Laboratory of Nanotechnology of Electronic Materials
The Laboratory of Nanotechnology of Electronic Materials (LNEM) is an element within the organizational structure of the Department of Cybernetics, Nanotechnology and Data Processing of the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Sciences of Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice.
The laboratory conducts research on technologies of manufacturing and characterization of transparent conducting oxides (TCO) such as SnO2, In2O3, TiO2 and ZnO in the form of low-dimensional nanostructures in two-dimensional (2D) nanolayers and one-dimensional (1D) nanowires and nanobeams as well as in the form of sensory nanomaterials with respect to their potential applications in gas sensors, e.g. for environmental monitoring and medicine (clinical analysis).
The aim of our research is firstly to optimize the technology of manufacturing of nanolayers of selected transparent conductive oxides, and secondly, to characterize their surface properties in order to obtain the best possible sensor properties.
The NEM laboratory equipment includes:
- a very high vacuum (technological and research) installation, which enables, for example, deposition of nanolayers of selected transparent conducting oxides, and characterization (in situ) of their surface properties by various surface analytical methods, including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) using an XPS spectrometer from SPECS (Germany), and thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS) based on a mass spectrometer (residual gas analyzer) RGA200 from STANFORD (USA),
- atomic force microscope (AFM), MULTIMODE 8 model from BRUKER (USA), allowing, i.a., to characterize (ex situ) the surface morphology of the above-mentioned TCO nanostructures, in order to obtain the best surface development of sensor materials.
