Publications related to Microsystems Laboratory 1

Towards Scalable Electronics: Synthetic 2D Materials for Large-Area 2D Circuit Integration

In the past decades, a significant increase of the transistor density on a chip has led to exponential growth in computational power driven by Moore's law. To overcome the bottleneck of traditional von-Neumann architecture in computational efficiency, effo ...

EPFL2024

Plasmonically enhanced molecular junctions for investigation of atomic-scale fluctuations in self-assembled monolayers

Sakthi Priya Amirtharaj

Molecular junctions represent a fascinating frontier in the realm of nanotechnology and are one of the smallest optoelectronic devices possible, consisting of individual molecules or a group of molecules that serve as the active element sandwiched between ...

EPFL2024

Polydopamine-coated photoautotrophic bacteria for improving extracellular electron transfer in living photovoltaics

Ardemis Anoush Boghossian, Melania Reggente, Mohammed Mouhib, Fabian Fischer, Hanxuan Wang, Charlotte Elisabeth Marie Roullier, Patricia Brandl

Living photovoltaics are microbial electrochemical devices that use whole cell–electrode interactions to convert solar energy to electricity. The bottleneck in these technologies is the limited electron transfer between the microbe and the electrode surfac ...

2024

Plasmonic Nanostructures for Photocatalysis: Material, Photonic and Electronic Effects

Fateme Kiani Shahvandi

Plasmonic photochemistry has a large potential to replace energy-intensive chemical processes with low-temperature, low-pressure light-driven chemical reactions. Plasmonic nanostructures have emerged as promising photocatalysts with exceptional and tunable ...

EPFL2024

A continuous-wave and pulsed X-band electron spin resonance spectrometer operating in ultra-high vacuum for the study of low dimensional spin ensembles

Giovanni Boero, Fabio Donati, Soyoung Oh

We report the development of a continuous-wave and pulsed X-band electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometer for the study of spins on ordered surfaces down to cryogenic temperatures. The spectrometer operates in ultra-high vacuum and utilizes a half-wavele ...

Aip Publishing2024

Revealing the Mechanism Underlying 3D-AFM Imaging of Suspended Structures by Experiments and Simulations

Marcos Penedo Garcia

The invention of 3D atomic force microscopy (3D-AFM) has enabled visualizing subnanoscale 3D hydration structures. Meanwhile, its applications to imaging flexible molecular chains have started to be experimentally explored. However, the validity and princi ...

Wiley-V C H Verlag Gmbh2024

Advanced Silicon and SWIR Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes: Design, Simulation, and Characterization

Ekin Kizilkan

Low-level light detection with high spatial and timing accuracy is a growing area of interest by virtue of applications such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR), biomedical imaging, time-resolved Raman spectroscopy, and quantum applications. Single-phot ...

EPFL2024

Font Side Solutions for c-Si Solar Cells with High-Temperature Passivating Contacts

Ezgi Genç

In this work, we studied the potential of using thin films deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) for two main purposes: introducing an n-type passivating contact at the front of a TOPCon solar cell, or simplifying the fabrication o ...

EPFL2024

Magnetism of Single Surface Adsorbed Atoms Studied with Radio-Frequency STM

Clément Marie Soulard

This thesis investigates the magnetic properties of single atoms and molecules adsorbed on thin magnesium oxide decoupling layers, grown on a silver single crystal. To address these systems experimentally, we use a low temperature scanning tunneling micros ...

EPFL2024

Optimizing Atomic Layer Deposition Processes with Nanowire-Assisted TEM Analysis

Johann Michler, Ivo Utke, Xavier Maeder

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is one of the premier methods to synthesize ultra-thin materials on complex surfaces. The technique allows for precise control of the thickness down to single atomic layers, while at the same time providing uniform coverage ev ...

Wiley2024

Stencil-Based Selective Surface Functionalization of Silicon Nanowires in 3D Device Architectures for Next-Generation Biochemical Sensors

Yusuf Leblebici, Mohammad Nasr Esfahani, Ece Öztürk

Surface functionalization of 1D materials such as silicon nanowires is a critical preparation technology for biochemical sensing. However, existing nonselective functionalization techniques result in nonlocal binding and contamination, with potential devic ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Controlling crystal cleavage in focused ion beam shaped specimens for surface spectroscopy

Philip Johannes Walter Moll, Matthias Carsten Putzke, Andrew Scott Hunter

Our understanding of quantum materials is commonly based on precise determinations of their electronic spectrum by spectroscopic means, most notably angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning tunneling microscopy. Both require atomicall ...

Aip Publishing2024

Electron-beam based nanoscale quantum controls

Hoda Shirzad

Advancing quantum technologies depends on the precise control of individual quantum systems, the so-called qubits, and the exploitation of their quantum properties. Nowadays, expanding the number of qubits to be entangled is at the core of the developments ...

EPFL2024

Shortwave Infrared-Sensitive, Narrowband Organic Upconversion Devices with a Gain

Wei-Hsu Hu

Sensing and imaging of light in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) range is increasingly used in various fields, including bio-imaging, remote sensing, and semiconductor process control. SWIR-sensitive organic photodetectors (OPDs) are promising because organic ...

EPFL2024

Advancements in Nanomechanical Characterization and Biomolecular Imaging with Atomic force Microscopy

Veronika Cencen

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a widely used imaging tool for obtaining a variety of information for a range of samples. Although it was initially intended to serve as a method of observing very flat solid surfaces, its use expanded into several other fi ...

EPFL2024

Microstructural and electrical characterization of high temperature passivating contacts for silicon solar cells

Sofia Libraro

Recombination at metal/semiconductor interfaces represents the main limitation in mainstream c-Si solar cells, primarily based on the passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) concept. Full-area passivating contacts based on SiOx/poly-Si stacks are a candida ...

EPFL2024

III-N blue-emitting epi-structures with high densities of dislocations: Fundamental mechanisms for efficiency improvement and applications

Pierre Christophe Lottigier

Since the dawn of humanity, human beings seeked to light their surroundings for their well-being, security and development. The efficiency of ancient lighting devices, e.g. oil lamps or candles, was in the order of 0.03-0.04% and jumped to 0.4-0.6% with th ...

EPFL2024

Hybrid organic/metal-oxide shells on semiconductor nanocrystals via colloidal atomic layer deposition

Ona Segura Lecina

The escalating energy demand and the imperative necessity to reduce the carbon footprint require transformative approaches to energy conversion. Materials chemistry plays a pivotal role in addressing these global challenges by developing novel materials fo ...

EPFL2024

3D Printing of Customizable Transient Bioelectronics and Sensors

Danick Briand, Nicolas Francis Fumeaux

Transient electronics have emerged as a new category of devices that can degrade after their functional lifetime, offering tremendous potential as disposable sensors, actuators, wearables, and implants. Additive manufacturing methods represent a promising ...

2024

Functionalized Å-scale Pores in Graphene for Carbon Capture

Kuang-Jung Hsu

Single-layer graphene, hosting a high density of functionalized molecular-sieving atom-thick pores, is considered to be an excellent material for gas separation membranes. These functionalized atom-thick pores enable the shortest transport pathway across t ...

EPFL2024