Ruthenium and ruthenium dioxide thin films have shown great promise in various applications, such as thick film resistors, buffer layers for yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconducting thin films, and as electrodes in ferroelectric memories. Other potential applications in Si based complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices are currently being studied. The search for alternative metal-based gate electrodes as a replacement of poly-Si gates has intensified during the last few years. Metal gates are required to maintain scaling and performance of future CMOS devices. Ru based materials have many desirable properties and are good gate electrode candidates for future metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) device applications. Moreover, Ru and RuO2 are promising candidates as diffusion barriers for copper interconnects. In this thesis, the thermal stability and interfacial diffusion and reaction of both Ru and RuO2 thin films on HfO2 gate dielectrics were investigated using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). An overview of Ru and RuO2/HfO2 interface integrity issues will be presented. In addition, the effects of C ion modification of RuO2 thin films on the physico-chemical and electrical properties are evaluated.

abstract: There are increasing demands for gas sensors in air quality and human health monitoring applications. The qualifying sensor technology must be highly sensitive towards ppb level gases of interest, such as acetylene (C2H2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), and volatile organic compounds. Among the commercially available sensor technologies, conductometric gas sensors with nanoparticles of oxide semiconductors as sensing materials hold significant advantages in cost, size, and cross-compatibility. However, semiconductor gas sensors must overcome some major challenges in thermal stability, sensitivity, humidity interference, and selectivity before potential widespread adoption in air quality and human health monitoring applications. The focus of this dissertation is to tackle these issues by optimizing the composition and the morphology of the nanoparticles, and by innovating the structure of the sensing film assembled with the nanoparticles. From the nanoparticles perspective, the thermal stability of tin oxide nanoparticles with different Al dopant concentrations was studied, and the results indicate that within certain range of doping concentration, the dopants segregated at the grain surface can improve the thermal stability by stabilizing the grain boundaries. From the sensing film perspective, a novel self-assembly approach was developed for copper oxide nanosheets and the sensor response towards H2S gas was revealed to decrease monotonically by more than 60% as the number of layers increase from 1 to 300 (thickness: 0.03-10 μm). Moreover, a sensing mechanism study on the humidity influence on H2S detection was performed to gain more understandings of the role of the hydroxyl group in the surface reaction, and humidity independent response was observed in the monolayer film at 325 ℃. With a more precise deposition tool (Langmuir-Blodgett trough), monolayer film of zinc oxide nanowires sensitized with gold catalyst was prepared, and highly sensitive and specific response to C2H2 in the ppb range was observed. Furthermore, the effect of surface topography of the monolayer film on stabilizing noble metal catalyst, and the sensitization mechanism of gold were investigated. Lastly, a semiconductor sensor array was developed to analyze the composition of gases dissolved in transformer oil to demonstrate the industrial application of this sensor technology. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Materials Science and Engineering 2020

