Date of Graduation

Summer 2013

Degree

Master of Science in Materials Science

Department

Physics, Astronomy, and Materials Science

Committee Chair

Saibal Mitra

Abstract

Electrochromic (EC) materials have attracted a lot of attention for their wide range of commercial applications. Although molybdenum oxide has been reported to exhibit good electrochromism, it has extensively been investigated for other applications such as gas sensors, battery electrodes for lithium ion batteries, catalysts etc. Very little work has been reported on molybdenum oxide based EC devices, which have a reversible modulation in their color corresponding to the applied voltage. The objective of the work was to synthesize molybdenum oxide films at different pressures,and study the changes in the structure. The final goal of the work was to test the molybdenum oxide based electrochromic devices. Molybdenum oxide thin films were grown using hot wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) at different oxygen pressures and were all annealed in air at 250°;C for 2 hours. Raman spectroscopy was used effectively to study the change in the structure with respect to the oxygen pressure and annealing. We report that at higher pressures, the metastable β-MoO3 phase of MoO3 dominates the stable α-MoO3 phase. Also, cyclic voltammetry was used to test the molybdenum oxide based EC devices. We conclude that high oxygen pressure favors the growth of β-MoO3. The details of design and construction of the iCVD reactor are discussed in the second part of this thesis.

Keywords

electrochromic materials, molybdenum oxide, hot wire chemical vapor deposition, Raman spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry

Subject Categories

Materials Science and Engineering

Copyright

© Sandeep Akkanapragada

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