Sharif Digital Repository

An accurate and fast method for guided modes extraction in monolayer colloidal crystals and their inverse replicas is presented. These three-dimensional structures are composed of a monolayer of spherical particles that can easily and simply be prepared by self-assembly method in close packed hexagonal lattices. In this work, we describe how the guided modes, even or odd modes and light cone boundary can be easily determined using phase variations of reflection and transmission coefficients. These coefficients are quickly calculated by Fourier modal method. The band structures are obtained for a monolayer of polystyrene particles and two-dimensional TiO2 inverse opal by this proposed method  

During the last decade, fabrication of high-quality graphene films by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for nanoelectronics and optoelectronic applications has attracted increasing attention. However, processing of large-area monolayer and defect-free graphene films is still challenging. In this work, we have studied the effect of processing conditions on the self-limited growth of graphene monolayers on copper foils during low pressure CVD both experimentally and theoretically based on thermokinetics and kinetics of Langmuir adsorption. The effect of copper pre-treatment, growth time, and carbon potential of the atmosphere (indicated by the methane-to-hydrogen gas ratio, r) on the quality of... 

In this paper, the electrical characteristics of vertical tunneling bilayer graphene field effect transistor (VTBGFET) are theoretically investigated. We evaluate the device behavior using nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism combined with an atomistic tight binding model. By using this method, we extract the most significant figures of merit such as ON/OFF current ratio, subthreshold swing, and intrinsic gate-delay time. The results indicate that using a bilayer graphene instead of a monolayer graphene as the base material for the source and drain regions leads to a larger ON/OFF current ratio due to the presence of an energy bandgap in biased bilayer graphene. Also, the... 

The authors propose a new design for monolayer superconducting planar flux transformer integrated with a coplanar resonator serving as a gigahertz range tank circuit for high-Tc rf-SQUID magnetometers. Based on the proposed design, which is optimized using the finite element method, the transformer-resonator configuration is made of 200-nm-thick monolayer YBCO film on a crystalline LaAlO3 substrate. In this optimized design, the SQUID magnetometer is coupled through flip-chip configuration with the configuration providing high coupling coefficient between the devices. The design permits coupling of the rf signals to the SQUID efficiently, whereas the transformer is designed to couple the dc... 

Controlled growth of atomic monolayers of IV-VII transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has provided unprecedented opportunities to fabricate modern optoelectronic nanodevices. However, synthesis of large-area and high quality two-dimensional TMDs is still challenging. We have synthesized WS2 and MoS2 nanosheets by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) at wide-range of processing conditions. The nanostructures were analyzed by optical and confocal microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction to determine the thickness, lateral size and structure of the deposits. Through designing and performing of a set of controlled experiments as well as... 

We study topological phase transitions and topological quantum field effect transistor in monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) using a two-band Hamiltonian model. Without considering the quadratic (q 2) diagonal term in the Hamiltonian, we show that the phase diagram includes quantum anomalous Hall effect, quantum spin Hall effect, and spin quantum anomalous Hall effect regions such that the topological Kirchhoff law is satisfied in the plane. By considering the q 2 diagonal term and including one valley, it is shown that MoS2 has a non-Trivial topology, and the valley Chern number is non-zero for each spin. We show that the wave function is (is not) localized at the edges when the q 2... 

The Ni-P/Zn-Ni compositionally modulated multilayer coatings CMMCs were electrodeposited from a single bath by switching the deposition current density. The corrosion resistance of the deposits was studied and compared with that of monolayers of Ni-P and Zn-Ni alloys via Tafel polarization, EIS and salt spray tests. Characterization of corrosion products by means of EDS and XRD revealed more details from the corrosion mechanism of the monolayers and multilayers. The corrosion current density of Ni-P/Zn-Ni CMMCs were around one tenth of Zn-Ni monolayer. The CMMC with incomplete layers performed lower polarization resistance and higher corrosion current density compared to the CMMC with... 

Herein, enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) performance is reported by combining the merits of the dye loading of TiO2 nanoparticles and light scattering, straight carrier transport path, and efficient electron collection efficiency of TiO2 cubes. We fabricate DSC devices with various arrangement styles and compositions of the electrodes in the forms of monolayer and double layer films. For this purpose, the solvothermal synthesized TiO2 cubic particles (100-600 nm) are employed as the scattering layer, whereas TiO2 nanoparticles (15-30 nm) synthesized via a combination of solvothermal and sol-gel routes are used as the active layer of devices. We improve the photovoltaic... 

LM13 alloy is widely used in piston industry, due to its low coefficient of thermal expansion, excellent castability and hot tear resistance. In this research effect of casting process on wear behavior of LM13 alloy was investigated. First, samples were produced using two casting processes and heat treated. Then wear behavior of these samples under dry sliding condition was examined. Results of hardness and strength tests indicated that squeeze cast specimens exhibited higher mechanical properties. Wear experiment results showed that in both squeeze and gravity cast specimens, amount of weight loss increases with increase in sliding distance which is accompanied by reduction in wear rate and... 

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been performed to investigate the electronic structure and photocatalytic activity of a hybrid Ag3PO4(111)/g-C3N4 structure. Due to Ag(d) and O(p) states forming the upper part of the valence band and C(p), N(p), and Ag(s) the lower part of the conduction band, the band gap of the hybrid material is reduced from 2.75 eV for Ag3PO4(111) and 3.13 eV for monolayer of g-C3N4 to about 2.52 eV, enhancing the photocatalytic activity of the Ag3PO4(111) surface and g-C3N4 sheet in the visible region. We have also investigated possible reaction pathways for photocatalytic CO2 reduction on the Ag3PO4(111)/g-C3N4 nanocomposite to determine the most... 

