Thermoelectric Thin Films: Materials and Devices (2019)

Chopra, K L

Collings, E W

This series provides a comprehensive review of the latest research results in quantitative nondestructive testing. Volume 13 comprises the proceedings of the Thirteenth Symposium on Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, Held at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine in August 1993. Part A details the d

One area of science that has shown an explosive growth over the last few decades is materials science. Inherently by nature products of both basic and applied research, materials make possible life and society as we know it today. Materials, ranging from ceramics to semiconductors to composites, are such that new ones must not only be designed and made ... they must also be characterized in terms of their physical, chemical, and mechanical properties. Thus, many new state- of-the-art techniques involving spectroscopy, microscopy, and other approaches are now routinely used. Modem materials have wide applications in many sectors of technology. Films, for example, constitute an enormous area of materials and are used extensively. Films in tum can be integrated with other systems such as superconducting metal oxides and organic superconductors. Additionally, ceramics can also be synthesized and fabricated as films for different applications. Catalysts, too, can vary widely in both composition and form. The number of applications for catalysts in industry must easily rank as one of the highest number of applications for any class of materials. Catalysis is impOltant for a wide range of activities in industry, from petroleum refining to the synthesis of a large number of industrial feedstock materials. Researchers in this area of materials are constantly trying to unravel new approaches to making better catalysts.

With the development in the 1960s of ultrahigh vacuum equipment and techniques and electron, X-ray, and ion beam techniques to determine the structure and composition of interfaces, activities in the field of surface science grew nearly exponentially. Today surface science impacts all major fields of study from physical to biological sciences, from physics to chemistry, and all engineering disciplines. The materials and phenomena characterized by surface science range from se- conductors, where the impact of surface science has been critical to progress, to metals and ceramics, where selected contributions have been important, to bio- terials, where contributions are just beginning to impact the field, to textiles, where the impact has been marginal. With such a range of fields and applications, questions about sample selection, preparation, treatment, and handling are difficult to cover completely in one review article or one chapter. Therefore, the editors of this book have assembled a range of experts with experience in the major fields impacted by surface characterization. It is the only book which treats the subject of sample handling, preparation, and treatment for surface characterization. It is full of tricks, cautions, and handy tips to make the laboratory scientist's life easier. With respect to organization of the book, the topics range from discussion of vacuum to discussion of biological, organic, elemental or compound samples, to samples prepared ex situ or in situ to the vacuum, to deposition ofthin films. Generic considerations of sample preparation are also given.

Chung, Deborah D L