Facile in situ solution synthesis of SnSe/rGO nanocomposites with enhanced thermoelectric performance

Constructing nanostructured composite architectures has been considered as an effective strategy to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity (κL) and enhance the dimensionless figure of merit (ZT) of thermoelectric materials. Herein, a series of SnSe/reduced graphene oxide (rGO)-x (x = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7 wt%) nanocomposites are controllably synthesised in situ via a facile single-step bottom-up solution method, where rGO nanosheets are incorporated intimately into the SnSe matrix. Nanocompositing performs two key functions: (i) significantly reducing the lattice thermal conductivity of the material, which can be attributed to enhanced phonon scattering from high-density SnSe/rGO interfaces, and (ii) improving the electrical conductivity over the low temperature range, as result of an increased carrier concentration. The subsequent thermoelectric performance of SnSe/rGO sintered pellets has been optimised by tuning the rGO mass fraction, with SnSe/rGO-0.3 achieving κL = 0.36 W m−1 K−1 at 773 K (cutting the κL of SnSe by 33%) to yield a maximum ZT of 0.91 at 823 K (representing a ∼47% increase compared to SnSe). This study provides a new pathway to improve the thermoelectric performance of polycrystalline SnSe by way of engineering metal chalcogenide/rGO composite architectures at the nanoscale

Roadmap on Perovskite Light-Emitting Diodes

In recent years, the field of metal-halide perovskite emitters has rapidly emerged as a new community in solid-state lighting. Their exceptional optoelectronic properties have contributed to the rapid rise in external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) in perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) from <1% (in 2014) to approaching 30% (in 2023) across a wide range of wavelengths. However, several challenges still hinder their commercialization, including the relatively low EQEs of blue/white devices, limited EQEs in large-area devices, poor device stability, as well as the toxicity of the easily accessible lead components and the solvents used in the synthesis and processing of PeLEDs. This roadmap addresses the current and future challenges in PeLEDs across fundamental and applied research areas, by sharing the community's perspectives. This work will provide the field with practical guidelines to advance PeLED development and facilitate more rapid commercialization.Comment: 103 pages, 29 figures. This is the version of the article before peer review or editing, as submitted by an author to Journal of Physics: Photonics. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from i

Impact of Errors in Environmental Correction on Gravity Field Recovery Using Interferometric Radar Altimeter Observations

As a new type of altimeter, interferometric radar altimeter (InRA) has significant potential in marine gravity field recovery due to its high spatial resolution. However, errors in environmental correction on gravity field recovery using InRA observations are unclear. In this study, four kinds of these errors, including wet and dry troposphere, ionosphere, and sea state bias (SSB) correction errors, are simulated. The impact of these errors on gravity field recovery are analyzed and discussed. The results show that, among the four types of errors in environmental correction, the wet troposphere and SSB have a more significant impact on the accuracy of sea surface height computing, and the wet troposphere has the most significant impact on the accuracy of gravity field recovery. The maximum error of gravity anomaly caused by the wet troposphere residual errors is nearly 2 mGal, and the relative error of the recovered gravity anomaly is around 6.42%. We can also find that SSB has a little more significant impact than dry troposphere and ionosphere, where dry troposphere and ionosphere have an almost identical impact, on DV and GA inversion accuracy

Influence of Reservoir Microstructure on the State of Residual Oil According to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy

The influence of core properties on the state of residual oil in the process of oil displacement by water at the micro level is investigated. The pore size distribution, core permeability, dynamics and morphology of residual oil were studied. The analysis of the available experimental approaches to the study of the properties of the core and residual oil in the core samples showed that the existing methods do not provide complete information about the studied parameters. To solve these problems, it is proposed to use a combination of innovative relaxation-diffusion spectroscopy technology of nuclear magnetic resonance with traditional technology. A combination of mercury injection and nuclear magnetic resonance is used to measure the pore size distribution. The core permeability was determined using the nuclear magnetic resonance method. Two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy makes it possible to study the microscopic state of residual oil in an undisturbed core during the displacement process. With the help of the proposed methodology, a core study of the Shengli deposit in China was carried out. Pore size distributions were obtained, permeability and residual oil saturation at different stages of displacement were studied. Four types of residual oil are distinguished: strip-shaped (island), film, mesh, continuous. The influence of permeability on the fraction content of different types of residual oil in the process of displacement is shown. The research results demonstrate the influence of the pore space structure and wettability on the state of residual oil

Design and Experimental Investigation of a Rotational Piezoelectric Energy Harvester with an Offset Distance from the Rotation Center

Rotational energy harvesting technology has attracted more and more attention recently. This paper presents a piezoelectric rotational energy harvester that can be mounted with an offset distance from the rotation center. The piezoelectric energy harvester is designed to be dynamically excited by the force due to gravity, which causes the piezoelectric cantilever beams in the harvester to vibrate periodically as the harvester rotates. A novel design of the harvester structure with a hollow mass is proposed and analyzed in this paper. Experiments were performed to investigate the design and analysis. A power output of 106~2308 &mu;W can be achieved at the rotating frequencies of 0.79~14 Hz with a piezoelectric cantilever beam in the prototyped energy harvester. Results showed that the prototyped harvester can be mounted on a rotating wheel hub and output sufficient power in a wide frequency range for wireless monitoring sensors

