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1. Thermal stability of self-assembled ordered three-phase Au–BaTiO ₃ –ZnO nanocomposite thin films via in situ heating in TEM

   https://doi.org/10.1039/d0nr06115h  

   Misra, Shikhar; Zhang, Di; Lu, Ping; Wang, Haiyan (December 2020, Nanoscale)

   null (Ed.)

   Thermal stability of oxide–metal nanocomposites is important for designing practical devices for high temperature applications. Here, we study the thermal stability of the self-assembled ordered three-phase Au–BaTiO 3 –ZnO nanocomposite by both ex situ annealing under air and vacuum conditions, and by in situ heating in TEM in a vacuum. The study reveals that the variation of the annealing conditions greatly affects the resulting microstructure and the associated dominant diffusion mechanism. Specifically, Au nanoparticles show coarsening upon air annealing, while Au and Zn either form a solid solution, with Zn atomic percentage less than 10%, or undergo a reverse Vapor–Liquid–Solid (VLS) mechanism upon vacuum annealing. The distinct microstructures obtained also show different permittivity response in the visible and near-infrared region, while retaining their hyperbolic dispersion characteristics enabled by their highly anisotropic structures. Such in situ heating study in TEM provides critical information about microstructure evolution, growth mechanisms at the nanoscale, and thermal stability of the multi-phase nanocomposites for future electronic device applications. 

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2. High Tunnelling Magnetoresistance in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions with Sub-nm thick Al2O3 Tunnel Barriers Fabricated Using Atomic Layer Deposition

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c03428  

   Acharya, Jagaran; Goul, Ryan; Wu, Judy Z. (July 2020, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces)

   Pinhole-free and defect-free ultrathin dielectric tunnel barriers (TBs) is a key to obtaining high tunnelling magnetoresistance (TMR) and efficient switching in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). Among others, atomic layer deposition (ALD) provides a unique approach for the fabrication of ultrathin TBs with several advantages including an atomic-scale control on the TB thickness, conformal coating, and low defects density. Motivated by this, this work explores fabrication and characterization of spin-valve Fe/ALD-Al2O3/Fe MTJs with ALD-Al2O3 TB thickness of 0.55 nm using in situ ALD. Remarkably, high TMR values of ~77% and ~ 90% have been obtained respectively at room temperature and at 100 K, which are comparable to the best reported values on MTJs having thermal AlOx TBs with optimized device structures. In situ scanning tunnelling spectroscopy characterization of the ALD-Al2O3 TBs has revealed a higher tunnel barrier height (Eb) of 1.33±0.06 eV, in contrast to Eb~0.3-0.6 eV for their AlOx TB counterparts, indicative of significantly lower defect concentration in the former. This first success of the MTJs with sub-nm thick ALD-Al2O3 TBs demonstrates the feasibility of in situ ALD for fabrication of pinhole-free and low-defect ultrathin TBs for practical applications and the performance could be further improved through device optimization. 

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3. Temperature dependent characteristics of β -Ga2O3 FinFETs by MacEtch

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0159420  

   Ren, Zhongjie; Huang, Hsien-Chih; Lee, Hanwool; Chan, Clarence; Roberts, Henry C.; Wu, Xihang; Waseem, Aadil; Bhuiyan, A F; Zhao, Hongping; Zhu, Wenjuan; et al (July 2023, Applied Physics Letters)

   Understanding the thermal stability and degradation mechanism of β-Ga2O3 metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) is crucial for their high-power electronics applications. This work examines the high temperature performance of the junctionless lateral β-Ga2O3 FinFET grown on a native β-Ga2O3 substrate, fabricated by metal-assisted chemical etching with Al2O3 gate oxide and Ti/Au gate metal. The thermal exposure effect on threshold voltage (Vth), subthreshold swing (SS), hysteresis, and specific on-resistance (Ron,sp), as a function of temperature up to 298 °C, is measured and analyzed. SS and Ron,sp increased with increasing temperatures, similar to the planar MOSFETs, while a more severe negative shift of Vth was observed for the high aspect-ratio FinFETs here. Despite employing a much thicker epilayer (∼2 μm) for the channel, the high temperature performance of Ion/Ioff ratios and SS of the FinFET in this work remains comparable to that of the planar β-Ga2O3 MOSFETs reported using epilayers ∼10–30× thinner. This work paves the way for further investigation into the stability and promise of β-Ga2O3 FinFETs compared to their planar counterparts. 

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4. Optical properties of nanoporous gold foams

   https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5030128  

   Asane, J_K; Qi, Z.; Biener, M_M; Liberman, V.; Noginov, M_A (September 2018, AIP Advances)

   We fabricated and experimentally studied Au nano-foams and Al2O3 scaffolds filled with Au nanoparticles (NPs). We found that while the reflectance spectra of Au nano-foams depended very little on the 8-10 nm Al2O3 ALD coating, the spectra were highly sensitive to annealing, which increased the sizes of voids and ligaments from 50-100 nm to ∼300 nm. The effective dielectric permittivities of the Au nano-foams and Al2O3 scaffolds with Au NPs were extremely high, ∼50. At the same time, Au nano-foams covered with a dielectric (MgF2) featured bright structural colors, calling for the model, which extends beyond the effective medium approximation. 

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5. Ultrathin-shell epitaxial Ag@Au core-shell nanowires for high-performance and chemically-stable electronic, optical, and mechanical devices

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3718-z  

   Zhu, Yangzhi; Kim, Sanggon; Ma, Xuezhi; Byrley, Peter; Yu, Ning; Liu, Qiushi; Sun, Xiaoming; Xu, Da; Peng, Sangshan; Hartel, Martin C.; et al (November 2021, Nano Research)

   Abstract Silver nanowires (AgNWs) hold great promise for applications in wearable electronics, flexible solar cells, chemical and biological sensors, photonic/plasmonic circuits, and scanning probe microscopy (SPM) due to their unique plasmonic, mechanical, and electronic properties. However, the lifetime, reliability, and operating conditions of AgNW-based devices are significantly restricted by their poor chemical stability, limiting their commercial potentials. Therefore, it is crucial to create a reliable oxidation barrier on AgNWs that provides long-term chemical stability to various optical, electrical, and mechanical devices while maintaining their high performance. Here we report a room-temperature solution-phase approach to grow an ultra-thin, epitaxial gold coating on AgNWs to effectively shield the Ag surface from environmental oxidation. The Ag@Au core-shell nanowires (Ag@Au NWs) remain stable in air for over six months, under elevated temperature and humidity (80 °C and 100% humidity) for twelve weeks, in physiological buffer solutions for three weeks, and can survive overnight treatment of an oxidative solution (2% H 2 O 2 ). The Ag@Au core-shell NWs demonstrated comparable performance as pristine AgNWs in various electronic, optical, and mechanical devices, such as transparent mesh electrodes, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrates, plasmonic waveguides, plasmonic nanofocusing probes, and high-aspect-ratio, high-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) probes. These Au@Ag core-shell NWs offer a universal solution towards chemically-stable AgNW-based devices without compromising material property or device performance. 

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