We investigated the effect of mesoporous structure on the thermoelectric properties of La-doped SrTiO3 films through the analyses of their structural, electrical, and thermoelectric properties. The mesoporous structure induces a decrease in thermal conductivity and an increase in the Seebeck coefficient because of increased phonon and carrier scattering. The increase of electrical resistivity was smaller than the changes in the Seebeck coefficient and thermal conductivity. As a result, the incorporation of Brij-S10 surfactant into La-doped SrTiO3 films induced an increase of the figure of merit. The maximum value of the figure of merit—approximately 0.025 at 200°C—was obtained with a Brij-S10 molar ratio of 0.1; this figure of merit was approximately 35% higher than that of a La-doped SrTiO3 film without the Brij-S10 surfactant. The results of our study suggest that the mesoporous structure could play a role in enhancing the thermoelectric properties.

Fluorous-inorganic hybrid dielectric (FIHD) materials in fluorous solvents can be deposited on top of organic semiconductor films by solution casting.

An organic/inorganic nanocomposite film was synthesized using poly(4-vinylphenol) (PVPh) as an organic insulating polymer and PbO nanoparticles as a high-k inorganic material to serve as an organic insulator with enhanced dielectric properties. PbO nanoparticles were dispersed into propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate, and a solution of PbO/PVPh nanocomposite was prepared by adding a crosslinker. The PbO nanoparticle content within the PVPh polymer matrix was varied, and the effects of this variation upon the properties of the resulting nanocomposite films were studied, including the properties of surface morphology, surface bonding state and dielectric characteristic. The dielectric constant increased with increasing PbO content, reaching 9.2 at 1 MHz and with dielectric loss below 0.09 for the PbO content of 6 vol%. Furthermore, the leakage current increased to only 1.3 × 10 À8 A cm À1 at the highest nanoparticle loadings, compared to the 7.2 × 10 À9 of pristine PVPh. The addition of PbO nanoparticles was found to effectively suppress the absorption of moisture on the surface of PbO/PVPh nanocomposite, although it also increased surface roughness, owing to the agglomeration and particulation of PVPh arising from an anchoring effect of the PbO nanoparticles.

Resistive random access memory (ReRAM) is a promising candidate for next generation nonvolatile memory. La0.7Sr0.3.MnO3 (LSMO) of perovskite manganite family has a great deal of attention for ReRAM material because it makes resistive switching (RS) of interface type without a “forming process”. However, the full understanding of the electronic structure and RS mechanism of LSMO remains a challenging problem. Therefore, this study performed spectromicroscopic analysis to understand the relation between the change of electronic structure and RS characteristic. The results demonstrated the electron occupation by field-induced oxygen vacancies and strong correlation effects.