The concept of energy filtering of the carriers to control the thermoelectric properties of PbTe is experimentally applied in this present work. The energy barriers at the grain interfaces of the nanocomposites and the embedded Ag-rich nanodots within the grains are supposed to control the energy dependency of carrier scattering: that is what we mean by energy filtering of carriers. As a case study, vertical Bridgman grown bulk PbTe:undoped, PbTe:Ag crystals and nanocomposites of PbTe:Ag are used as samples. Thermoelectric properties of all the samples have been evaluated through temperature dependent electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and room temperature Hall and thermal conductivity measurements. It is found that the PbTe:Ag nanocomposites has the highest power factor of 18.78×10−4 W m−1 K−2 with a room temperature thermal conductivity of 1.69 W m−1 K−1. The crystal structures of these samples show the effective potential barrier at the grain boundaries and embedded nanodots within the grains to facilitate the energy filtering of the carriers.

This review manuscript presents Thin-Film Transistors (TFTs) for various highly sensitive biosensing applications. A low-cost, highly sensitive, early-stage diagnostic bio-sensing devices are vital for different biomedical and biological applications. Nanotechnology-based biosensor devices such as bioFET, thin-film transistor (TFT), etc. are used to overcome the problems of conventional health diagnostic approaches. Among them, TFT based biosensors have gained a lot of attention owing to high sensitivity, high-scalability, low power consumption, rapid electrical detection, low-cost mass production, and direct electrical readouts. Further to improve the sensitivity of TFT bases biosensor, transparent materials are frequently used in current biosensing research fields and it is found that indium tin oxide (ITO) is most favorable for biosensing applications. Thus, the amalgamation of ITO on TFT paves the way with the existing CMOS technology for early-stage diagnostic of protein-related diseases such as coronary artery disease, ovarian cancer, and Alzheimer’s diseases.

In this paper, the thermal stability of a Bloch Surface Wave (BSW) assisted bio-photonic sensor is investigated. The structural analysis is carried out using the transfer matrix method (TMM). The design comprises a truncated one-dimensional photonic crystal (1D-PhC) structure along with a defective top layer. The structural parameters are optimized to excite a BSW at the top interface for an operating wavelength of 632.8 nm. The mode confinement is confirmed by using wavelength interrogation, angular interrogation and surface electric field profile. Further, the effect of thermal variation on BSW excitation angle and sensitivity is carried out. The analysis shows the average variations in excitation angle and sensitivity of about −0.00096 degree/°C and 0.01046 (degree/RIU)/°C, respectively. Additionally, the analysis is also extended towards different lower wavelengths of 400 nm and 550 nm, which provides average variations in the excitation angles of about −0.0027 degree/°C, and 0.0016 degree/°C. This shows that the structural sensitivity response is more thermally stable at the lower wavelength range. Thus, showing its potential applications in designing thermally stable bio-photonic sensors.

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In this paper, we explore the quantitative investigation of the high-frequency performance of gate electrode workfunction engineered (GEWE) silicon nanowire (SiNW) MOSFET and compared with silicon nanowire MOSFET(SiNW MOSFET) using device simulators: ATLAS and DEVEDIT 3D. Simulation results demonstrate the improved RF performance exhibited by GEWE-SiNW MOS-FET over SiNW MOSFET in terms of transconductance (g m ), cut-off frequency ( f T ), maximum oscillator frequency ( f MAX ), power gains (Gma, G MT ) parasitic capacitances, stern's stability factor and intrinsic delay. Further, using three-dimensional device simulations, we have also examined the efficacy of parameter variations in terms of oxide thickness, radius of silicon nanowire, channel length and gate metal workfunction engineering on RF/microwave figure of merits of GEWE-SiNW MOSFET. Simulation result reveals significant enhancement in f T and f MAX ; and a reduction in switching time in GEWE-SiNW MOSFET due to alleviated short channel effects, improved drain current and smaller parasitic capacitance, thus providing detailed knowledge about the device's RF performance at such aggressively scaled dimensions.