13,628 research outputs found
Enhancing the Efficiency of Organic Photovoltaics by a Photoactive Molecular Mediator
High boiling-point solvent additives, such as 1,8-diiodooctane, have been widely used to tune nanoscale phase morphology for increased efficiency in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. However, liquid-state solvent additives remain in the active films for extended times and later migrate or evaporate from the films, leading to unstable device performance. Here, a solid-state photoactive molecular mediator, namely N(BAI)3, is reported that could be employed to replace the commonly used solvent additives to tune the morphology of bulk heterojunction films for improved device performance. The N(BAI)3 mediator not only resides in the active films locally to fine tune the phase morphology, but also contributes to the additional absorption of the active films, leading to ā¼11% enhancement of power conversion efficiency of P3HT:PC60BM devices. Comparative studies are carried out to probe the nanoscale morphologies using grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering and complementary neutron reflectometry. The use of 1 wt% N(BAI)3 is found to effectively tune the packing of P3HT, presumably through balanced Ļ-interactions endowed by its large conjugated Ļ surface, and to promote the formation of a PC60BM-rich top interfacial layer. These findings open up a new way to effectively tailor the phase morphology by photoactive molecular mediators in organic photovoltaics
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Unraveling the Cationic and Anionic Redox Reactions in a Conventional Layered Oxide Cathode
Increasing interest in high-energy lithium-ion batteries has triggered the demand to clarify the reaction mechanism in battery cathodes during high-potential operation. However, the reaction mechanism often involves both transition-metal and oxygen activities that remain elusive. Here we report a comprehensive study of both cationic and anionic redox mechanisms of LiNiO2 nearly full delithiation. Selection of pure LiNiO2 removes the complication of multiple transition metals. Using combined X-ray absorption spectroscopy, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, and operando differential electrochemical mass spectrometry, we are able to clarify the redox reactions of transition metals in the bulk and at the surface, reversible lattice oxygen redox, and irreversible oxygen release associated with surface reactions. Many findings presented here bring attention to different types of oxygen activities and metal-oxygen interactions in layered oxides, which are of crucial importance to the advancement of a Ni-rich layered oxide cathode for high capacity and long cycling performance
Tunable surface plasmons of dielectric core-metal shell particles for dye sensitized solar cells
Our findings show that the extinction spectrum of core-shell type plasmonic particles can be effectively controlled by changing their geometric factor. This tuning capability allows the surface plasmons of the core-shell particles to be designed in such a way that the absorption of dye molecules is maximized in dye sensitized solar cells. When plasmonic particles with a metallic nanoshell and a dielectric core are incorporated into a TiO2 mesoporous photoelectrode, the optical cross section of dye sensitizers and the energy conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are increased. The enhanced photon-electron conversion is attributed to localized surface plasmons of the core-shell particles, which increase the absorption and scattering of incoming light in the photoelectrode. Ā© 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry
A universal characterization of nonlinear self-oscillation and chaos in various particle-wave-wall interactions
The comprehensive parameter space of self-oscillation and its period-doubling route to chaos are shown for bounded beam-plasma systems. In this parametrization, it is helpful to use a potentially universal parameter in close analogy with free-electron-laser chaos. A common parameter, which is related to the velocity slippage and the ratio of bounce to oscillation frequencies, is shown to have similar significance for different physical systems. This single parameter replaces the dependences on many input parameters, thus suitable for a simplifying and diagnostic measure of nonlinear dynamical and chaotic phenomena for various systems of particle-wave interactions. The results of independent kinetic simulations verify those of nonlinear fluid simulations.open9
Controlled release of human growth hormone fused with a human hybrid Fc fragment through a nanoporous polymer membrane
