Flexible electronics attract research and commercial interests in last 2 decades for its flexibility, low cost, light weight and etc. To develop and improve the electro-mechanical properties of flexible electrodes is the most critical and important step. In this work, we have performed nanomechanical and electro-mechanical characterization of materials for flexible electrode applications, including metallic nanowires (NWs), indium tin oxide (ITO)-based and carbon nanotube (CNT)-based electrodes. First, we designed and developed four different testing platforms for nanomechanical and electro-mechanical characterization purpose. For the nano/sub-micro size samples, the micro mechanical devices can be used for uni-axial and bi-axial loading tests. For the macro size samples, the micro tester will be used for in situ monotonic tensile test, while the fatigue tester can be used for in situ cyclic tensile or bending testing purpose. Secondly, we have investigated mechanical behaviors of single crystalline Ni nanowires and single crystalline Cu nanowires under uni-axial tensile loading inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM) chamber. We demonstrated both size and strain-rate dependence on yield stress of single-crystalline Ni NWs with varying diameters (from 100 nm to 300 nm), and themolecular dynamics (MD) simulation helped to confirm and understand the experimental phenomena. Also, two different fracture modes, namely ductile and brittle-like fractures, were found in the same batch of Cu nanowire samples. Finally, we studied the electro-mechanical behaviors of flexible electrodes in macro scale. We reported a coherent study integrating in situ electro-mechanical experiments and mechanics modeling to decipher the failure mechanics of ITO-based and CNT-based electrodes under tension. It is believed that our combined experimental and simulation results provide some further insights into the important yet complicated deformation mechanisms for nanoscale metals and fracture mechanism for flexible electrodes applications.

The purpose of the thesis is to investigate the improvement of single-crystal Si solar cell efficiency using porous Indium tin oxide (ITO)/ITO double layer antireflection(AR) coating. The resistivity, transmittance and refraction index of the porous ITO films prepared by supercritical CO2 treatment were investigated. At a 2000 psi pressure and 60¡CC, the resistivity of porous ITO films is 15 £[-cm, the average transmittance is better than 95 %, and the refraction index is 1.54. In addition, the resistivity of ITO thin films fabricated by reactive ratio-frequency magnetron sputtering is 7¡Ñ10-4 £[-cm, the average transmittance are 85 %, and the refraction index is 2.0. For the single crystal-Si solar cell with porous ITO/ITO double layer AR coating, the open circuit voltage, short circuit current, fill factor and efficiency are measured.

The aim of this study was to immobilize the redox enzyme laccase over TiO2-SiO2-Au thin film coated ITO glass substrates in order to prepare electrochemically active surfaces for biosensor applications. Colloidal TiO2-SiO2-Au solution was synthesized by sol-gel route and thin film was deposited onto the substrates by dipcoating method. The cysteamine was utilized as a linker for immobilization of enzyme covalently through gold active sites. Preliminary studies were conducted by using invertase as model enzyme and Pyrex glasses as substrates. The effect of immobilization parameters such as immobilization temperature, concentration of enzyme deposition solution, immobilization time for laccase were examined. Leakage studies were conducted and storage stability of immobilized laccase was determined. Highest laccase activity was achieved when immobilization was performed with 50 &micro / g/ml solution at 4&deg / C for 2 hours. Laccase activity decreased after 4 hours of impregnation in enzyme solution. Laccase leakage was observed in the first usage of substrates and 55% activity decrease was determined in the subsequent use which might be attributed to the presence of uncovalently adsorbed enzyme on the fresh samples. In air and in buffer storage stabilities were also tested. It was found that the activity of samples almost vanished after 6 days regardless of storage conditions. Both enzymes had more activity on ITO substrate.

Indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films have been used as transparent electrodes in many technological applications such as display panels, solar cells, touch screens and electrochromic devices. Commercial grade ITO thin films are usually deposited by sputtering. Solution-based coating methods, such as sol-gel however, can be simple and economic alternative method for obtaining oxide films and also ITO. In this thesis, &ldquo / ITO sols&rdquo / and &ldquo / ITO nanoparticle-incorporated hybrid ITO coating sols&rdquo / were prepared using indium chloride (InCl3

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der reaktive ITO-Abscheidprozess unter Verwendung metallischer In:Sn-Targets eingehend untersucht. Die Schichtabscheidung erfolgt am symmetrisch bipolar gepulstem Dual-Magnetron sowohl auf ruhende als auch bewegte Substrate. Die Arbeit umfasst zwei Teilgebiete. Einerseits wurde der dynamische ITO-Abscheideprozess an einer industrienahen Versuchsanlage umfassend charakterisiert und anhand seiner physikalischen Parameter erfolgreich an eine industrielle Beschichtungsanlage überführt. Andererseits fanden statische Beschichtungen statt. Diese ermöglichen die Analyse der lateralen Verteilung der funktionellen Schichteigenschaften. Dadurch konnte eine Korrelation zu den lateralen Verteilungen der gemessenen Plasmaparameter herausgearbeitet werden.

<p>This research paper aims to understand and analyse the CISG, its history, scope and structure, and to evaluate its impact on SADC.The main ideas that this paper will consider are: what is the CISG / &nbsp / Its history, scope and structure / &nbsp / Its impact on developing countries / &nbsp / Its relevance to developing countries within SADC / and How the implementation of the CISG improved these developing countries within SADC.</p>

In this research work, porous films on aluminum foil, with vertical through and through pores, were fabricated. The films were anodized at different applied voltages and the conditions were reported. In some cases, aluminum foil films were anodized under constant current conditions. Thicker aluminum films, referred to as aluminum tape in this thesis, were also anodized to get good porous films. While the porous alumina films using aluminum tape produced pores with good uniformity, the films did not produce through and through pores. Porous alumina films were also prepared on aluminum evaporated ITO substrate. The films on ITO substrate were different from the porous alumina films using aluminum foil/tape. In case of ITO substrate based films, an additional condition, temperature was also varied. The anodization process on ITO substrate based films was done at lower temperatures in order to reduce the effect of high currents on the process. The SEM images for different anodization conditions were compared and the porosity of films was calculated. CdS was electrodeposited inside porous alumina. D.C as well as a.c. voltages were applied and duration of the process was varied to study their effect on film morphology and the thickness of the deposited CdS. The current-voltage characteristics of the CdS-deposited alumina films were plotted and the phase of the electrodeposited CdS was found to be hexagonal using XRD.

The research presented in this dissertation explores the possibility of using colloidal indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticle solutions to direct write transparent conducting coatings (TCCs), as an alternative route for TCC fabrication. ITO nanoparticles with narrow size distribution of 5-7 nm were synthesized using a non-aqueous synthesis technique, and fabricated into films using spin coating on substrates made from glass and fused quartz. The as-coated films were very transparent (>95% transmittance), but highly resistive, with sheet resistances around 10¹³ Ω/sq . Pre-annealing plasma treatments were investigated in order to improve the electrical properties while avoiding high temperature treatments. Composite RIE treatment recipes consisting of alternating RIE treatments in O₂ plasma and in Ar plasma were able to reduce the sheet resistance of as spin coated ITO films by 4-5 orders of magnitude, from about 10¹³ Ω/sq in as-coated films to about 3 x 10⁸ Ω/sq without any annealing. Plasma treatment, in combination with annealing treatments were able to decrease the sheet resistance by 8-9 orders of magnitude down to almost 10 kΩ/sq , equivalent to bulk resistivity of ~0.67 Ω.cm. Investigation into effectiveness of various RIE parameters in removing residual organics and in reducing the sheet resistance of colloidal ITO films suggested that while reactive ion annealing (RIE) pressure is an important parameter; parameters like plasma power, number of alternating O₂-Ar RIE cycles were also effective in reducing the residual organic content. Impedance spectroscopy analysis of the colloidal ITO films indicated the dominance of the various interfaces, such as grain boundaries, insulating secondary phases, charge traps, and others in determining the observed electrical properties.

