Preface

Progress in nanomaterials has led to the development of mankind. The visionary statement given by Richard Feynman ‘There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom’ has been experienced within 64 years by the scientific community across the world. The research fraternity has made continual efforts and noteworthy contributions in the field of nanotechnology.

Now-a-days, research on thin film nanomaterials is rapidly developing to lead to minimizing the device dimensions. Thin-film nanomaterials have diverse applications in many fields viz. opto-electronic devices, energy generation and storage, gas sensors, medical, defense, textile, etc. Moreover, with respect to the increasing human population and industrialization, the energy demand is continuously increasing. For the improvement of the energy efficiency of the current devices, the incorporation of thin film nanomaterials becomes essential.

There are a lot of books that focus on a particular area of energy or the ideologies of deposition. However, the current technology needs the overall scenario in the development of nanomaterials. The present book entitled ‘Thin Film Nanomaterials: Synthesis, Properties and Innovative Energy Applications’ demonstrates an overview of the synthesis, properties, and innovative applications of thin-film nanomaterials. This book also provides an overview of the employment of thin film nanomaterials over a wide range of energy applications.

In the first chapter, the synthesis and characterizations of cadmium and zinc sulphide thin films are elaborated for opto-electronics energy devices. The critical review of CIGS thin film nanomaterials from synthesis to recent energy applications has been discussed in the second chapter. From the deposition to advanced applications like sensors, supercapacitors and solar cells of metal oxide nanocomposite films are elaborated in chapter three. Nanostructured TiO2@carbon films deposition via CBD for photocatalytic applications is discussed in the fourth chapter. The fifth chapter describes the bandgap engineering along-with optical properties of filler reinforced PMMA composite films with current challenges and future perspectives in material science and technology. The synthesis, recent developments and advanced applications of metal oxide thin films are discussed in sixth and seventh chapter. Chapter eight gives information about the synthesis of iron oxide films via the chemical route and its characteristics for solar cell and green energy storage applications. The tenth chapter elaborate the challenges and future prospectus of CNT-based cathode emitters for various applications. In the last chapter, the advanced characterizations of nanocrystalline ferrimagnetic thin films deposited via spray pyrolysis technique for sensor energy are elaborated.

It is a great honour for us that Prof. Chandrakant D. Lokhande, who ranked First in India as a researcher in the field of Allied Physics according to Standford University, United State, has written the foreword.

Lastly, the editors wish to express their sincere gratitude to the authors and peer reviewers. We are also very grateful to our publisher Bentham Science for providing an opportunity to publish this work. One of the editors (SGD) expresses his gratitude to his mother Smt. Vimal (Amarapur-Deshmukh Mala) for her continuous blessings to reach this milestone. We expect this book will be beneficial to professors, scientists, engineers, research scholars, postdocs as well as UG/PG students.