Photovoltaic (PV) technology using organic solar cells have attracted much attention, as it is a simple and efficient way to convert solar energy into usable electricity. At present, bulk­heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells, which are based on conjugated p­type polymers and n­type fullerene derivatives, have been intensively investigated in both academia and industry. Organic and metallated conjugated small molecules (SM) represent an intriguing and promising class of materials. Atomic­thick 2D nanosheets have attracted tremendous attention recently because of their novel electronic structures and physical properties. This thesis describes the synthesis and characterization of some series of organic and metallated aryleneethynylenes and their applications in BHJ solar cells. To begin with, a brief overview on the background of organic solar cells (OSCs) and two­dimensional (2D) nanomaterials was presented in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, a new series of multichromophoric small molecular systems of ruthenium(II)­bis(aryleneethynylene) compounds containing triphenylamine and/or thiophene as the donor and benzothiadiazole as the acceptor were designed and obtained by straightforward synthesis and purification procedures with reasonable yields. These ruthenium complexes absorb strongly in the visible region which are potentially attractive materials for photovoltaic cell applications. The best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 0.66% was achieved for D1 with the open­circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.51 V, short­circuit current density (Jsc) of 4.24 mA cm­2 and fill factor (FF) of 0.31 under illumination of an AM 1.5 solar­cell simulator. Furthermore, in Chapter 3, a new series of small molecular systems of platinum­containing organometallic conjugated molecules containing different donating groups (such as thiophene, BDT, carbazole, and bithiazole), benzothiadiazole and/or dimesitylborane as the acceptors were successfully designed and obtained. Among all the BHJ devices based on these platinum complexes, PT5­based device, which we introduced strong donor group carbazole in the molecule, showed the highest PCE of 1.46% with high Voc of 0.70 V, Jsc of 6.17 mA cm­2 and FF of 0.33 at the optimized active layer thickness of 60 nm, which indicates that the photovoltaic performance can be significantly improved by introducing a strong D group in the molecule. Besides, a new series of organic small molecules M1­M16 of D­A­spacer­A­D structure were successfully designed and obtained. Intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) effect could be observed due to the strong electron­withdrawing units (such as benzothiadiazole, DPP, trizaole and dimesitylborane) and strong electron­donating units (such as triphenylamine, thiophene, BDT, carbazole, and bithiazole), and this effect between the acceptor and donor units causes low bandgap. By introducing strong oligothiophene donor group in the molecule M4, which showed the highest PCE of 3.68% among all the devices with high Voc of 0.95 V, Jsc of 7.76 mA cm­2 and FF of 0.44 at the optimized active layer thickness of 75 nm, which also indicates that the photovoltaic performance can be significantly improved by introducing a strong D group in the molecule. In Chapter 5, we designed and synthesized a new series of the “bottom­up” metal complex nanosheets: p­conjugated bis(dipyrrinato) metal complex nanosheets, including monolayer and multilayer nanosheets. AFM, IR, XPS and SEM analyses have been applied to study the morphologies, chemical state and size or nanostructure of the as­prepared nanosheets, and the results indicated that the “bottom­up” method is useful for the construction of photoresponsive and semiconductive nanosheets. This work is going to enlarge the futurity of the “bottom­up” nanosheet as next­generation nanomaterials. Finally, Chapters 6 and 7 present the concluding remarks and the experimental details of the work described in Chapters 2­5.

Organic electronics are devices based on semiconductors derived from carbon based molecules and polymers. These devices can be made flexible, lightweight and potentially inexpensive with the development of economies of scale. Specific examples of organic electronics include organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic photovoltaic (OPVs). Anthracene-based semiconductors are materials that have generated great interest primarily because of their structural planarity, potential for strong intermolecular interactions, air stability and ideal frontier molecular orbital energy levels. In this thesis, we detail two publications that examined functionalized anthracene molecules integrated into OTFTs, along with their thermal, electrochemical and optical properties. We started by examining seven novel 9,10-anthracene-based molecules. It was found that functionalization of the 9,10-positions with different phenyl derivatives resulted in negligible variation in the optical properties with minor (±0.10 eV) changes in electrochemical behaviour, while the choice of phenyl derivative greatly affected the thermal stability whereby the decomposition temperatures (Td) varied by as much as 128 °C between certain functionalized derivatives. The findings suggested that functionalization of the 9,10-position of anthracene leads to an effective handle for tuning of the thermal stability while having little to no effect on the optical properties and the solid-state arrangement. We continued with the synthesis of several novel anthracene derivatives which were di-substituted at the 2,6-positions. It was found that 2,6-functionalization with various fluorinated phenyl derivatives led to negligible changes in the optical behaviour while influencing the electrochemical properties (±0.10 eV). Furthermore, the choice of fluorinated phenyl moiety had noticeable effects on melting point and thermal stability (ΔTm < 55 °C and ΔTd < 65 °C). OTFTs were fabricated and characterized using the 2,6-anthracene derivatives as the semiconducting layer. The addition of fluorine groups on the phenyl groups led to a transition from p-type behaviour to n-type behaviour in BGBC OTFTs. The results indicated that the choice of functional group as well as its functionalization location, at the 9,10- and 2,6-positions, can act as powerful handles to engineer high performance OTFTs.

