Highly sensitive large-scale tin oxide (SnO2) nanostructures were grown on a glass substrate by thermal evaporation of a mixture of anhydrous tin (II) chloride (SnCl2) and zinc chloride (ZnCl2) powders at 550°C in air. We demonstrate a single cell vapor deposition system to precisely control nanostructural morphology of SnO2 by changing the weight ratio of SnCl2 and ZnCl2 and growth temperature. The morphology and structural property of as-grown nanostructures were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The SEM images revealed that the SnO2 nanostructures with different densities, sizes, and shapes can be achieved by adjusting the weight ratio of SnCl2 and ZnCl2. A thin film gas sensor based on SnO2 nanostructures with diameter ∼20 nm and length ∼100 nm showed ∼85% sensitivity and 53 seconds of response time, whereas the nanorods with diameter ∼100 nm and length ∼ 1μm showed ∼50% sensitivity with 198 seconds response time. The nanostructured material with small size and shape showed better sensitivity on sensing at room temperature compared to previously reported SnO2 based sensors.

One of the ways to mitigate the world energy crisis is to harvest clean and green energy from waste-heat, which is abundant, ubiquitous, and free. Energy harvesting of this waste-heat is one of the most encouraging methods to capture freely accessible electrical energy. Ferroelectric materials can be used to harvest energy for low power electronic devices, as they exhibit switchable polarization, excellent piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties. The most important characteristic of ferroelectric materials, in the context of energy harvesting, is their ability to generate electric power from a time-dependent temperature change. In this work, we grew highly c-axis oriented heterostructures of BaZr0.2Ti0.8O3 (barium zirconium titanate, BZT)/Ba0.7Ca0.3TiO3 (barium calcium titanate, BCT) on SrRuO3 (strontium ruthenate, SRO) and deposited on SrTiO3 (strontium titanate, STO) single crystalline substrate using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. We investigated the structural, electrical, dielectric, and pyroelectric properties of the above-mentioned fabricated heterostructures. The wide range of θ–2θ X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns only shows (00l) reflection peaks of heterostructures and the substrate which confirmed that the films are highly c-axis oriented. We are also capable to convert the low-grade waste-heat into electrical energy by measuring various temperature-dependent ferroelectric hysteresis loops of our nanostructure films via pyroelectric Ericsson cycles and the structures show an energy conversion density ~ 10,970 kJ/m3 per cycle. These devices exhibit a large pyroelectric current density of ~ 25 mA/m2 with 11.8 °C of temperature fluctuation and the corresponding pyroelectric coefficient of 3425 μC/m2K. Our research findings suggest that these lead-free relaxor-ferroelectric heterostructures might be the potential candidates to harvest electrical energy from waste low-grade thermal energy.

We grew lead-free BaZr0.2Ti0.8O3 (BZT)/Ba0.7Ca0.3TiO3 (BCT) epitaxial heterostructures and studied their structural, dielectric, ferroelectric and energy density characteristics. The BZT/BCT epitaxial heterostructures were grown on SrRuO3 (SRO) buffered SrTiO3 (STO) single crystal substrate by optimized pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. These high-quality nanostructures exhibit high dielectric permittivity (∼1300), slim electric field-dependent polarization (P-E) curve with high saturation polarization (∼100 µC/cm2) and low remnant polarization (∼20 µC/cm2) through interface engineering to develop new lead-free ferroelectric system for energy storage devices. We observe an ultrahigh discharge and charge energy densities of 42.10 and 97.13 J/cm3, respectively, with high efficiency, which might be highly promising for both high power and energy storage electrical devices.

Combining two materials in a nanoscale level can create a composite with new functionalities and improvements in their physical and chemical properties. Here we present a high-throughput approach to produce a nanocomposite consisting of metal nanoparticles and semiconductor oxide nanostructures. Volmer-Weber growth, though unfavorable for thin films, promotes nucleation of dense and isolated metal nanoparticles on crystalline oxide nanostructures, resulting in new material properties. We demonstrate such a growth of Au nanoparticles on SnO 2 nanostructures and a remarkable sensitivity of the nanocomposite for detecting traces of analytes in surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Au nanoparticles with tunable size enable us to modify surface wettability and convert hydrophilic oxide surfaces into super-hydrophobic with contact angles over 150°. We also find that charge injection through electron beam exposure shows the same effect as photo-induced charge separation, providing an extra Raman enhancement up to an order of magnitude.Metal nanoparticles or nanostructures can interact with the electromagnetic field at optical frequencies. A unique physical property in these nanoparticles is the strong field enhancement associated with localized plasmon excitation, which inspires development of novel devices in applications such as energy harvesting, chemical, and biological sensing. Among them, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an analytical technique with high sensitivity that enables the detection of chemical or biological analytes in trace amount far below the limit of the conventional Raman spectroscopy. The enhancement of electromagnetic fields amplifies Raman scattering signals of analytes adsorbed on rough metal surfaces, especially on the rough surfaces generated by noble metal nanostructures. The excitation of localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) in the noble metals is generally considered as the main mechanism of SERS. Theoretical calculations revealed that the electromagnetic enhancement factor can be up to ~10 10 -10 12 1 , reaching the level high enough for single-molecule detection. Therefore, SERS can significantly improve the sensitivity of the conventional Raman spectrometers and provides an accessible and flexible tool to emerging portable and mobile demands in applications such as medical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, food safety, national security, and rapid screening.Noble metal nanoparticles typically exhibit SERS enhancement at sharp edges or gaps between metallic protrusions, called hot spots. Hot spots concentrate electromagnetic radiation energy within small areas, which account for the majority of the Raman scattering signals from SERS. Because the near-field behavior dominates the concentrated electromagnetic radiation in the hot spots, the field strength, as well as associated SERS enhancement, decreases rapidly within the distance of a few nanometers. Hot spots between the nanostructure gaps should be sufficiently small 2-4 . And high-density hot spots are desire...

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