34,551 research outputs found

    Asymptotic solution of a model for bilayer organic diodes and solar cells

    Get PDF
    The current voltage characteristics of an organic semiconductor diode made by placing together two materials with dissimilar electron affinities and ionisation potentials is analysed using asymptotic methods. An intricate boundary layer structure is examined. We find that there are three regimes for the total current passing through the diode. For reverse bias and moderate forward bias the dependency of the voltage on the current is similar to the behaviour of conventional inorganic semiconductor diodes predicted by the Shockley equation and are governed by recombination at the interface of the materials. There is then a narrow range of currents where the behaviour undergoes a transition. Finally for large forward bias the behaviour is different with the current being linear in voltage and is primarily controlled by drift of charges in the organic layers. The size of the interfacial recombination rate is critical in determining the small range of current where there is rapid transition between the two main regimes. The extension of the theory to organic solar cells is discussed and the analogous current voltage curves derived in the regime of interest

    A fast and robust numerical scheme for solving models of charge carrier transport and ion vacancy motion in perovskite solar cells

    Get PDF
    Drift-diffusion models that account for the motion of both electronic and ionic charges are important tools for explaining the hysteretic behaviour and guiding the development of metal halide perovskite solar cells. Furnishing numerical solutions to such models for realistic operating conditions is challenging owing to the extreme values of some of the parameters. In particular, those characterising (i) the short Debye lengths (giving rise to rapid changes in the solutions across narrow layers), (ii) the relatively large potential differences across devices and (iii) the disparity in timescales between the motion of the electronic and ionic species give rise to significant stiffness. We present a finite difference scheme with an adaptive time step that is posed on a non-uniform staggered grid that provides second order accuracy in the mesh spacing. The method is able to cope with the stiffness of the system for realistic parameters values whilst providing high accuracy and maintaining modest computational costs. For example, a transient sweep of a current-voltage curve can be computed in only a few minutes on a standard desktop computer.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figure

    Coboson formalism for Cooper pairs used to derive Richardson's equations

    Full text link
    We propose a many-body formalism for Cooper pairs which has similarities to the one we recently developed for composite boson excitons (coboson in short). Its Shiva diagram representation evidences that NN Cooper pairs differ from NN single pairs through electron exchange only: no direct coupling exists due to the very peculiar form of the BCS potential. As a first application, we here use this formalism to derive Richardson's equations for the exact eigenstates of NN Cooper pairs. This gives hints on why the N(N−1)N(N-1) dependence of the NN-pair ground state energy we recently obtained by solving Richardson's equations analytically in the low density limit, stays valid up to the dense regime, no higher order dependence exists even under large overlap, a surprising result hard to accept at first. We also briefly question the BCS wave function ansatz compared to Richardson's exact form, in the light of our understanding of coboson many-body effects

    Economic evaluation of a nursing-led intermediate care unit

    Get PDF
    Objectives: The aim of this paper is to examine the costs of introducing a nursing-led ward program together with examining the impact this may have on patients' outcomes. Methods; The study had a sample size of 177 patients with a mean age of 77, and randomized to either a treatment group (care on a nursing-led ward, n = 97) or a control group (standard care usually on a consultant-led acute ward, n = 80). Resource use data including length of stay, tests and investigations performed, and multidisciplinary involvement in care were collected. Results: There were no significant differences in outcome between the two groups. The inpatient costs for the treatment group were significantly higher, due to the longer length of stay in this group. However, the postdischarge costs were significantly lower for the treatment group. Conclusions: The provision of nursing-led intermediate care units has been proposed as a solution to inappropriate use of acute medical wards by patients who require additional nursing rather than medical care. Whether the treatment group is ultimately cost-additive is dependent on how long reductions in postdischarge resource use are maintained

    Particle Acceleration and Magnetic Field Generation in Electron-Positron Relativistic Shocks

    Full text link
    Shock acceleration is an ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration. Using a 3-D relativistic electromagnetic particle (REMP) code, we have investigated particle acceleration associated with a relativistic electron-positron jet front propagating into an ambient electron-positron plasma with and without initial magnetic fields. We find small differences in the results for no ambient and modest ambient magnetic fields. New simulations show that the Weibel instability created in the collisionless shock front accelerates jet and ambient particles both perpendicular and parallel to the jet propagation direction. Furthermore, the non-linear fluctuation amplitudes of densities, currents, electric, and magnetic fields in the electron-positron shock are larger than those found in the electron-ion shock studied in a previous paper at the comparable simulation time. This comes from the fact that both electrons and positrons contribute to generation of the Weibel instability. Additionally, we have performed simulations with different electron skin depths. We find that growth times scale inversely with the plasma frequency, and the sizes of structures created by the Weibel instability scale proportional to the electron skin depth. This is the expected result and indicates that the simulations have sufficient grid resolution. The simulation results show that the Weibel instability is responsible for generating and amplifying nonuniform, small-scale magnetic fields which contribute to the electron's (positron's) transverse deflection behind the jet head.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, revised and accepted for ApJ, A full resolution of the paper can be found at http://gammaray.nsstc.nasa.gov/~nishikawa/apjep1.pd

    Particle Acceleration in Relativistic Jets due to Weibel Instability

    Full text link
    Shock acceleration is an ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., the Buneman instability, two-streaming instability, and the Weibel instability) created in the shocks are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration. Using a 3-D relativistic electromagnetic particle (REMP) code, we have investigated particle acceleration associated with a relativistic jet front propagating through an ambient plasma with and without initial magnetic fields. We find only small differences in the results between no ambient and weak ambient magnetic fields. Simulations show that the Weibel instability created in the collisionless shock front accelerates particles perpendicular and parallel to the jet propagation direction. While some Fermi acceleration may occur at the jet front, the majority of electron acceleration takes place behind the jet front and cannot be characterized as Fermi acceleration. The simulation results show that this instability is responsible for generating and amplifying highly nonuniform, small-scale magnetic fields, which contribute to the electron's transverse deflection behind the jet head. The ``jitter'' radiation (Medvedev 2000) from deflected electrons has different properties than synchrotron radiation which is calculated in a uniform magnetic field. This jitter radiation may be important to understanding the complex time evolution and/or spectral structure in gamma-ray bursts, relativistic jets, and supernova remnants.Comment: ApJ, in press, Sept. 20, 2003 (figures with better resolution: http://gammaray.nsstc.nasa.gov/~nishikawa/apjweib.pdf
    • …
    corecore