A study of sonochemically synthesized ZnS:Mn nanoparticles is presented. The particles prepared at low rf power (about 20 W) and room temperature coalesce to form morphologically amorphous large species (30-100 nm in diameter). As the power is increased in the range from 20 to 70 W, and the solution temperature is raised to 60 to 80 degrees C, finer particles are produced with the size ranging from 2 to 20 nm and improved crystallinity. The results indicate the dispersion of the Mn(2+) ions at near-surface sites in the particles. It is shown that the sonochemically fabricated particles approach the quality of the ones obtained by a standard chemical route and show a reasonable luminescence performance.

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Due to their inherent physical properties, thin-film Si/SiGe heterostructures have specific thermal management applications in advanced integrated circuits and this in turn is essential not only to prevent a high local temperature and overheat inside the circuit, but also generate electricity through the Seebeck effect. Here, we were able to enhance the Seebeck effect in the germanium composite quantum dots (CQDs) embedded in silicon by increasing the number of thin silicon layers inside the dot (multi-fold CQD material). The Seebeck effect in the CQD structures and multi-layer boron atomic layer-doped SiGe epitaxial films was studied experimentally at temperatures in the range from 50 to 300 K and detailed calculations for the Seebeck coefficient employing different scattering mechanisms were made. Our results show that the Seebeck coefficient is enhanced up to ≈40% in a 3-fold CQD material with respect to 2-fold Ge/Si CQDs. This enhancement was precisely modeled by taking into account the scattering of phonons by inner boundaries and the carrier filtering by the CQD inclusions. Our model is also able to reproduce the observed temperature dependence of the Seebeck coefficient in the B atomic layer-doped SiGe fairly well. We expect that the phonon scattering techniques developed here could significantly improve the thermoelectric performance of Ge/Si materials through further optimization of the layer stacks inside the quantum dot and of the dopant concentrations.

Photovoltage (PV) transients are studied in C60–Pb and C60–Au thin films. The morphology of the C60 layers is characterized by x-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy, which evidence the formation of a nanocrystalline C60 layer on polycrystalline Pb and Au underlayers. In contrast to Au substrate, Pb crystallites with a (111) texture are predominantly formed. The signs of the PV signals developed at the C60–Pb and C60–Au interfaces are found to be opposite due to very different workfunction values of the two metals. The evolution of the PV rise and decay curves with increasing light illumination intensity is completely different at the C60–Pb and C60–Au interfaces. The rise for the C60–Pb interface speeds up considerably with the increase in intensity, which is markedly different from the behavior at C60–Au, which exhibits nearly unchanged curve shapes. The PV decay time for C60–Au is also only weakly affected by varying light intensity. In contrast, increasing the illumination intensity causes the decay curves for C60–Pb to become multiexponential profiles, developing fast initial decays. The results are discussed in terms of different charge redistribution properties of C60 molecules adsorbed on Pb(111) and Au interfaces. The observed transformation of the PV decay curves is explained by the presence of interface states and a subsequent interplay of the charge redistribution properties of C60 molecules adsorbed on Pb(111). The results can be applied to sandwich structures containing organic-metal interfaces to account correctly for the interfacial charge transfer dynamics.