Abstract-Performance enhancements of up to 170% in drain current, maximum transconductance, and field-effect mobility are presented for nMOSFETs fabricated with strained-Si channels compared with identically processed bulk Si MOSFETs. A novel layer structure comprising Si/Si 0 7 Ge 0 3 on an Si 0 85 Ge 0 15 virtual substrate (VS) offers improved performance advantages and a strain-compensated structure. A high thermal budget process produces devices having excellent on/off-state drain-current characteristics, transconductance, and subthreshold characteristics. The virtual substrate does not require chemical-mechanical polishing and the same performance enhancement is achieved with and without a titanium salicide process.

Different approaches like doping and sensitization have been used to develop photocatalysts that can lead to high reactivity under visible-light illumination, which would allow efficient utilization of solar irradiation and even interior lighting. We demonstrated a conceptually different approach by changing reaction route via introducing the idea of conventional Pd catalysis used in cross-coupling reactions into photocatalysis. The –O–Pd–Cl surface species modified on Ni-doped TiO2 can play a role the same as that in chemical catalysis, resulting in remarkably enhanced photocatalytic activity under visible-light irradiation. For instance, Pd/Ni-TiO2 has much higher activity than N-TiO2 (about 3 ~ 9 times for all of the 4-XP systems) upon irradiation with wavelength of 420 nm. The catalytically active Pd(0) is achieved by reduction of photogenerated electrons from Ni-TiO2. Given high efficient, stable Pd catalysts or other suitable chemical catalysts, this concept may enable realization of the practical applications of photocatalysis.

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A new type of heterostructured photocatalysts (N-TiO2/InBO3) were synthesized by coupling nitrogen-modified TiO2 (N-TiO2) with indium borate (InBO3) via a one-step sol–gel method. It was revealed that N-TiO2/InBO3 exhibited an improved photocatalytic performance compared with TiO2, N-TiO2, and InBO3 under both UV and visible light irradiation because of the formation of a heterostructure at the interface as well as the introduction of surface NO x species and InBO3. These results may provide a paradigm to fabricate and design the optoelectronic functional materials with high efficiency and performance.