Faculty Publications
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Item Development of low temperature stoichiometric solution combustion derived transparent conductive ternary zinc tin co-doped indium oxide electrodes(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017) Pujar, P.; Gandla, S.; Singh, M.; Gupta, B.; Tarafder, K.; Gupta, D.; Noh, Y.-Y.; Mandal, S.Here, the development of transparent conductive zinc tin co-doped indium oxide (IZTO: In1.4Sn0.3Zn0.3O3) ternary electrodes is addressed through low temperature solution combustion processing. Optimization of fuel to oxidizer ratio offers low temperature (?130 °C) of combustion with balanced redox reaction. The thin films of IZTO annealed at different temperatures showed a decreasing trend in the resistivity with a fixed order of 10-2 ? cm and the film with a highest Hall mobility of 5.92 cm2 V-1 s-1 resulted at 400 °C. All the films with different temperatures of annealing were smooth (rms ? 2.42 nm) in nature and the IZTO film annealed at 200 °C is 83% transparent in the visible spectra. The effective band gap of 0.9 eV determined from first-principles density functional theory gives clear evidence for the conducting nature of IZTO. The thin film transistor fabricated with IZTO as a gate electrode with poly(methyl methacrylate) and pentacene as the dielectric and channel material, respectively, exhibited a saturation mobility of 0.44 cm2 V-1 s-1 and Ion/Ioff ratio of 103. Further, the printability of the IZTO combustible precursor is established which resulted in anti-edge deposition of the printed feature. © 2017 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Item Hydrothermally synthesized reduced graphene oxide and Sn doped manganese dioxide nanocomposites for supercapacitors and dopamine sensors(Elsevier Ltd, 2017) Shanbhag, D.; Bindu, K.; Aarathy, A.R.; Ramesh, R.; Moolayadukkam, M.; Nagaraja, H.S.?-MnO2 nanowires and its nanocomposites (rGO-MnO2 and Sn@rGO-MnO2) were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal technique. Two important electrochemical applications of nanocomposites, viz, electrodes for supercapacitor and sensors for a biomolecule, dopamine are reported. The prepared nanowires have been characterized by XRD, which reveals smaller crystallite size of rGO- MnO2 composites compared to pristine MnO2 and the trend is supported by BET analysis. The wrapping of MnO2 NWs with rGO sheets increases the surface area, as well as, creates more dislocations at the interfaces. The correlation between physicochemical properties leads to an enhancement in the electrochemical performance of the materials. The as-fabricated Sn@rGO-MnO2 supercapacitor electrode reveals superior performance. The specific capacitance of 139.05, 309.7 and 460.9 F/g at a scanning rate of 20 mV/s, in an aqueous Na2SO4 solution (1 M) is obtained for MnO2, rGO-MnO2 and Sn@rGO-MnO2 respectively. Also, the reported nanocomposites show excellent performance towards detection of dopamine. Among ?-MnO2/GCE, rGO-MnO2/GCE and Sn@rGO-MnO2/GCE based sensors for Dopamine detection, rGO-MnO2/GCE sensor exhibits the highest sensitivity of 433.6 ?A/mM and broad linear range, whereas Sn@rGO-MnO2 exhibits lower detection limit of 0.13 ?M. © 2017 Elsevier LtdItem Morphology controlled n-type TiO2 and stoichiometry adjusted p-type Cu2ZnSnS4 thin films for photovoltaic applications(American Chemical Society, 2017) Varadharajaperumal, S.; Sripan, C.; Ganesan, R.; Hegde, G.; Satyanarayana, M.N.This paper presents the fabrication and characterization of stoichiometry adjusted Cu2Zn1.5Sn1.2S4.4 thin film (FTO/TiO2/CdS/CZTS/Au) photovoltaic (PV) devices. The PV devices were developed using the window layer of rutile TiO2 nanoarchitecture arrays, i.e., one-dimensional (1D) nanorods and three-dimensional (3D) combined/ hierarchical structures (nanorods with microspheres). Onedimensional (1D) nanorods and 3D combined structures of TiO2 window layers were synthesized by a hydrothermal method with different solvents without any assistance of surfactants and templates. We achieved two kinds of TiO2 nanostructures by tuning the precursor concentrations and volume by keeping a constant growth time and temperature. The detailed structural properties were studied using X-ray diffraction and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Phase formation and chemical state of the prepared samples were examined by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The surface morphology and luminescence studies of TiO2 nanostructures were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscopy and cathodoluminescence techniques. The current-voltage performance of fabricated devices were measured under an AM 1.5 solar simulator. It is observed that combined structure PV device shows better efficiency (1.45%) than the nanorods alone structure (0.55%). Present work is a first attempt made to construct the inverted CZTS based solar cells. This study establishes the window layer of hierarchical TiO2 nanostructures based morphology that offers a great potential for the development of high-efficiency nonstoichiometric CZTS based solar cells. © 2017 American Chemical Society.Item Electrical, dielectric and magnetic properties of Sn-doped hematite (?