Dr. Yaroslav Romanyuk and the team expand the applications range for flash lamp annealing: from sub-nanometer thin conductive oxide and phase-change films to few microns thick battery cathode and ceramic layers.
Over the last four years, we have collected evidences that FLA can also be effective for re-crystallization and sintering thin films of wide-bandgap oxides [1, 2] (In2O3, In-Zn-Ga-O) – 80-200 nm, refractory ceramics [3, 4] (Al2O3, ZrO2) – up to 3 μm, phase-change QD films [5] (Sn–Ge–Te) – 15 to 50 nm, and notably, Li-containing cathodes [6] (LiCoO2, Li(Mn,Ni)O2) – up to 3.3 μm. We are tailoring the optical absorption of processed materials by either admixing the colored pigments with the precursor powders, or applying top sacrificial light-absorbing layers. The existing heat model provided by the SimPulse build-in simulation software is matching well with the experimental results in terms of the peak processing temperature during the annealing, allowing us to use temperature-sensitive substrate with the softening point much lower than the one of the processed films. Here, for example, we successfully demonstrated the crystallization of LCO cathode on flexible aluminium foil and highly-conductive ITO patterns on polyimide thin film. We envisage that the flash lamp sintering can extend to a broader range of ceramics with low absorption and high melting points, such as thermal and environmental barrier coatings.
Publications
- Inkjet-Printed Conductive ITO Patterns for Transparent Security Systems, Evgeniia Gilshtein, Sami Bolat, Galo Torres Sevilla, Antonio Cabas-Vidani, Frank Clemens, Thomas Graule, Ayodhya N. Tiwari, and Yaroslav E. Romanyuk, Adv. Mater. Technol. 2020, 5, 2000369, 10.1002/admt.202000369
- Invisible and Flexible Printed Sensors Based on ITO Nanoparticle Ink for Security Applications, Evgeniia Gilshtein, Jasmine Tacneng, Sami Bolat, Galo Torres Sevilla and Yaroslav E. Romanyuk, Front. Nanotechnol. 3:700539, 2021, 10.3389/fnano.2021.700539
- Photonic Sintering of Oxide Ceramic Films: Effect of Colored FexOy Nanoparticle Pigments, Evgeniia Gilshtein, Stefan Pfeiffer, Severin Siegrist, Vitor Vlnieska, Thomas Graule and Yaroslav E. Romanyuk, Ceramics 2022, 5, 351–361, 10.3390/ceramics5030027
- Gilshtein, Evgeniia, Pfeiffer, Stefan, Rossell, Marta D., Jordi Sastre, Lovro Gorjan, Rolf Erni, Ayodhya N. Tiwari, Thomas Graule & Yaroslav E. Romanyuk, Millisecond photonic sintering of iron oxide doped alumina ceramic coatings. Sci Rep 11, 3536, 2021, 10.1038/s41598-021-82896-9
- Dhananjeya Kumaar, Matthias Can, Kevin Portner, Helena Weigand, Olesya Yarema, Simon Wintersteller, Florian Schenk, Darijan Boskovic, Nathan Pharizat, Robin Meinert, Evgeniia Gilshtein, Yaroslav Romanyuk, Artemios Karvounis, Rachel Grange, Alexandros Emboras, Vanessa Wood, and Maksym Yarema, Colloidal Ternary Telluride Quantum Dots for Tunable Phase Change Optics in the Visible and Near-Infrared, ACS Nano 2023, 17, 7, 6985–6997, 10.1021/acsnano.3c01187
- Xubin Chen, Jordi Sastre, Abdessalem Aribia, Evgeniia Gilshtein, and Yaroslav E. Romanyuk, Flash Lamp Annealing Enables Thin-Film Solid-State Batteries on Aluminum Foil, ACS Appl. Energy Mater. 2021, 4, 6, 5408–5414, 10.1021/acsaem.1c01283
Meet The Researchers
Name: Yaroslav Romanyuk
Institution: Empa-Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics
Name: Evgeniia Gilshtein
Institution: Empa-Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics