ABSTRACT Vanadium oxide films amorphous, nonstoichiometric and highly absorbing in the optical region were deposited on ITO-coated glass and on silicon substrates, by the hot-filament metal oxide deposition technique (HFMOD) and oxidized by ex-situ annealing in a furnace at 200, 300, 400 and 500 ºC, under an atmosphere of argon and rarefied oxygen. X-ray diffraction, Raman and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy as well as optical transmission were employed to characterize the amorphous and annealed films. When annealed at 200 and 300 ºC the as-deposited opaque films become transparent but still amorphous. Under treatments at 400 and 500 ºC a crystalline nonstoichiometric V2O5 structure is formed. All the annealed films became semiconducting, with their optical absorption coefficients changing with the annealing temperature. An optical gap of 2.25 eV was measured for the films annealed at 400 and 500 ºC. The annealing in rarefied oxygen atmosphere proved to be a useful and simple ex-situ method to modulate the structural and optical properties of vanadium oxide films deposited by HFMOD technique. This technique could be applied to other amorphous and non-absorbing oxide films, replacing the conventional and sometimes expensive method of modulate desirable film properties by controlling the film deposition parameters. Even more, the HFMOD technique can be an inexpensive alternative to deposit metal oxide films.

The dependence between the transferred charge and the corresponding transference time to charge and discharge a portable cell phone Li-ion battery (LiCoO2/C) under cycles of low intensity currents was studied in detail. The voltage curve profile between 3.0 and 4.2 V and the charging and discharging time are strongly influenced by the applied current intensity. A linear dependence between the stored and extracted charges, into and from the battery, with the intensity of applied current was also observed. Allometric equations were found to describe the correlation between the charge transference time and the applied current intensity to charge and discharge the battery.

In this manuscript, a BiVO4 semiconductor was synthesized by solution combustion synthesis using different fuels (Alanine, Glycine and Urea). Also, the Tween® 80 surfactant was added during synthesis. BiVO4 was characterized by XRD, SEM and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Photocatalytic activity was evaluated by the discoloration of methylene blue at 664 nm under UV-visible light irradiation. According to XRD, the monoclinic phase of BiVO4 was obtained for the samples. The smallest particle size and highest k obs value were observed for the BiVO4/alanine sample, which promoted greater demethylation of methylene blue.