The III-V compound semiconductor, which has the advantage of wide bandgap and high electron mobility, has attracted increasing interest in the optoelectronics and microelectronics field. The poor electronic properties of III-V semiconductor surfaces resulting from a high density of surface/interface states limit III-V device technology development. Various techniques have been applied to improve the surface and interface quality, which cover sulfur-passivation, plasmas-passivation, ultrathin film deposition, and so on. In this paper, recent research of the surface passivation on III-V semiconductors was reviewed and compared. It was shown that several passivation methods can lead to a perfectly clean surface, but only a few methods can be considered for actual device integration due to their effectiveness and simplicity.

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 novel hard-template-assisted method is developed to fabricate high quality Co₂V₂O₇ hollow nanoprisms. When evaluated as anode materials for lithium ion batteries, they exhibited a remarkable enhanced performance compared with the solid ones.

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.