In this article, the synthesis, characterization, and cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements are reported for ferrocene-terminated oligophenyleneimine (OPI_Fc) and ferrocene-terminated conjugation-broken oligophenyleneimine (CB-OPI_Fc) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in two different electrolytes, namely, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium-bis (trifluoromethyl-sulfonyl) imide (EMITFSI) ionic liquid and tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate (Bu4NPF6) in acetonitrile (0.1 M solution). The SAMs were synthesized on Au surfaces by the sequential imine condensation reactions. CV was used to investigate the kinetics of electron transfer (ET) to the ferrocene, and it was observed that the standard ET rate... 

We theoretically investigate the magnetoelastic coupling (MEC) and its effect on magnon transport in two-dimensional antiferromagnets with a honeycomb lattice. MEC coefficients along with magnetic exchange parameters and spring constants are computed for monolayers of transition-metal trichalcogenides with Néel magnetic order (MnPS3 and VPS3) and zigzag order (CrSiTe3, NiPS3, and NiPSe3) by ab initio calculations. Using these parameters, we predict that the spin-Nernst coefficient is significantly enhanced due to magnetoelastic coupling. Our study shows that although Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction can produce spin-Nernst effect in these materials, other mechanisms such as magnon-phonon... 

We investigate systematically the spin-Nernst effect in Néel and zigzag ordered honeycomb antiferromagnets. Monolayers of transition-metal trichalcogenides, MnPSe3, MnPS3, and VPS3 show an antiferromagnetic Néel order while CrSiTe3, NiPS3, and NiPSe3 show an antiferromagnetic zigzag order. We extract the exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction parameters from ab initio calculations. Using these parameters, we predict that the spin-Nernst coefficient is at least two orders of magnitude larger in zigzag compared to the Néel ordered antiferromagnets. We find that this enhancement relies on the large band splitting due to the symmetry of magnetic configuration in the zigzag order. Our... 

Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures of two-dimensional monolayers are a relatively new class of materials with highly tunable band alignment, bandgap energy, and bandgap transition type. In this study, we performed density functional theory calculations to investigate how a vdW heterostructure of heptazine-based graphitic carbon nitride (hg-C3N4) and graphitic zinc oxide (g-ZnO) monolayers is formed (hg-C3N4/g-ZnO). This heterostructure is a potential solar-driven photocatalyst for the water-splitting reaction. Upon the formation of the heterostructure, a type-I indirect bandgap (Eg = 2.08 eV) is created with appropriate conduction band minimum and valence band maximum levels relative to... 

Recently, huge attention has been drawn to improve optical sensing devices based on photonic resonators in the presence of graphene. In this paper, based on the transfer matrix approach and TE polarization of the incident electromagnetic waves, we numerically evaluate the transmission and reflection spectra for one-dimensional photonic resonators and surface plasmon resonances with strained graphene, respectively. We proved that a relatively small strain field in graphene can modulate linearly polarized resonant modes within the photonic bandgap of the defective crystal. Moreover, we study the strain effects on the surface plasmon resonances created by the evanescent wave technique at the... 

Very recently, two-dimensional (2D) iodinene, a novel layered and buckled structure has been successfully fabricated (Qian et al 2020 Adv. Mater. 32 2004835). Motivated by this latest experimental accomplishment, for the first time we conduct density functional theory, first-principles calculations to explore the structural, electronic, and optical properties of monolayer, few-layer and bulk iodinene. Unlike the majority of monoelemental 2D lattices, iodinene is predicted to be an intrinsic semiconductor. On the basis of calculations using the generalized gradient approximation of Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof for the exchange-correlation functional and the Heyd-Scuseria-Ernzerhof (HSE06)... 

An economical epichlorohydrin cross-linked chitosan @ magnetic Fe3O4/activated carbon nanocomposite, CH-EP@Fe3O4/AC, was successfully synthesized and used as a suitable adsorbent material for removal of a triphenylmethane cationic dye, Malachite green (MG), an anionic dye, Reactive red 120 (RR120), and Mercury ions (Hg2+) from aqueous solution. The prepared adsorbent has been characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Scanning electron microscopy, Thermogravimetric analysis, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis as well as Vibrating sample magnetometer. According to the result of Brunauer–Emmett–Teller isotherm, the prepared adsorbent has a specific surface area... 

The lipid membranes of living cells form an integral part of biological systems, and the mechanical properties of these membranes play an important role in biophysical investigations. One interesting problem to be evaluated is the effect of protein insertion in one leaflet of a bilayer on the physical properties of lipid membrane. In the present study, an all atom (fine-grained) molecular dynamics simulation is used to investigate the binding of cytotoxin A3 (CTX A3), a cytotoxin from snake venom, to a phosphatidylcholine lipid bilayer. Then, a 5 ms coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation is carried out to compute the pressure tensor, lateral pressure, surface tension, and first moment... 

Carbon nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene sheets have attracted great attention due to their exceptionally high strength and elastic strain. These extraordinary mechanical properties, however, can be affected by the presence of defects in their structures. When a material contains multiple defects, it is expected that the stress concentration of them superposes if the separation distances of the defects are low, which causes a more reduction of the strength. On the other hand, it is believed that if the defects are far enough such that their affected areas are distinct, their behavior is similar to a material with single defect. In this article, molecular dynamics... 

Different structures of TiO2 photoelectrodes were fabricated with various arrangement modes of the layers. TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by a combination of sol–gel and solvothermal methods and were employed as the active layer of solar cells. Hierarchical TiO2 spheres (HTS) and spherical TiO2 particles (STP) were also prepared by hydrothermal and sol–gel processes, respectively, and used as the scattering layer of solar cells. Field emission scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction analyses revealed that all synthesized morphologies showed anatase structure with particle size around 20, 200–400 nm and 1.5–2.0 µm for the...