Preparation and Study of Properties of CdO: Al Thin Films Prepared by Chemical Spraying

The studies that are related to transparent conducting oxides and the consistent motivation to improve their different characteristics have been increasingly conducted. In this work, pristine and Aluminium doped cadmium oxide, CdO: Al thin films, were synthesized by a deposition over a substrate made from glass employing spray pyrolysis technique for several Al fractions (0, 3.0, and 6.0) v/v %. The effect of Al dopant on the microstructure, morphological, optical and electrical characterisation of CdO thin films were investigated elaborately. Pure CdO and (Al: CdO) exhibited face centred cubic structure with strong peak of 200 that reflected a preferential growth. The roughness of films was increased for the samples doped with Al from (38.54 to 149.2) nm according to the increment in Al concentration. The optical analysis confirmed that the value of band gap manifested a decrement (2.5 - 2.0) eV associated with the increment in doping by Al. The measurements of Hall Effect elucidated that the CdO and Al: CdO films classified as n-type semiconductors. The range of electrical conductivity of the Al: CdO films evinced a variation from (42.4 to 35.3) Ω-1.cm- 1. The results concluded from some graphs emphasized that the activation energy is equal to zero, and the Al doped CdO films became a degenerated semiconductor

Structure and Properties of Polystyrene-Co-Acrylonitrile/Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites

Polymer/graphene nanocomposites have attracted significant attention from the research community over the past two decades. In this work, nanocomposites of polystyrene-co-acrylonitrile (SAN) and graphene oxide (GO) were prepared using a solution blending method with tetrahydrofuran as the solvent. The GO loadings used were 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 wt.%. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy were employed to characterize the structure and morphology of SAN/GO nanocomposites. Thermal analysis showed increases in the glass transition (Tg) and peak thermal degradation (Tdpeak) temperatures of SAN by the additions of GO, with Tg increasing by 3.6 °C and Tdpeak by 19 °C for 1.0 wt.% GO loading. Dynamic mechanical analysis revealed that the storage modulus of SAN was also enhanced with the incorporations of GO by up to 62% for 1.0 wt.% loading. These property enhancements may be attributed to a good dispersion of GO in the polymer matrix and their interfacial interactions

Preparation and Study of Properties of CdO: Al Thin Films Prepared by Chemical Spraying

The studies that are related to transparent conducting oxides and the consistent motivation to improve their different characteristics have been increasingly conducted. In this work, pristine and Aluminium doped cadmium oxide, CdO: Al thin films, were synthesized by a deposition over a substrate made from glass employing spray pyrolysis technique for several Al fractions (0, 3.0, and 6.0) v/v %. The effect of Al dopant on the microstructure, morphological, optical and electrical characterisation of CdO thin films were investigated elaborately. Pure CdO and (Al: CdO) exhibited face centred cubic structure with strong peak of 200 that reflected a preferential growth. The roughness of films was increased for the samples doped with Al from (38.54 to 149.2) nm according to the increment in Al concentration. The optical analysis confirmed that the value of band gap manifested a decrement (2.5 - 2.0) eV associated with the increment in doping by Al. The measurements of Hall Effect elucidated that the CdO and Al: CdO films classified as n-type semiconductors. The range of electrical conductivity of the Al: CdO films evinced a variation from (42.4 to 35.3) Ω-1.cm- 1. The results concluded from some graphs emphasized that the activation energy is equal to zero, and the Al doped CdO films became a degenerated semiconductor

Nanomechanical behavior of polystyrene/graphene oxide nanocomposites

The in-situ investigation of the nanomechanical features of the polymer graphene nanocomposites has become a challenging and an indispensable task to achieve the required application. Graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposites were prepared at 1.0% weight fraction of GO to reinforce polystyrene (PS) using solution blending approach. The morphology of the resulting nanocomposites was characterized by optical, scanning electron, transmission electron, atomic force, and scattering scanning near-field optical microscopies. These showed a uniform dispersion of graphene oxide nano-sheets in the PS matrix. By adopting Derjaguin–Muller–Toporov (DMT) formula, the nanomechanical properties for the cryogenically fractured surface of the composites were characterized using the traditional atomic force microscopy (AFM), peak-force quantitative nanomechanical mapping (QNM), and tip-force mode functioned with scattering scanning near–field optical microscopy (s-SNOM). Young’s modulus of the PS matrix varied around (1–2) GPa as shown by QNM and s-SNOM similar to what was reported in the literature. However, while putative GO nano-sheets were measured to have a higher elastic modulus than the surrounding matrix in Peak-Force QNM experiments, they were significantly below literature values. By using Tip-Force mode related to s-SNOM, the expected values of Young’s modulus for GO were recovered