Plasma-assisted thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) was carried out to synthesize high-quality graphene film at a low temperature of 600°C. Monolayer graphene films were thus synthesized on Cu foil using various ratios of hydrogen and methane in a gaseous mixture. The in situ plasma emission spectrum was measured to elucidate the mechanism of graphene growth in a plasma-assisted thermal CVD system. According to this process, a distance must be maintained between the plasma initial stage and the deposition stage to allow the plasma to diffuse to the substrate. Raman spectra revealed that a higher hydrogen concentration promoted the synthesis of a high-quality graphene film. The results demonstrate that plasma-assisted thermal CVD is a low-cost and effective way to synthesis high-quality graphene films at low temperature for graphene-based applications.

Wide-band gap ZnO semiconductors are attractive materials for the investigation of microcavity exciton polaritons due to the large exciton binding energy and oscillator strength. We report the growth and characterization of bulk ZnO-based hybrid microcavity. The phenomenon of strong exciton-photon coupling at room temperature has been observed in the ZnO-based hybrid microcavity structure, which consists of 30 pair epitaxially grown AlN/AlGaN distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) on the bottom side of the $3/2\lambda$ thick ZnO cavity and 9 pair ${\text{SiO}}_2/{\text{HfO}}_2$ DBR as the top mirror. The cavity quality factor is about 221. The experimental results show good agreement with theoretically calculated exciton-polariton dispersion curves based on transfer matrix method. From the theoretical and experimental exciton-polariton dispersion curves with two different cavity-exciton detuning values, the large vacuum Rabi splitting is estimated to be about 58 meV in the ZnO-based hybrid microcavity.

Low resistivity and high transmittance of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) and Ga-doped ZnO (GZO) transparent conductive thin films have been achieved by use of pulsed dc magnetron sputtering in a hydrogen environment at room temperature. The addition of hydrogen to the sputtering gas can reduce the re sistivity of the films and improve their electrical properties compared to those prepared without ${\mathrm{H}}_2$, because the hydrogen acts a shallow donor. The average transmittance was over 85% in the visible region, and the lowest resistivity of the AZO and GZO films was $4.01\times {10}^{-4}(\mathrm{\Omega }\text{-}\mathrm{cm})$ and $4.39\times {10}^{-4}(\mathrm{\Omega }\text{-}\mathrm{cm})$, respectively.

The SPR phenomenon results in an abrupt change in the optical phase such that one can measure the phase shift of the reflected light as a sensing parameter. Moreover, many studies have demonstrated that the phase changes more acutely than the intensity, leading to a higher sensitivity to the refractive index change. However, currently, the optical phase cannot be measured directly because of its high frequency; therefore, investigators usually have to use complicated techniques for the extraction of phase information. In this study, we propose a simple and effective strategy for measuring the SPR phase shift based on phase-shift interferometry. In this system, the polarization-dependent interference signals are recorded simultaneously by a pixelated polarization camera in a single snapshot. Subsequently, the phase information can be effortlessly acquired by a phase extraction algorithm. Experimentally, the proposed phase-sensitive SPR sensor was successfully applied for the detection of small molecules of glyphosate, which is the most frequently used herbicide worldwide. Additionally, the sensor exhibited a detection limit of 15 ng/mL (0.015 ppm). Regarding its simplicity and effectiveness, we believe that our phase-sensitive SPR system presents a prospective method for acquiring phase signals.

This study aims to discuss the sheet resistance of ultrathin indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent conductive films during the postannealing treatment. The thickness of the ultrathin ITO films is 20 nm. They are prepared on B270 glass substrates at room temperature by a direct‐current pulsed magnetron sputtering system. Ultrathin ITO films with high sheet resistance are commonly used for touch panel applications. As the annealing temperature is increased, the structure of the ultrathin ITO film changes from amorphous to polycrystalline. The crystalline of ultrathin ITO films becomes stronger with an increase of annealing temperature, which further leads to the effect of enhanced Hall mobility. A postannealing treatment in an atmosphere can enhance the optical transmittance owing to the filling of oxygen vacancies, but the sheet resistance rises sharply. However, a higher annealing temperature, above 250°C, results in a decrease in the sheet resistance of ultrathin ITO films, because more Sn ions become an effective dopant. An optimum sheet resistance of 336 Ω/sqr was obtained for ultrathin ITO films at 400°C with an average optical transmittance of 86.8% for touch sensor applications.

Superhydrophilicity performs well in anti-fog and self-cleaning applications. In this study, polycarbonate substrate was used as the modification object because of the low surface energy characteristics of plastics. Procedures that employ plasma bombardment, such as etching and high surface free energy coating, are applied to improve the hydrophilicity. An organic amino silane that contains terminal amine group is introduced as the monomer to perform plasma polymerization to ensure that hydrophilic radicals can be efficiently deposited on substrates. Different levels of hydrophilicity can be reached by modulating the parameters of plasma bombardment and polymerization, such as plasma current, voltage of the ion source, and bombardment time. The surface of a substrate that is subjected to plasma bombarding at 150 V, 4 A for 5 min remained superhydrophilic for 17 days. After 40 min of Ar/O₂ plasma bombardment, which resulted in a substrate surface roughness of 51.6 nm, the plasma polymerization of organic amino silane was performed by tuning the anode voltage and operating time of the ion source, and a water contact angle < 10° and durability up to 34 days can be obtained.