Influence of surface morphology on electrophysical properties of PbTe: Sb films

The electrophysical properties of polycrystalline doped semiconductor thin films PbTe: Sb deposited on mica and sital (glass based ceramic) substrates are considered. The thickness dependencies of carrier mobility, of Hall coefficient and of Seebeck coefficient, and the correlations between these parameters for films deposited on different substrate materials were studied. The peculiarities of growth of thin films and their structural parameters are analyzed taking into account the features of the ‘substrate – film’ boundary section.

“Soft” printed electronics

Panasonic has launched a novel substrate film leveraging patented thermoset polymer technology. The novel BEYOLEX substrate is pliable, yet durable and stretchable

Properties of Bi and BiSb Nano-Dimensional Layers in Thz Frequency Range

In the present paper we demonstrate and compare different properties of Bi and Bi1-xSbx thin films placed on polyimide (PI) substrate in frequency range from 0.2 to 1.0 THz. Bi films with a thickness of 40, 105 and 150 nm have been studied as well as 150 nm Bi1-xSbx solid solutions with Sb concentration of 5, 8, 12 and 15 %. An effective refractive index and permittivity of whole substrate/film structures have been derived by using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) method. These measurements have shown the positive phase shift in PI substrate with a thickness of 42 μm and revealed that it is barely transparent in studied frequency range, but the whole substrate/film structure provides the negative phase shift of terahertz wave. It was shown that the permittivity depends on mobility of charge carriers which is driven by film thickness and antimony content.

Optimization of large power factor in molybdenum oxide thin films deposited on Si substrate

The performance of thermoelectric (TE) thin films strongly depends on the substrates. In our previous study, we investigated the power factor (PF) 1.78 mW/[Formula: see text] at 700 K in [Formula: see text] thin film grown on single crystalline Si, comparable to the state of art in other TE thin films. Such boosted PF originates mainly from the significantly enhanced Seebeck coefficient, correlated with the contribution of the Si substrate. In this paper, the PF has been prominently optimized up to 12.5 mW/[Formula: see text] at 668 K by adjusting the thickness of [Formula: see text] film in the [Formula: see text]/Si system, which could be understood in the frame work of parallel slab model. Experimentally, the effective TE properties were susceptible to the substrate–film interface. The existence of Mo in [Formula: see text] film might limit the formation of [Formula: see text] interfacial layer. These results suggest a simple, low-cost, scalable technique route to explore highly effective TE devices.

A simple and robust procedure for preparing graphene-oxide cryo-EM grids

Graphene oxide (GO) sheets have been used successfully as a supporting substrate film in several recent cryogenic electron-microscopy (cryo-EM) studies of challenging biological macromolecules. However, difficulties in preparing GO-covered holey carbon EM grids have limited its widespread use. Here, we report a simple and robust method for covering holey carbon EM grids with GO sheets and demonstrate that these grids are suitable for high-resolution single particle cryo-EM. GO substrates adhere macromolecules, allowing cryo-EM grid preparation with lower specimen concentrations and providing partial protection from the air-water interface. Additionally, the signal from images of the GO lattice beneath the frozen-hydrated specimen can be discerned in many motion-corrected micrographs, providing a high-resolution fiducial for evaluating beam-induced motion correction.