Design and Comparative Study of a Small-Stroke Energy Harvesting Floor Based on a Multi-Layer Piezoelectric Beam Structure

Recently, research on the energy harvesting floor is attracting more and more attention due to its possible application in the smart house, invasion monitoring, internet of things, etc. This paper introduced a design and comparative study of a small-stroke piezoelectric energy harvesting floor based on a multi-layer piezoelectric beam structure. The multi-layer piezoelectric beams are designed based on simply supported beams in an interdigitated manner. Theoretical analysis is explored to find out the beam number and layer number of the structure. Through this design, the input power from the human footsteps was effectively utilized and transformed into electrical power. The designed piezoelectric energy harvesting floor structure was tested by our designed stepping machine, which can simulate the stepping effect of a walking human on the floor with different parameters such as stepping frequency. Comparative studies of the energy harvester are carried out regarding different stepping frequencies, external circuits, and initial beam shapes. The experimental results showed that the maximum output power of a group of four-layer prototypes was 960.9 µW at a stroke of 4 mm and a step frequency of 0.83 Hz, with the beams connected in parallel

Absolute Radiometric Calibration of ZY3-02 Satellite Multispectral Imager Based on Irradiance-Based Method

In this paper, an irradiance-based absolute radiometric calibration campaign at Baotou calibration site during June and July 2018 was described. This radiometric calibration campaign made use of six radiometric calibration tarps. The synchronous measurements of parameters such as surface reflectance, atmospheric parameters, and diffuse-to-global irradiance ratio were collected at the satellite overpass. The top-of-atmospheric radiance was predicted by radiative transfer model with these synchronous measurements. The linear relationship between DNs of satellite sensor and band-specific top-of-atmospheric spectral radiance was established, and a stable and reliable absolute calibration coefficient of ZY3-02 MUX was determined in this campaign. We compared the calibration results of the irradiance-based method with those of the reflectance-based method. The results suggested that the irradiance-based method is better than reflectance-based method

Sleep Apnea Detection Based on Multi-Scale Residual Network

Aiming at the fact that traditional convolutional neural networks cannot effectively extract signal features in complex application scenarios, a sleep apnea (SA) detection method based on multi-scale residual networks is proposed. First, we analyze the physiological mechanism of SA, which uses the RR interval signals and R peak signals derived from the ECG signals as input. Then, a multi-scale residual network is used to extract the characteristics of the original signals in order to obtain sensitive characteristics from various angles. Because the residual structure is used in the model, the problem of model degradation can be avoided. Finally, a fully connected layer is introduced for SA detection. In order to overcome the impact of class imbalance, a focal loss function is introduced to replace the traditional cross-entropy loss function, which makes the model pay more attention to learning difficult samples in the training phase. Experimental results from the Apnea-ECG dataset show that the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the proposed multi-scale residual network are 86.0%, 84.1% and 87.1%, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed method not only achieves greater recognition accuracy than other methods, but it also effectively resolves the problem of low sensitivity caused by class imbalance

Synergy and Transition of Recovery Efficiency of Nitrogen Fertilizer in Various Rice Genotypes under Organic Farming

Despite the growing demand for organic products, research on organic farming (OF) such as genotype screening, fertilizer application and nutrition uptake remains limited. This study focused on comparisons of the apparent recovery efficiency of nitrogen fertilizer (REN) in rice grown under OF and conventional farming (CF). Thirty-two representative conventional Japonica rice varieties were field grown under five different treatments: control check (CK); organic farming with low, medium and high levels of organic fertilizer (LO, MO and HO, respectively); and CF. Comparisons of REN between OF and CF classified the 32 genotypes into four types: high REN under both OF and CF (type-A); high REN under OF and low REN under CF (type-B); low REN under OF and high REN under CF (type-C); and low REN under both OF and CF (type-D). Though the yield and REN of all the rice varieties were higher with CF than with OF, organic N efficient type-A and B were able to maintain relatively high grain yield under OF. Physiological activities in flag leaves of the four types from booting to maturity were subsequently investigated under OF and CF. Under OF, high values of soil and plant analyzer development (SPAD) and N were observed in type-B varieties, while in contrast, both indexes slowly decreased in type-C varieties under CF. Moreover, the decline in N content in type-C and D varieties was greater under OF than CF. The decrease in glutamine synthetase (GS), glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (GPT) and glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) activity in flag leaves was smaller under OF than CF in type-A and B varieties, while in contrast, type-C and D varieties showed an opposite trend. The findings suggest that OF slows the decline in key enzymes of N metabolism in organic N-efficient type rice, thus maintaining a relatively high capacity for N uptake and utilization and increasing yield during the late growth period. Accordingly, we were able to screen for varieties of rice with synergistically high REN and high grain yield under OF