Preface

Thin films have been employed in many applications as surfaces that possess specific optical, electronic, chemical, mechanical, and thermal properties. This book covers the deposition methods and applications of thin films. It also includes a study of ion beam techniques for depth profiling of multilayer thin films. These ten chapters include original research studies and literature reviews written by experts from the international scientific community.

Chapter 1 presents an overview of various thin film deposition technologies used in the fabrication of photovoltaics. Chapter 2 gives a comprehensive overview of sputtering processes, including the design and basic operations of the sputtering systems, the effects of mass, concentration, energy and angle of incident ions on the ion‒matter interaction during the sputtering process, and the benefits, limitations and future trends for sputtering techniques. Chapter 3 presents a very detailed overview of the successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique for the deposition of thin films of metal oxides, sulfides, selenides, and tellurides. Chapter 4 explains the fundamentals and applications of ion‒matter interactions at MeV energies. It also gives examples of the ion beam analysis (IBA) techniques (Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) and Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (ERDA)) used to analyze multilayer thin films. Chapter 5 outlines perovskite degradation mechanisms and includes a summary of the progress made to date in the encapsulation of perovskite solar cells, with a particular focus on the most recent and promising advances that employ thin films. Chapter 6 introduces work on the deposition and magnetic property characterization of the bilayer thin film, Ta/CoFeB, deposited by sputtering. It reveals that post-annealing can induce a change in the crystal structure of the bilayer film from amorphous to crystalline as well as alter its damping factor and exchange stiffness. Chapter 7 presents an overview of the fabrication and application of photocatalysts based on thin films of CuO or Fe2O3 composited with other semiconducting materials. It also introduces the design and construction of semiconductor–semiconductor heterostructures and gives various examples of α-Fe2O3- and CuO-based heterostructures for the photocatalytic degradation of pollutants in wastewater. Chapter 8 describes research on the deposition and characterization of transparent conductive oxide (i.e., ITO and AZO) thin films on glass substrates with or without surface patterns created by ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography. Chapter 9 is a detailed review of the crystalline structures, physicochemical properties, deposition and characterization of AlN thin film as well as the relationship between structure-property and deposition process parameters. Chapter 10 summarizes the fundamentals, advantages and applications of various thin film batteries.

Through these chapters, the reader will gain a better understanding of various thin film deposition techniques and their applications. I gratefully acknowledge the enthusiastic

and collaborative contributions of all the authors. Thanks also to Ms. Karla Skuliber, Publishing Process Manager, for her guidance and support in the preparation of this book.