-SnxFe2-xO3) nanoplates synthesized by microwave-assisted method(Elsevier Ltd, 2018) Bindu, K.; Ajith, K.M.; Nagaraja, H.S.Hematite nanoparticles are of interest due to their exceptional electrical and magnetic behavior and various technological applications. The doping of hematite can vary its electrical and magnetic properties. Here, we report the effect of different concentrations of Tin doping on electrical, dielectric and magnetic properties of hematite synthesized by the microwave-assisted method. Tin-doped ?- Fe2O3 (?-SnxFe2-xO3) samples have been characterized using XRD, TGA, FESEM, and EDS (mapping). XRD pattern shows the rhombohedral structure of ?-SnxFe2-xO3. The synthesized samples have nanoplate like structure with a uniform distribution of tin throughout the sample. Electrical properties were investigated using dielectric and impedance studies. The dc resistivity and ac conductivity decreased with increase in concentration up to x = 0.06 (Sn0.06Fe1.94O3). However, it increased with further increase in the concentration of tin. The hopping of electrons between Fe3+ and Fe2+ in octahedral sites accounts for the observed conduction behavior. A single semi-circle of the cole-cole plot for ?-SnxFe2-xO3 indicates the dominant grain boundary effect in conduction. Dielectric constant and loss factor reveal the dielectric relaxation in ?-SnxFe2-xO3 samples. The magnetic properties were studied using VSM, which shows that ?-SnxFe2-xO3 are antiferromagnetic/weakly ferromagnetic in nature with high coercivity. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.Item Enhanced thermoelectric performance of bulk tin telluride: Synergistic effect of calcium and indium co-doping(Elsevier Ltd, 2018) Bhat, D.K.; Shenoy, S.SnTe based materials are considered recently as a lead-free replacement of the well-known PbTe based thermoelectric (TE) materials in addressing the energy crisis worldwide. Herein we report both experimental and theoretical study on the effect of co-doping of calcium and indium on electronic structure and TE properties of SnTe. We show that the resonant levels introduced by indium and band gap opening caused by calcium, valence band convergence induced by both calcium and indium, synergistically increases the Seebeck coefficient for a wide range of temperatures. The co-doped SnTe with a high ZT of ?1.65 at 840 K and record high power factor of ?47 ?Wcm?1K?2 for SnTe based materials make it a promising material for TE applications. © 2018 Elsevier LtdItem Electronic structure engineering of tin telluride through co-doping of bismuth and indium for high performance thermoelectrics: A synergistic effect leading to a record high room temperature ZT in tin telluride(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019) Shenoy, U.S.; Bhat, D.K.The ever increasing demand for alternative clean energy sources has led to intense research towards the optimization of thermoelectric performance of known systems. In this work, we engineer the electronic structure of SnTe by co-doping it with Bi and In. The co-doping not only results in the formation of two different resonance states and a reduced valence band offset, as in the case of previously reported co-doped SnTe, but also leads to opening of the band gap, which otherwise was closed in the case of Bi and In doped SnTe configurations, leading to suppression of bipolar diffusion. The synergistic action of all these effects leads to an increased Seebeck co-efficient throughout the temperature range and a ZTmax of ?1.32 at 840 K. This strategy of co-doping two different resonant dopants resulted in a record high room temperature ZT of ?0.25 at 300 K for SnTe based materials. This work suggests that appropriate combination of dopants to engineer the electronic structure of a material can lead to unpredictable results. © 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Item Influence of cations on the dielectric properties of spinel structured nanoferrites(Institute of Physics Publishing helen.craven@iop.org, 2019) Bindu, K.; Ajith, K.M.; Nagaraja, H.S.MFe2O4 (M: Fe, Zn, Ni and Sn) nanoparticles were prepared using single step hydrothermal method. Their structural, compositional and dielectric properties have been studied to investigate the effect of cations on spinel ferrites. XRD confirms the spinel structure of the samples with substitution of Zn, Ni and Sn in the lattice sites of Fe. FTIR spectra of all samples have characteristic ?1 and ?2 bands. SEM and EDS mapping show uniform distribution of cations throughout the samples. ZnFe2O4 and SnFe2O4 have higher ac conductivity and dielectric constant than that of Fe3O4 and NiFe2O4, which can be attributed to the different cationic distribution in the spinel structure. