Electronic displays and flexible electronics are poised to significantly impact emerging industries, including displays, energy products, sensors and medical devices, building a market that will significantly grow in the future. The implementation of transparent electronic devices requires the use of material components that could be formed using controlled deposition in the appropriate orientation onto a transparent flexible substrate. Here, we report a simple and efficient means of depositing onto a flexible polyimide (PI) substrate a highly ordered and highly aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) film for use as a carrier transporting and semiconducting layer with controlled surface charge density for thin-film transistor (TFT) applications. The deposition approach is based on the solution-coating of a zinc-acetate suspension under controlled conditions of the spread flow rate, droplet size of the drops, speed limit, and the oxygen (ca. O₂) plasma treatment of the coated film surface on the PI substrate. The plasma surface interactions on the surface states of the ZnO films for various times (ca. 1–5 min) were studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Moreover, the effects of O₂ plasma and the subsequent thermal annealing in an O₂ atmosphere at 250 °C on the properties of ZnO films were studied for its efficacy in TFT applications in terms of the charge carrier density and the change in the mobility. ZnO thin-film-based TFTs on PI exhibited a very high electron mobility of 22.8 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at a drain bias of 5 V after treatment with O₂ plasma for 2 min. Furthermore, the plasma treatment for long durations of time caused a reduction in the charge carrier density from 1.58 × 10¹⁹ cm⁻³ for the 2 min treatment to 1.13 × 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ for the 5 min treatment, and the corresponding electron mobility was changed from 22.8 and 3.1 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ for the treatment times of 2 min and 5 min, respectively. The spin-coating technique used to deposit very thin ZnO films is currently used in microelectronics technology, which helps to ensure that the described ZnO thin-film deposition approach can be implemented in production lines with minimal changes in the fabrication design and in the auxiliary tools used in flexible electronics production.

Kinetic and thermodynamic studies reveal that the property of significantly enhanced catalytic activity with colloidal stability is attributed to an efficacious means of tuning enzyme–substrate association by varying with the rate constants in the presence of functionalized gold nanoparticles.

In this paper, we propose a method for depositing the charge trapping layer of a high- <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>k</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>k <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>polySi</mml:mi><mml:mtext>-</mml:mtext><mml:msub><mml:mi>SiO</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mtext>-</mml:mtext><mml:msub><mml:mi>ZrO</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mtext>-</mml:mtext><mml:msub><mml:mi>SiO</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mtext>-</mml:mtext><mml:mi>Si</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>polySi-SiO2-ZrO2-SiO2-Si (SOZOS) memory device. In this approach, the trapping layer was formed through simple two steps: (i) spin-coating of the <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>ZrCl</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>ZrCl4 precursor and (ii) rapid thermal annealing for <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>1</mml:mn><mml:mspace width="0.3em"></mml:mspace><mml:mi>min</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>1min at <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>900</mml:mn><mml:mo>°</mml:mo><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">C</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>900°C under an oxygen atmosphere. The morphology of the <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>ZrO</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>ZrO2 charge trapping layer was confirmed through X-ray photoemission spectroscopy analysis. The sol-gel-derived layer exhibited improved charge trapping in the SOZOS memory device, resulting in a threshold voltage shift of <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2.7</mml:mn><mml:mspace width="0.3em"></mml:mspace><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">V</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>2.7V in the <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>I</mml:mi><mml:mi>d</mml:mi></mml:msub><mml:mtext>-</mml:mtext><mml:msub><mml:mi>V</mml:mi><mml:mi>g</mml:mi></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>Id-Vg curve, <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">P</mml:mi><mml:mo>∕</mml:mo><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">E</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>P∕E (program/erase) speeds as fast as <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>0.1</mml:mn><mml:mspace width="0.3em"></mml:mspace><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">ms</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>0.1ms , good data retention up to <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mn>10</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msup><mml:mspace width="0.3em"></mml:mspace><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">s</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>104s (only a 5% charge loss due to deep trapping in the <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>ZrO</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>ZrO2 layer), and good endurance (no memory window narrowing after <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mn>10</mml:mn></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>5</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:mrow></mml:math>105 <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">P</mml:mi><mml:mo>∕</mml:mo><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">E</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>P∕E cycles).

A series of experiments were performed to systematically analyze the effect of nanoparticle (NP) size on the catalytic behavior of enzyme–NP conjugates, and a shielding model based on diffusion–collision theory was developed to explain the correlation between the size effects and the kinetic responses.

A simple anthracene-based AP probe was synthesized to detect Cu²⁺ ions, via the photoinduced electron transfer mechanism, in live cells.