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Structural defects, such as heteroatoms or atomic vacancies, are always present in materials and significantly affect their physical properties, in both positive or unwanted ways. Interestingly, defects generate an impressive range of functionalities in many materials, such as catalysis, electrical and thermal conductivity tuning, thermoelectricity, enhanced ion storage, magnetism, and others. These properties enable the use of defective materials in a great variety of technological applications. Here we review the principal properties generated by atomic vacancies in 2D compounds and thin films of transition metal dichalcogenides and the most consolidated methods for their formation and engineering. Eventually, we critically analysed the most important advantages, the limits and the current open challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the electrodeposition of smooth bismuth thin films was investigated. Bismuth is known for its peculiar magnetic, thermal and electrical properties but the deposition of a uniform and flat film, which are features required for its application in electronic devices, is not trivial. We investigated the morphology of Bi film electrodeposited at increasing overpotential on a monocrystalline silver electrode. We found that the presence of an underpotential deposition (UPD) layer, previously deposited on the surface, drives the overpotential deposition to a smoother growth. The samples were investigated by means of different techniques: atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) to study the morphology, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) to assess the composition and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD) to check the crystallinity. We also found an unexpected form birefringence behaviour, which has been preliminary investigated with cross polarized light microscopy (CPL). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Spin crossover compounds are multifunctional switching materials that change their spin state and many other physical properties, such as colour, magnetic susceptibility, electric conductivity, dielectric constant and mechanical properties, upon external stimuli. Spin crossover materials have been proposed for a variety of technological applications that require the elaboration of highly controlled thin films and patterns. Here, we present a brief overview of the most diffused approaches for thin film growth and patterning, showing both conventional and unconventional approaches and the most recent advancement in their applications, highlighting the most promising cases and the most critical problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]