Zr)(C, N) in the coating. The surface roughness (Ra) of the carbon-doped TiZrN coating was decreased to a maximum of 7.12 nm, and the hydrogen permeability correspondingly decreased by 78% at 573 K. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanostructured Thin Films: Growth, Properties and Applications)
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