Telluriums (Te) with various nanostructures, including particles, wires, and sheets, are controllably synthesized by adjusting the content of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in a facile solvothermal reaction. Te nanostructures all have complete grain sizes with excellent crystallinity and mesopore structures. Further, the formation mechanisms of Te nanostructures are proposed to be that the primary nuclei of Te are released from the reduction of TeO₃²⁻ using N₂H₄·H₂O, and then grow into various nanostructures depending on the different content of PVP. These nanostructures of Te all exhibit the photocatalytic activities for the degradation of MB and H₂ production under visible light irradiation, especially Te nanosheets, which have the highest efficiencies of degradation (99.8%) and mineralization (65.5%) at 120 min. In addition, compared with pure Te nanosheets, the rate of H₂ production increases from 412 to 795 μmol∙h⁻¹∙g⁻¹ after the introduction of Pt, which increases the output by nearly two times. The above investigations indicate that Te with various nanostructures is a potential photocatalyst in the field of degradation of organic pollutants and H₂ fuel cells.

A high-performance ZnSnO (ZTO) thin-film transistor (TFT) was fabricated, with ZTO deposited by rf magnetron sputtering. XPS was used to analyze and study the effects of different annealing temperatures on the element composition and valence state of ZTO films. Then, the influence mechanism of annealing treatment on the electrical properties of ZTO thin films was analyzed. The results show that, with an increase in annealing temperature, the amount of metal bonding with oxygen increases first and then decreases, while the oxygen vacancy decreases first and then increases. Further analysis on the ratio of Sn²⁺ is presented. Electrical results show that the TFT annealed at 600 °C exhibits the best performance. It exhibits high saturation mobilities (μ_SAT) up to 12.64 cm²V⁻¹s⁻¹, a threshold voltage (V_TH) of −6.61 V, a large on/off current ratio (I_on/I_off) of 1.87 × 10⁹, and an excellent subthreshold swing (SS) of 0.79 V/Decade.

A Cu(OH)₂/Ni₃S₂ composite has been designed and in situ constructed on Cu foam substrate by facile two-step electrodeposition. Cu(OH)₂ is achieved on Cu foam by galvanostatic electrodeposition, and the subsequent coating of Ni₃S₂ is realized by cyclic voltammetric (CV) electrodeposition. The introduction of Cu(OH)₂ provides skeleton support and a large specific surface area for the Ni₃S₂ electrodeposition. Benefiting from the selection of different components and preparation technology, the Cu(OH)₂/Ni₃S₂ composite exhibits enhanced electrochemical properties with a high specific capacitance of 4.85 F cm⁻² at 2 mA cm⁻² and long-term cyclic stability at 80.84% (4000 cycles).

Developing efficient catalysts to produce clean fuel by using solar energy has long been the goal to mitigate the issue of traditional fossil fuel scarcity. In this work, we design a heterostructure photocatalyst by employing two green components, Ni(OH)₂ and ZnIn₂S₄, for efficient photocatalytic H₂ evolution under the illumination of visible light. After optimization, the obtained photocatalyst exhibits an H₂ evolution rate at 0.52 mL h⁻¹ (5 mg) (i.e., 4640 μmol h⁻¹ g⁻¹) under visible light illumination. Further investigations reveal that such superior activity is originated from the efficient charge separation due to the two-dimensional (2D) structure of ZnIn₂S₄ and existing high-quality heterojunction.

The electrical, stability and optoelectronic properties of GZTO TFTs with different Ga doping concentrations were investigated. Active layers were prepared by co-sputtering GaO and ZTO targets with different sputtering powers. The experimental results show that the surface of GZTO films is smooth, which is favorable for stability. The off-state current is reduced by a factor of 10, the switching ratio is increased to 1.59 × 10⁸, and the threshold voltage shift is reduced in PBS and NBS tests. In addition, the transmittance of all devices is greater than 80% in the visible range, and the optical bandgap of the TFTs is increased from 3.61 eV to 3.84 eV after Ga doping. The current enhancement of the GZTO TFTs is more pronounced under UV irradiation, with higher responsiveness and better-sustained photoconductivity. It is proved that Ga doped into ZTO as a carrier suppressor can better combine with oxygen vacancies and reduce the concentration of oxygen vacancies and oxygen defects compared with Zn and Sn atoms, thus improving stability. GaO, as a wide bandgap material, can improve the optical bandgap of GZTO TFTs so that they can better absorb the light in the UV wavelength band, and they can be used in the field of UV photodetection.

The preparation of thin-film transistors (TFTs) with InGaZnO (IGZO) channels using sol–gel technology has the advantages of simplicity in terms of process and weak substrate selectivity. We prepared a series of TFT devices with a top contact and bottom gate structure, in which the top contact was divided into rectangular and circular structures of drain/source electrodes. The field-effect performance of TFT devices with circular pattern drain/source electrodes was better than that with a traditional rectangular structure on both substrates. The uniform distribution of the potential in the circular electrode structure was more conducive to the regulation of carriers under the same channel length at different applied voltages. In addition, with the development of transparent substrate devices, we also constructed a hafnium oxide (HfO₂) insulation layer and an IGZO active layer on an indium tin oxide conductive substrate, and explored the effect of circular drain/source electrodes on field-effect properties of the semitransparent TFT device. The IGZO deposited on the HfO₂ dielectric layer by spin-coating can effectively reduce the surface roughness of the HfO₂ layer and optimize the scattering of carriers at the interface in TFT devices.