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd.Item Characterization of metals and salts-based thermal energy storage materials using energy balance method(John Wiley and Sons Inc. P.O.Box 18667 Newark NJ 07191-8667, 2019) Agarwala, S.; Prabhu, N.K.Thermal energy storage technologies minimize the imbalance between energy production and demand. In this context, latent heat storage materials are of great importance as they have a higher density of energy storage as compared with the sensible heat storage materials. The present study involves the characterization of energy storage materials using an energy balance cooling curve analysis method. The method estimates the convective heat transfer coefficient in the solidification range to characterize the phase change materials for applications in energy storage. The method is more beneficial than the Computer Aided Cooling Curve analysis methods as it eliminates baseline calculations and the associated fitting errors. Metals (Sn) and salts (KNO3 and NaNO 3) were used in the present work. Phase change characteristics like the rate of cooling, liquidus and solidus temperatures, time for solidification, and enthalpy of phase change were estimated for both metals and salts. It was observed that the energy balance cooling curve analysis method worked very well for metals but not well suited for low conductivity salts. Salts could not be characterized since the thermal gradient existing within the salt sample was not considered in this method. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Item Influence of cations in MFe2O4 (M: Fe, Zn, Ni, Sn) ferrite nanoparticles on the electrocatalytic activity for application in hydrogen peroxide sensor(Institute of Physics Publishing helen.craven@iop.org, 2019) Bindu, K.; Nagaraja, H.S.Hydrothermally prepared MFe2O4 (M: Fe, Zn, Ni and Sn) nanoparticles have been characterized by XRD, SEM and BET. The ferrite nanoparticles have been tested for their electrocatalytic activity and application towards the reduction and sensing of hydrogen peroxide using cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry techniques. ZnFe2O4 and SnFe2O4 reveal superior H2O2 sensing performance than Fe3O4 and NiFe2O4, which can be attributed to the lower redox potential of Sn2+/Sn4+ couple, lower charge-transfer resistance and higher specific surface area. ZnFe2O4 and SnFe2O4 have a sensitivity of 4.411 and 3.915 ?AmM-1 ?g-1, respectively, which is greater than that of Fe3O4 (0.434 ?AmM-1 ?g-1) and NiFe2O4 (0.644 ?AmM-1 ?g-1). SnFe2O4 has the lowest limit of detection (2.6 (M) with good selectivity towards H2O2 in the presence of other interference agents. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd.Item Role of soaking time on the phase evolution of Cu2ZnSnS4 polycrystals synthesized using melting route for photovoltaic applications(Elsevier Ltd, 2019) Choudhari, N.J.; Raviprakash, Y.; Fernandes, B.J.; Udayashankar, N.K.Cu2ZnSnS4(CZTS) is an emerging quaternary semiconductor material to use as absorber layer for solar cells due its suitable band gap, high absorption coefficient, earth abundancy and less toxic nature. This work provides a comprehensive insight into the phase evolution of CZTS synthesized at a relatively lower process time. In this study, CZTS bulk polycrystals were synthesized using elemental pre cursors via melting route. The influence of soaking time on the structural, compositional and optical properties were investigated using XRD, EDS, Raman, DRS, PL and XPS measurements. XRD pattern revealed a highly crystalline tetragonal structure corresponding to kesterite phase. EDS mapping were performed over a large area of the sample revealed homogeneous distribution and near stoichiometric composition for the sample soaked for 14 h (S14). Raman spectra confirmed the existence of single phase CZTS without any secondary and ternary phases for S14. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy gave a band gap value in the range 1.34–1.39 eV. PL analysis revealed that asymmetric band shape and higher energy shift is the characteristics of radiative transitions which are influenced by fluctuating potentials. XPS studies confirmed the oxidation states as Cu(I), Zn(II), Sn(IV) and S(II). © 2019 Elsevier B.V.