Highly conductive ceramic semiconductors with optical absorption edge higher than the energy of the visible light can serve as a transparent electrode (e.g. LCD). One of such material is ZnO. Similar as in many other ceramic compound additional limitations for this kind of application comes from the random orientation and the size distribution of the ceramic grains which is additionally close to the wavelength of the visible light. Exploiting fully the spatially confined orientation growth (SCOG) mechanism we showed that applying a simple solvato-thermal method, usual ceramic limitation can be avoided. By carefully inspecting every step in the process we found the conditions where the ZnO grains are highly oriented and connected on the atomic scale, which produced a highly transparent and also conductive material.
COBISS.SI-ID: 25764903
Nanocomposites composed of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic particles exhibit interesting physical properties among which is the exchange bias. Utilizing thermal decomposition of nickel (II) acetate tetrahydrate we synthesized nanocomposites of Ni and NiO. We found that thermal annealing in air causes increase in the size of NiO, decrease in the size of Ni nanoparticles and decrease microstrain. Furthermore high-energy ball milling results in the formation of agglomerates and decrease of microstrain with simoultaneous reduction of nickel oxide to nickel. It is thus possible to tailor exchange bias, coercivity and magnetization by controlling processing conditions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 26278951
ZnO nanoparticles were prepared by a modified gel-combustion method and nanomorpholgies by using a combination of sol-gel and membrane template method were derived. Synthesized materials were evaluated as potential candidates for application in optoelectronic devices and gas sensors.
COBISS.SI-ID: 26322215