Influence of thickness on the structure, electrical, optical and electrochromic properties of AZO thin films and their inorganic all-solid-state devices

CaF2: A novel electrolyte for all solid-state electrochromic devices

The energy consumption in building ventilation, air, and heating conditioning systems, accounts for about 25% of the overall energy consumption in modern society. Therefore, cutting carbon emissions and reducing energy consumption is a growing priority in building construction. Electrochromic devices (ECDs) are considered to be a highly promising energy-saving technology, due to their simple structure, active control, and low energy input characteristics. At present, H⁺, OH^- and Li⁺ are the main electrolyte ions used for ECDs. However, H⁺ and OH^- based electrolytes have a high erosive effect on the material surface and have a relatively short lifetime. Li⁺-based electrolytes are limited due to their high cost and safety concerns. In this study, inspired by prior research on Ca²⁺ batteries and supercapacitors, CaF₂ films were prepared by electron beam evaporation as a Ca²⁺-based electrolyte layer to construct ECDs. The structure, morphology, and optical properties of CaF₂ films were characterized. ECDs with the structure of ITO (indium tin oxide) glass/WO₃/CaF₂/NiO/ITO show short switching times (22.8 s for the coloring process, 2.8 s for the bleaching process). Additionally, optical modulation of the ECDs is about 38.8% at 750 nm. These findings indicate that Ca²⁺ based ECDs have the potential to become a competitive and attractive choice for large-scale commercial smart windows.

Net-Patterned Fluorine-Doped Tin Oxide to Accelerate the Electrochromic and Photocatalytic Interface Reactions

In this study, the surface morphology of net-patterned fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) films was optimized with mesh sizes (60 mesh, 40 mesh, and 24 mesh) using the one-pot horizontal ultrasonic spray pyrolysis deposition (HUSPD) process. The 40M-FTO sample exhibited optimized electrical and optical properties due to the improved crystallinity and net-patterned surface morphology of FTO. The electrochromic (EC) electrodes fabricated with 40M-FTO showed superior EC performance, including transmittance modulation (ΔT, 58.7%), switching speeds (4.1 s for coloration and 5.9 s for bleaching), and coloration efficiency (CE, 52.4 cm2/C). These optimum values were attributed to the combined effect of the enhanced electrical properties from the improved crystallinity of the SnO2 and the high transmittance with a large surface area stemming from the optimization of the net-patterned FTO surface morphology. Moreover, the improved reaction sites with large surface area and enhanced electrical conductivity can facilitate the photocatalytic reaction. Accordingly, we suggest our novel strategy for use in creating promising transparent conducting electrodes that can be fabricated with net-patterned FTO to realize enhanced electrochromic and photocatalytic interface reactions.

Al2O3, Al doped ZnO and SnO2 encapsulation of randomly oriented ZnO nanowire networks for high performance and stable electrical devices

Two-dimensional randomly oriented nanowire (NW) networks, also called nanonets (NNs), have remarkable advantages including low-cost integration, good reproducibility and high sensitivity, which make them a promising material for electronic devices. With this work, we focus on the study of ZnO NNs as channel materials in field effect transistors (FETs). In our process, ZnO NWs were assembled in NNs by the liquid filtration method and were integrated in transistors, with the bottom-gate configuration, using simple technological steps. Non-encapsulated devices exhibited state of the art performances but their stability toward air exposure was poor. Using a proper encapsulation of the nanonets, with cheap, abundant and non-toxic oxides, we demonstrate our ability not only to stabilize their electrical properties, but also to enhance performance to values never reach before for ZnO NW-based transistors. Our best FETs exhibit a low Off-current while maintaining a very good On-current, which results in a I _on/I _off ratio exceeding 10⁶ for a drain voltage of 5 V. The behavior of these ZnO NN-based FETs was studied for three different encapsulation materials, alumina (Al₂O₃), tin oxide (SnO₂) and Al-doped ZnO (AZO). These results prove that ZnO NNs are highly promising materials for an easy and low-cost integration into FETs.