Organic Light-Emitting Devices (OLEDs) have reached industrial maturity in display technology, since OLEDs provide salient advantages such as high brightness, fast response, wide viewing angle, mechanical flexibility, and low cost manufacturing. Due to the ability of electroluminescence (EL) from triplet excited states as well as singlet excited states, phosphorescent OLEDs (PHOLEDs) have a potential to achieve 100% internal quantum efficiency. Therefore, PHOLEDs can offer a competitive external quantum efficiency. However, the operational stability of PHOLEDs is relatively poor. Several mechanisms have been proposed to address the chemical and physical phenomena associated with intrinsic degradation of PHOLEDs, nevertheless, the reasons behind voltage rise and luminance loss accompanying PHOLEDs long term operation are not yet well understood. The state of the art p-i-n PHOLEDs offer relatively high efficiency and low efficiency roll-off. However, this technology is characterized by structure complexity. Therefore, much of the current research on PHOLEDs focuses on the development of the simplest possible and most easily processed architecture that can deliver the optimal combination of device properties. Simplified PHOLEDs, utilizing one material for both hole transport and emitter host, can be a good candidate for replacement of p-i-n technology. Simplified PHOLEDs offer higher efficiency than the p-i-n PHOLEDs , yet, their EL stability is found to be poor. In this thesis, the role of the ITO/organic interface on simplified PHOLEDs efficiency will be investigated. Furthermore, possible degradation mechanisms at the ITO/organic interface will be explored. Moreover, we will correlate degradation at the ITO/organic interface to PHOLEDs operational stability. Eventually, organic layers modifications including but not limited to emissive layer (EML) will be examined. By studying the indium tin oxide (ITO)/organic interface in simplified PHOLEDs, it was found that this interface is critical to PHOLEDs performance. The study shows that, this interface is critical to the PHOLED overall stability and is considered as one of the limiting factors of the long term operational stability of simplified PHOLEDs. The effect of optical excitation on the ITO/organic interface stability in hole-only devices was investigated. It was found that the ITO/organic interface is susceptible to exciton-induced degradation. This degradation affects the device stability severely compared to current-induced degradation. The exciton-induced degradation can be prevented by doping the hole transport layer (HTL), at the interface with an exciton quencher layer or by blocking the electrons from leaking to the ITO/organic interface that may further recombine with holes to form excitons. Further studies showed that upon combining both electrical stress and optical excitation, the device degradation is even more pronounced which is most likely due to interactions between charges and excitons. By using exciton life-time measurements, a new role of molybdenum trioxide (MoO3) in the electrical stability of PHOLEDs, as an exciton quencher layer, is introduced. Delayed EL (DEL) measurements showed that the simplified PHOLEDs are susceptible to triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) and triplet-polaron quenching (TPQ) which might affect the operational stability of simplified PHOLEDs. Finally, EML modifications showed that the recombination zone of simplified PHOLEDs is located near the HTL/EML interface.

Gravure printing is a conventional printing process used for printing graphics on products ranging from magazines and packaging to wallpaper and floor coverings. It is a versatile process that can be used to deposit a variety of fluid materials onto many different surfaces. It is also capable of very high speed deposition, with speeds up to 60 m/min being reported. Because of its versatility and high throughput capability, gravure is an attractive platform for the manufacture of devices composed of relatively thin layers of functional, electronic materials deposited onto flexible substrates. In many cases, these materials can be deposited in liquid form, in which case gravure printing can potentially be used. One such material that is commonly used is Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), a transparent, conducting ceramic material. It is commonly deposited onto flexible, transparent polyethylene terapthalate (PET) films that can be used in flexible displays, solar cells, and other devices requiring a transparent, conducting layer. This thesis examines the effect of key process parameters on the physical and functional characteristics of a printed ITO nanoparticle layer. ITO layers were successfully printed that were between 300 and 1300 nm thick, with roughness Ra generally less than a few hundred nm. The sheet resistance values were relatively high, in the hundreds of kohms/square. The transparency was relatively low, although the films were generally transparent. Several parameters were found to be significant in affecting the several different physical and performance measures, specifically solvent and ITO content, as well as cell geometry.