In this research work, nanocrystalline BST (Ba 0.6 Sr 0.4 TiO 3 ) powders were synthesized through a modified sol-gel process, using barium acetate, strontium acetate and titanium isopropoxide as the precursors. In this process, stoichiometric proportions of barium acetate and strontium acetate were dissolved in acetic acid and titanium (IV) isopropoxide was added to form BST gel. The as-formed gel was dried at 200°C and then calcined in the temperature range of 600 to 850°C for crystallization. The samples were characterized by infrared spectroscopy method (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction technique (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. EDS analysis of these samples confirmed the formation of the final phase with the special stoichiometry. The formation of a cubic perovskite crystalline phase with nanoscale dimension was detected using the mentioned techniques. The results showed that the obtained crystallite sizes were 33 and 37 nm for BST powder calcined at 750 and 850°C, respectively.

The application of porous silicon (PSi) for gas sensing devices has gained a considerable attention in the last decade. This work considers the electrical features of PSi layers prepared by electrochemical etching. We find that in order to get a better understanding of the absorption properties of PSi surface, it is necessary to know how the PSi morphology depends on the etching parameters. The physical structure of PSi, i.e., porosity, and pore size distribution can be controlled by changing the Hydrofluoric Acid concentration, current density, anodizing length and etching time in anodizing procedure. We describe our test system for gas sensors and investigate on the electrical behavior of PSi layers (p-type) in N 2 gas for various fabrication conditions. The results show that the current density increases significantly as N 2 gas is adsorbed. The measurements of the I-V characteristics were carried out at atmospheric pressure, room temperature, and with N 2 gas as well.

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In this work, nanoparticles of titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) were synthesized by means of TiCl 4 as precursor. Effects of alcohol type, calcination, gelatinizing time and microwave exposure on the particle size, morphology, crystallinity and particle phase are studied using XRD patterns and SEM images. Results showed that alcohols such as ethanol increased the particle size; calcination increased the particle size and improved the crystallinity of particles. Microwave exposure of particles resulted in smaller particles; adding water increased the impact of microwave. Effect of microwave exposure in rutile phase formation is also observed during this study.

In this research effort a neural network approach was used as a method of extrapolating the presence of mercury in human blood from animal data. We also investigated the effect of different data representations (As-is, Category, Simple binary, Thermometer, and Flag) on the model performance. In addition, we used the Rough Sets methodology to identify the redundant independent variables and then examined the proposed extrapolation model performance for a reduced set of independent variables. Moreover, a quality measure was introduced that revealed that the proposed extrapolation model performed extremely well for the Thermometer data representation.

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The porous silicon (PSi), which is produced by the electrochemical etching, has been used as a substrate for the growth of the titanium oxide (TiO2) thin films. By using the EBPVD method, TiO2 thin films have been deposited on the surface of the PSi substrate. TiO2/PSi layers were annealed at the temperature of 400[Formula: see text]C, 500[Formula: see text]C and 600[Formula: see text]C for different tests. The morphology and structures of layers were investigated by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The current–voltage characteristic curves of samples and the ideality factor of heterojunction were studied. The results showed that the electrical properties of the samples change with increase in the annealing temperature. The optical properties of the prepared samples were investigated by using UV–Vis and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Green light emission of the PSi combined with the blue light and violet–blue emission obtained from the TiO2/PSi PL spectra. The results showed that the optical band gap energy of the PSi has increased from 1.86[Formula: see text]eV to 2.93[Formula: see text]eV due to the deposition of TiO2 thin film.