Review on conductivity enhancement in n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diodes with the influence of Rare earth ions as donor impurities.

Nanoelectronics is an emerging field of nanotechnology where innumerable nanomaterials are used to fabricate electronic devices like LEDs, Photodiodes, Transistors, FETs, UJTs, SCRs, Laser diodes, etc.  The accomplishment of high-efficiency electronic devices at low cost tends to be the foremost challenging task in the field of nanoelectronics. The p-n heterojunction is a junction of two dissimilar p and n-type crystalline materials with different bandgap energies, work functions and electron affinities.The n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction device tends to be cost-effective and also potential candidates for integration with microelectronic based photonic and optoelectronic devices. Th electrical properties of n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode can be fine-tuned by the addition of dopants at different concentrations.This article presents a brief overview on the influence of different  rare earth dopants on chargecarrier enhancement and transport mechanism in n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode. This review paper also presents an outline on heterojunction formation theories and applications of n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diod

Influence of CeO2 nanoparticles on methyl tertiary butyl ether gasoline blend in spark ignition engine

The search for suitable alternative for fossil fuel has been a challenge to the research community for the past two decades. So many alternatives have been identified and tested. However, a complete replacement cannot be provided without any penalties of cost, excess emission, poor operation, etc. The alcohols gave a new opportunity and a solution for that problem but had some setbacks of increased density and lower octane number. The present work focuses on striking a balance between advantages and disadvantages by using oxygenated additive with gasoline fuel. The additive CeO2 along with methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) offers many advantages. The seven samples, namely M10, M15, M20, M25, M20 + 50 mg/l, M20+100 mg/l, M20+150 mg/l have been prepared and tested on spark ignition engine. Here, 10, 15, 20, and 25 denote the MTBE volume in blends and 50 mg/l, 100 mg/l, and 150 mg/l indicate the CeO2 in blends. The results have shown that only MTBE has caused an increase of 4% in brake thermal efficiency with M15 and then brake thermal efficiency has improved by 3% with M15 + 100 mg/l compared with pure gasoline. Fuel consumption has also been reduced upto 9% with M20 and 11% with M15+150 mg/l compared with pure gasoline. The maximum HC and CO reductions have also been observed from M20 and M20 + 150 mg/l. It was up to 19% and 22%, 23%, and 25% of HC and CO with M20, M20 + 150 mg/l. However, there has been an increase in CO2 emission level because of excessive unburned HC reduction. The MTBE with CeO2 has proved to be suited to all running conditions. The blends having more amounts of additive produce good combustion characteristics yet it should be restricted within 20 vol.% of MTBE and 150 mg/l of CeO2.</jats:p

Cytotoxic potentials of biologically fabricated platinum nanoparticles from <i>Streptomyces sp.</i> on MCF‐7 breast cancer cells

Biosynthesis of novel therapeutic nano‐scale materials for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications has been enormously developed, since last decade. Herein, the authors report an ecological way of synthesising the platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) using Streptomyces sp. for the first time. The produced PtNPs exhibited the face centred cubic system. The fourier transform infrared spectrum revealed the existence of amino acids in proteins which serves as an essential reductant for the formation of PtNPs. The spherical morphology of the PtNPs with an average size of 20–50 nm was observed from topographical images of atomic force microscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy. The X‐ray fluorescence spectrum confirms the presence of PtNPs with higher purity. The PtNPs size was further confirmed with transmission electron microscopy analysis and the particles were found to exist in the same size regime. Additionally, PtNPs showed the characteristic surface plasmon resonance peak at 262 nm. Dynamic light scattering studies report that 97.2% of particles were <100 nm, with an average particle diameter of about 45 nm. Furthermore, 3‐(4, 5‐dimethyl‐2‐thiazolyl)‐2, 5‐diphenyl‐tetrazolium assay based in vitro cytotoxicity analysis was conducted for the PtNPs, which showed the inhibitory concentration (IC(50)) at 31.2 µg/ml against Michigan Cancer Foundation‐7 breast cancer cells