Cellulose has emerged as an indispensable membrane material due to its abundant availability, low cost, fascinating physiochemical properties and environment benignancy. However, it is believed that the potential of this polymer is not fully explored yet due to its insolubility in the common organic solvents, encouraging the use of derivatization-regeneration method as a viable alternative to the direct dissolution in exotic or reactive solvents. In this work, we use trimethylsilyl cellulose (TMSC), a highly soluble cellulose derivative, as a precursor for the fabrication of cellulose thin film composite membranes. TMSC is an attractive precursor to assemble thin cellulose films with good deposition behavior and film morphology; cumbersome solvents used in the one step cellulose processing are avoided. This derivative is prepared from cellulose by the known silylation reaction. The complete transformation of TMSC back into cellulose after the membrane formation is carried out by vapor-phase acid treatment, which is simple, scalable and reproducible. This process along with the initial TMSC concentration determines the membrane sieving characteristics. Unlike the typical regenerated cellulose membranes with meso- or macropores, membranes regenerated from TMSC display micropores suitable for the selective separation of nanomolecules in aqueous and organic solvent nanofiltration. The membranes introduced in this thesis represent the first polymeric membranes ever reported for highly selective separation of similarly sized small organic molecules based on charge and size differences with outstanding fluxes. Owing to its strong hydrophilic and amorphous character, the membranes also demonstrate excellent air-dehumidification performance as compared to previously reported thin film composite membranes. Moreover, the use of TMSC enables the creation of the previously unfeasible cellulose–polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and cellulose–polyethyleneimine (PEI) blend membranes with a good compatibility. The cellulose–PDMS membranes demonstrate attractive performance in ethanol-water pervaporation as compared to the commercial PDMS membrane, and allow nanofiltration of a wide range of solvents with different polarity. The cellulose-PEI membranes exhibit anomalous performance improvement in nanofiltration as compared to the corresponding pure membranes. This study has opened up many great opportunities for cellulose to continuously contribute to sustainable and economical membrane processes.

The stress development and relaxation of magnetron sputtered copper and amorphous-silicon (a-Si) films at room temperature are studied. Samples were prepared as a function of pressure and deposition power. In-situ stress measurements with the wafer curvature method were made using a helium neon gas laser system with a 10mm beam splitter. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to perform post-growth microstructural and surface analysis. SEM cross-section analysis was used to determine the final film thickness. Phase compositions were studied by X-ray diffraction. The growth rates of copper films decreased with increasing pressure. Copper film stress development followed a non-monotonic compressive, tensile then tensile relaxation curve. In order to investigate further the nature of the stress relaxation, stress curves both after deposition was stopped and after it is restarted were also measured. Correlations between growth rate and pressure were also observed in a-Si sputter deposition. In some contrast to what was observed for Cu deposition, stress measurement during a-Si deposition showed a trend of tensile development and relaxation at all pressures studied. In a new approach to understanding stress relaxation during film growth, an acoustic emission (AE) system is introduced to measure the AE energy during sputter deposition. Evidence shows a certain relation between the strain energy of films calculated using the measured stresses and AE energy recorded during the deposition. AE energy occurs immediately after deposition starts and follows the trend of stress development (increasing hits and energies) and relaxation (decreasing hits and energies). No further signal was detected after deposition, matching the results of stress curve measurements showing that stress magnitude after deposition stays at the same level as before deposition stopped. Results also show a lower AE energy magnitude with increasing deposition pressure.

Thesis advisor: Chia-Kuang Tsung / Thesis advisor: Dunwei Wang / Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as a type of inorganic-organic hybrid porous materials, have attracted enormous research interests over the past two decades due to their extraordinary variability and richness of their chemistry and structures. The original design on MOFs is in pursuit of and high surface area, typically for gas storage. However, the properties in a simple MOF system could not meet the needs for a wide variety of advanced applications. Therefore, it is highly desirable to introduce multiplicities and impart functionalities into MOFs through materials design. In this regard, this dissertation focuses on engineering MOFs in two strategies, constructing heterostructures, fabricating thin films, and evaluating their impact on catalysis and energy conversions. The first chapter focuses on constructing a well-defined interface between materials with vast differences in structural dimensions. Another highlight of this study lies in developing characterization protocols to characterize interfacial structures. In the second part, a MOF-74 thin film with crack-free nature serves as a promising platform for the study of ion transport. The last part of this dissertation reports a new two-dimensional (2D) structure derived from UiO-66. The 2D structure was attained by limiting the coordination number and inducing anisotropic growth. The layered material could be further exfoliated and fabricated into thin films. This work presents strategies to impart functionality to MOFs with rational material design and elucidate their positive impacts on the performance of the whole system. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

This work deals with issues of electrochromism and making active electrochromic film of titanium dioxide. By using various precursors consisting titanium element active film was electrodeposited on glass substrates covered with transparent conductive thin-film In2O3:Sn (ITO). Electrochromic characteristics of these substrates that were electrodeposited for different times and with different voltage have been studied. Than there has been studied the impact of various annealing temperatures on electrochromic characteristics.

Sn (II) oxide finds numerous applications in different fields such as thin film transistors1, solar cells2 and sensors.3 In this study we present the fabrication of tin monoxide SnO by using Sn (II) ketoacid oximate complexes as precursors. Tin (II) ketoacidoximates of the type [HON=CRCOO]2Sn where R= Me 1, R= CH2Ph 2, and [(MeON=CMeCOO)3Sn]- NH4 +.2H2O 3 were synthesized by in situ formation of the ketoacid oximate ligand. The crystal structures were determined via single crystal X- ray diffraction of the complexes 1-3 revealed square planar and square pyramidal coordination environments for the Sn atom. Intramolecular hydrogen bonding is observed in all the complexes. Furthermore, the complexes were characterized by Infrared (IR), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and elemental analysis. From thermogravimetric analysis of 1-3, it was found that the complexes decomposed in the range of 160 – 165 oC. Analysis of the gases evolved during decomposition indicated complete loss of the oximato ligand in one step and the formation of SnO. Spin coating of 1 on silicon or glass substrate show uniform coating of SnO. Band gaps of SnO films were measured and found to be in the range of 3.0 – 3.3 eV by UV-Vis spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicated surface oxidation of the SnO film. Heating 1 above 140 oC in air gives SnO of size ranging from 10 – 500 nm and is spherical in shape. The SnO nanomaterial is characterized by powder X-ray diffraction(XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).

The Photovoltaic (PV) systems and the semiconductor PV technologies are heavily impacted by shading conditions; total or partial. Nearby residential buildings, commercial buildings, objects, etc. are likely to cause shade on the PV installations.  This study focuses on the evaluation of the effect of shading on thin-film PV modules, which were analyzed under two categories: single thin-film module and a string of modules installed at the University of Gävle, Sweden. The measurement was made by using METREL MI 3109 Euro test instrument. The study intends to help researchers to analyze the variation in the output performance parameters and behavior considering different types of shading on the thin-film modules. Experiments have been performed by creating full and partial shading (uniform and nonuniform) by using plastic foil, opaque board, wooden pole, and tape to emulate different types of natural shading conditions.  The findings show a loss in power due to shading. In the single thin-film modules, which do not have any diode between the cells; reverse breakdown, power dissipation and generation of hot spots are caused by the cells which are partially shaded.  In the string of modules installed at the University of Gävle, Sweden; under partial shading conditions the diodes are activated below certain voltage when current is high, leading to current bypass and therefore prevents the module from the damage caused by high heat generation. Under the condition of extremely low shading by a wooden pole, the diodes were not activated; however reverse breakdown was observed similar to the case of partial shading in single thin-film modules.