Nanotechnology has been applied to the development of more effective and compatible drug delivery systems for therapeutic proteins. Human growth hormone (hGH) was fused with a hybrid Fc fragment containing partial Fc domains of human IgD and IgG(4) to produce a long-acting fusion protein. The fusion protein, hGH-hyFc, resulted in the increase of the hydrodynamic diameter (ca. 11 nm) compared with the diameter (ca. 5 nm) of the recombinant hGH. A diblock copolymer membrane with nanopores (average diameter of 14.3 nm) exhibited a constant release rate of hGH-hyFc. The hGH-hyFc protein released in a controlled manner for one month was found to trigger the phosphorylation of Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) in human B lymphocyte and to exhibit an almost identical circular dichroism spectrum to that of the original hGH-hyFc, suggesting that the released fusion protein should maintain the functional and structural integrity of hGH. Thus, the nanoporous release device could be a potential delivery system for the long-term controlled release of therapeutic proteins fused with the hybrid Fc fragment.X111313sciescopu
Human motion tracking based on complementary Kalman filter
Miniaturized Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) has been widely used in many motion capturing applications. In order to overcome stability and noise problems of IMU, a lot of efforts have been made to develop appropriate data fusion method to obtain reliable orientation estimation from IMU data. This article presents a method which models the errors of orientation, gyroscope bias and magnetic disturbance, and compensate the errors of state variables with complementary Kalman filter in a body motion capture system. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method significantly reduces the accumulative orientation estimation errors
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Ultrahigh power and energy density in partially ordered lithium-ion cathode materials
The rapid market growth of rechargeable batteries requires electrode materials that combine high power and energy and are made from earth-abundant elements. Here we show that combining a partial spinel-like cation order and substantial lithium excess enables both dense and fast energy storage. Cation overstoichiometry and the resulting partial order is used to eliminate the phase transitions typical of ordered spinels and enable a larger practical capacity, while lithium excess is synergistically used with fluorine substitution to create a high lithium mobility. With this strategy, we achieved specific energies greater than 1,100 Wh kgā1 and discharge rates up to 20 A gā1. Remarkably, the cathode materials thus obtained from inexpensive manganese present a rare case wherein an excellent rate capability coexists with a reversible oxygen redox activity. Our work shows the potential for designing cathode materials in the vast space between fully ordered and disordered compounds
Anomalous structure in the single particle spectrum of the fractional quantum Hall effect
The two-dimensional electron system (2DES) is a unique laboratory for the
physics of interacting particles. Application of a large magnetic field
produces massively degenerate quantum levels known as Landau levels. Within a
Landau level the kinetic energy of the electrons is suppressed, and
electron-electron interactions set the only energy scale. Coulomb interactions
break the degeneracy of the Landau levels and can cause the electrons to order
into complex ground states. In the high energy single particle spectrum of this
system, we observe salient and unexpected structure that extends across a wide
range of Landau level filling fractions. The structure appears only when the
2DES is cooled to very low temperature, indicating that it arises from delicate
ground state correlations. We characterize this structure by its evolution with
changing electron density and applied magnetic field. We present two possible
models for understanding these observations. Some of the energies of the
features agree qualitatively with what might be expected for composite
Fermions, which have proven effective for interpreting other experiments in
this regime. At the same time, a simple model with electrons localized on
ordered lattice sites also generates structure similar to those observed in the
experiment. Neither of these models alone is sufficient to explain the
observations across the entire range of densities measured. The discovery of
this unexpected prominent structure in the single particle spectrum of an
otherwise thoroughly studied system suggests that there exist core features of
the 2DES that have yet to be understood.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure
Wilson Loops in N=2 Super-Yang-Mills from Matrix Model
We compute the expectation value of the circular Wilson loop in N=2
supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with N_f=2N hypermultiplets. Our results
indicate that the string tension in the dual string theory scales as the
logarithm of the 't Hooft coupling.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures; v2: Numerical factors corrected, simple
derivation of Wilson loop and discussion of continuation to complex lambda
added; v3: instanton partition function re-analyzed in order to take into
account a contribution of the hypermultiplet
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