Highly oriented and transparent ZnO thin films have been fabricated on ultrasonically cleaned quartz substrates by the sol-gel technique. X-ray diffraction, UV-VIS, FTIR, photoluminescence and SEM are used to characterize ZnO thin films. X-ray diffraction study show that all the films prepared in this work have hexagonal wurtzite structure, with lattice constants a = b = 3.260 Å, c = 5.214 Å. The optical band gap energy of the thin films is found to be direct allowed transition ~3.24 eV. The FTIR spectrum of the film has the characteristics ZnO absorption band at 482 cm^?1. The photoluminescence spectrum of the samples has an UV emission peak centred at 383 nm with broad band visible emission centred in the range of 500 - 600 nm

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A poly(vinyledene difluoride)-lithium bis(oxalato)borate solid polymer electrolyte prepared by a solvent casting method has been irradiated with different doses of gamma-rays. Differential scanning calorimetry reveals that the polymer electrolyte irradiated with 35 kGy of γ-rays is the most amorphous sample. This is also supported by the results obtained from X-ray diffraction. The Fourier transform infrared spectrum of each irradiated sample has been deconvoluted in the wavenumber region between 1830 and 1758 cm(-1) in order to predict the percentage of free and contact ions in the samples. The sample exposed to 35 kGy of γ-rays contains the highest percentage of free ions and the lowest amount of contact ions. This sample also exhibits the highest room temperature conductivity of 3.05 × 10(-4) S cm(-1), which is 15% higher relative to the virgin sample. The number density of free ions is observed to have more control on the conductivity variation with the γ-radiation dose compared to ionic mobility. This study confirms that γ-irradiation can be a potential way to obtain highly conductive and mechanically stable polymer electrolytes.

Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) have been synthesized by various methods over the last two decades.