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Presenter: Dryden Tamura
Supervisor: Dr. Chris Papadopoulos

Date: Fri, April 25, 2014
Time: 10:00:00 - 11:00:00
Place: EOW 230

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT:

Modern methods for producing nanoparticles, such as gas-evaporation, high temperature aerosol reactions, co-sputtering, and ion implantation, tend to be complicated and/or expensive. As an alternative, this work explores the production of silicon nanoparticles using a high energy ball milling machine.

Presented in this seminar are the preparation, ball milling, extraction, and processing steps to produce silicon nanoparticles starting from micron-scale silicon powder. Optical, atomic force, and scanning electron microscopy measured particles less than 10 nm for milling times up to 3 hours and speeds up to 500 rpm. It is expected that optimizing these parameters would further reduce the resulting particle sizes. Furthermore, centrifugation was demonstrated as an effective method to narrow the size distribution of the nanoparticles. Films of the nanoparticles were deposited on various substrates to fabricate thin film devices. I-V characteristics of the devices were measured using a semiconductor parameter analyzer which showed linear and exponential current responses in the femtoamp to milliamp range at up to 1 V applied bias. Further work to narrow the size distribution and characterize the nanoparticle structures could lead to applications in optoelectronic devices.