University of Groningen
Growth and nanostructure of tellurides for optoelectronic, thermoelectric and phase-change
applications
Vermeulen, Paul Alexander
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Publication date: 2019
Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database
Citation for published version (APA):
Vermeulen, P. A. (2019). Growth and nanostructure of tellurides for optoelectronic, thermoelectric and phase-change applications.
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Propositions
accompanying the doctoral thesis:
Growth and nanostructure of tellurides
for optoelectronic, thermoelectric and phase-change applications
.1. If a paper is published and no one reads it, it does not have any scientific value. (After: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?)
2. ‘Truth’, in politics, philosophy, and science has no relevance. All facts and results are debatable to reach scientific truth, or ‘consensus’.
3. Never trust someone who tells you their experiment produced “good results”. One should aim to obtain valid results, whether they are good simply depends on the personal bias of the researcher. 4. The most appropriate answer to why we study nature is: “Because it is there”. (George Mallory in
1923, before attempting to climb mount Everest for the first time.) (Ch.1)
5. Large-area thin-film deposition of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) like WTe2 is crucial
for commercial applications, since exfoliation is only suitable for lab experiments. (Ch.4)
6. Even though vdWaals materials like Bi2Te3 can be strained through cross-plane interaction, they
should still be considered member of the family of 2D-materials such as graphene or TMDCs. (Ch.5)
7. A multilayered system of different phase-change chalcogenides can be robustly switched to several distinct reflection levels. (Ch.6)
8. Due to the compatibility constraint, the herringbone domain structure observed in GeTe and
LaAlO3 is present in all systems undergoing a cubic-rhombohedral phase transition. (Ch.7)
9. Using a heating rate range spanning several orders of magnitude is necessary to reveal thermal characteristics of a material beyond simple interpretations like Arrhenius behaviour. (Ch.8,9) 10. Differential scanning calorimetry yields highly derivative information: microscopy or XRD is
crucial in verifying a hypothesis based on DSC data. (Ch.9)
