Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue by graphene decorated titanium dioxide (TiO₂) powders heated at different temperatures was analyzed. The powders were prepared by mixing TiO₂ with graphene prepared by the modified Hummers method. A thermal treatment was applied to mixed and pure TiO₂ powders with the aim of analyze their structural dependence on temperature, and consistently their photocatalytic degradation effect on methylene blue solutions exposed to UV and visible radiation. Structural characterization of the powders was carried out by x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. When irradiated with UV, the mixed powders showed as high as 87% photocatalytic degradation, while the pure TiO₂ reached values of 59%. For visible radiation, as it is expected, the pure TiO₂ showed no activity, while the mixture presented degradation of 40%.

Polycrystalline transparent Zinc oxide thin films have been grown on glass substrates by the sol–gel technique using two different precursor solutions. The physical properties of the films were analyzed with X-ray diffraction, Atomic Force Microscopy, UV–Vis and Raman spectroscopy. The results show that the films grew in the hexagonal wurtzite structure. The band gap of the samples was estimated from UV–Vis measurements in values from 3.1 to 3.22eV, these values are in agreement with those reported in the literature. Two different simple ways to obtain polycrystalline ZnO were developed and the properties of the films were studied as a function of the precursor solution

CdTe:Cu films were grown by pulsed laser deposition on Corning glass slides at a substrate temperature of 300 °C. The thin films were grown using CdTe and Cu2Te powders, varying the Cu2Te concentration from 3 to 10 wt. %. The structural, compositional, optical, and electrical properties were analyzed as a function of the nominal copper concentration. X-ray diffraction shows that films have CdTe cubic phase. The compositional analysis indicates that CdTe:Cu films grown with lower Cu content have Te excess, on the other hand, films with higher Cu content have Te deficiencies. The electrical measurements showed that CdTe:Cu films grown with low Cu content present lowest resistivity.