Silicon Oxide Thin Films Prepared by Vacuum Evaporation and Sputtering Using Silicon Monoxide

Near-Infrared Triggered Degradation for Transient Electronics

Electronics that disintegrate after stable operation present exciting opportunities for niche medical implant and consumer electronics applications. The disintegration of these devices can be initiated due to their medium conditions or triggered by external stimuli, which enables on-demand transition. An external stimulation method that can penetrate deep inside the body could revolutionize the use of transient electronics as implantable medical devices (IMDs), eliminating the need for secondary surgery to remove the IMDs. We report near-infrared (NIR) light-triggered transition of metastable cyclic poly(phthalaldehyde) (cPPA) polymers. The transition of the encapsulation layer is achieved through the conversion of NIR light to heat, facilitated by bioresorbable metals, such as molybdenum (Mo). We reported a rapid degradation of cPPA encapsulation layer about 1 min, and the rate of degradation can be controlled by laser power and exposure time. This study offers a new approach for light triggerable transient electronics for IMDs due to the deep penetration depth of NIR light through to organs and tissues.

Intrinsic Resistance Switching in Amorphous Silicon Suboxides: The Role of Columnar Microstructure

We studied intrinsic resistance switching behaviour in sputter-deposited amorphous silicon suboxide (a-SiO_x) films with varying degrees of roughness at the oxide-electrode interface. By combining electrical probing measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), we observe that devices with rougher oxide-electrode interfaces exhibit lower electroforming voltages and more reliable switching behaviour. We show that rougher interfaces are consistent with enhanced columnar microstructure in the oxide layer. Our results suggest that columnar microstructure in the oxide will be a key factor to consider for the optimization of future SiOx-based resistance random access memory.

Amorphous Semiconductor Nanowires Created by Site-Specific Heteroatom Substitution with Significantly Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Performance

Semiconductor nanowires that have been extensively studied are typically in a crystalline phase. Much less studied are amorphous semiconductor nanowires due to the difficulty for their synthesis, despite a set of characteristics desirable for photoelectric devices, such as higher surface area, higher surface activity, and higher light harvesting. In this work of combined experiment and computation, taking Zn2GeO4 (ZGO) as an example, we propose a site-specific heteroatom substitution strategy through a solution-phase ions-alternative-deposition route to prepare amorphous/crystalline Si-incorporated ZGO nanowires with tunable band structures. The substitution of Si atoms for the Zn or Ge atoms distorts the bonding network to a different extent, leading to the formation of amorphous Zn1.7Si0.3GeO4 (ZSGO) or crystalline Zn2(GeO4)0.88(SiO4)0.12 (ZGSO) nanowires, respectively, with different bandgaps. The amorphous ZSGO nanowire arrays exhibit significantly enhanced performance in photoelectrochemical water splitting, such as higher and more stable photocurrent, and faster photoresponse and recovery, relative to crystalline ZGSO and ZGO nanowires in this work, as well as ZGO photocatalysts reported previously. The remarkable performance highlights the advantages of the ZSGO amorphous nanowires for photoelectric devices, such as higher light harvesting capability, faster charge separation, lower charge recombination, and higher surface catalytic activity.