Abstract
ABSTRACT
Functional devices for energy and environmental applications have been attracted increasing attention in recent decades. Those devices are usually composed of a bunch of sophisticated materials which are often prepared by complex fabrication processes. It is important to prepare high-quality materials and connect them with good interfaces which don’t interrupt the diffusion of atoms and energy carriers by simple procedures. In this regards,our group has focused on growing high quality inorganic crystals by flux method. The advantages of flux method are growth of high-quality crystals without thermal strain, relatively low-temperature process, and simple experimental equipment. These advantages match with crystal growth not only in lab scale but also to industrial scale. In fact, we have grown many inorganic crystals for energy and environmental applications, and some of them are being tried to scaling up for industrial production. Our group has recently developed the flux method to thin film fabrication process which is named “flux coating method”, and fabricated many crystal layers with good interfaces between crystals and substrates. In this report, we introduce the series of grown crystals and fabricated crystal layers in addition to their future applications.
