Maskless Preparation of Spatially-Resolved Plasmonic Nanoparticles on Polydimethylsiloxane via In Situ Fluoride-Assisted Synthesis

Here, a fluoride-assisted route for the controlled in-situ synthesis of metal nanoparticles (NPs) (i.e., AgNPs, AuNPs) on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is reported. The size and coverage of the NPs on the PDMS surface are modulated with time and over space during the synthetic process, leveraging the improved yield (10×) and faster kinetics (100×) of NP formation in the presence of F⁻ ions, compared to fluoride-free approaches. This enables the maskless preparation of both linear and step gradients and patterns of NPs in 1D and 2D on the PDMS surface. As an application in flexible plasmonics/photonics, continuous and step-wise spatial modulations of the plasmonic features of PDMS slabs with 1D and 2D AgNP gradients on the surface are demonstrated. An excellent spatially resolved tuning of key optical parameters, namely, optical density from zero to 5 and extinction ratio up to 100 dB, is achieved with AgNP gradients prepared in AgF solution for 12 minutes; the performance are comparable to those of commercial dielectric/interference filters. When used as a rejection filter in optical fluorescence microscopy, the AgNP-PDMS slabs are able to reject the excitation laser at 405 nm and retain the green fluorescence of microbeads (100 µm) used as test cases.     

电压对电刷镀三价铬镀层性能的影响

在45钢表面电刷镀得到三价铬镀层,镀液组成和工艺条件为:Cr2(SO4)36H2O 0.4 mol/L,甲酸铵0.5 mol/L,氨基乙酸0.5 mol/L,H3BO30.6 mol/L,NaH2PO2 H2O 0.3 mol/L,pH=1.5,温度50°C,镀笔移动速率15 cm/s。研究了电压对镀铬层显微结构、表面粗糙度、厚度、显微硬度和耐磨性的影响。随电压增大,镀层厚度增大,显微硬度和耐磨性均先提高后降低。电压为14 V时,镀层的表面平整,粗糙度为2.387μm,显微硬度为602 HV,耐磨性最好。     

脉冲电沉积镍-铜合金

采用脉冲电沉积技术在304不锈钢表面制备Ni-Cu合金镀层,镀液组成和工艺条件为:NiSO4ꞏ6H2O 200g/L,CuSO4ꞏ5H2O 10 g/L,十二烷基硫酸钠0.2 g/L,柠檬酸钠80 g/L,糖精0.2 g/L,pH 4.0,温度25°C,搅拌速率30 r/min,平均电流密度40~120 mA/cm2,脉冲频率0~100 Hz,占空比20%~90%,时间30 min。研究了平均电流密度、脉冲频率和占空比对Ni-Cu合金镀层的元素组成、表面形貌和显微硬度的影响,得到较优的工艺参数为:平均电流密度40 mA/cm2,脉冲频率50 Hz,占空比60%。该条件下所得Ni-Cu合金镀层由质量分数分别为56.53%和43.47%的Ni和Cu组成,呈“菜花”状形貌,结晶细致、均匀,显微硬度为614.4 HV。     

Investigation on phase shifting for a 4 K Stirling pulse tube cryocooler with He-3 as working fluid

He-3 is generally recognized for its ability to provide more excellent thermophysical performance than He-4, especially in the 4 K temperature range. However, this was not always the case in our preliminary experiments on a three-stage Stirling-type pulse tube cryocooler (SPTC). Our ongoing studies, as reported in this paper, demonstrate that the different working fluids also affect the performance through their phase shifting capability. This feature has been passed over in large part by researchers considering refrigerant substitution. Unlike previous theoretical analyses that focus primarily on regenerator losses, this report investigates the effects of the working fluid on the phase angle at the cold end in order to quantitatively reveal the relationship between the lowest attainable temperature and the cooling capacity. The analysis agrees well with our experimental results on a three-stage SPTC. While running with the operating parameters optimized for He-3, the lowest temperature of the SPTC decreased from 5.4 K down to 4.03 K. This is the lowest refrigeration temperature ever achieved with a three-stage SPTC.     

A highly active composite electrocatalyst Ni–Fe–P–Nb2O5/NF for overall water splitting

This work demonstrates a facile Nb₂O₅-decorated electrocatalyst to prepare cost-effective Ni–Fe–P–Nb₂O₅/NF and compared HER & OER performance in alkaline media. The prepared electrocatalyst presented an outstanding electrocatalytic performance towards hydrogen evolution reaction, which required a quite low overpotential of 39.05 mV at the current density of ?10 mA cm^?2 in 1 M KOH electrolyte. Moreover, the Ni–Fe–P–Nb₂O₅/NF catalyst also has excellent oxygen evolution efficiency, which needs only 322 mV to reach the current density of 50 mA cm^?2. Furthermore, its electrocatalytic performance towards overall water splitting worked as both cathode and anode achieved a quite low potential of 1.56 V (10 mA cm^?2).     

Microstructure,tribological behavior and magnetic properties of Fe−Ni−TiO2 composite coatings synthesized via pulse frequency variation

The Fe−Ni−TiO₂ nanocomposite coatings were electrodeposited by pulse frequency variation. The results showed that the nanocomposite with a very dense coating surface and a nanocrystalline structure was produced at higher frequencies. By increasing the pulse frequency from 10 to 500 Hz, the iron and TiO₂ nanoparticles contentswere increased in expense of nickel content. XRD patterns showed that by increasing the frequency to 500 Hz, an enhancement ofBCC phase was observed and the grain size of deposits was reduced to 35 nm. The microhardness and the surface roughness were increased to 647 HV and 125 nm at 500 Hz due to the grain size reduction and higher incorporation of TiO₂ nanoparticles into the Fe−Ni matrix (5.13 wt.%). Moreover, the friction coefficient and wear rate values were decreased by increasing the pulse frequency;while the saturation magnetization and coercivity values of the composite deposits were increased.     

Application of differential evolution for cascaded multilevel VSI with harmonics elimination PWM switching

Harmonic elimination pulse width modulation (HEPWM) method has been widely applied to multilevel voltage source inverter (MVSI) to remove low frequency harmonics from its output voltage. However, the computation of the HEPWM switching angles for MVSI is very challenging due to several constraints, namely angle sequencing, very tight angular spacing and the numerous possibilities of angles distribution ratio. Realizing the potential of Differential Evolution (DE) to handle complex problems, this work proposes its application to solve the HEPWM problem for cascaded MVSI. Its emphasis is on improving the availability of HEPWM for higher output voltage by extending the maximum range of modulation index (M). It also removes the discontinuities in the switching angles and reduces the number of distribution ratio required to obtain the required solution. Compared to the most advanced (similar) work, i.e., 7-level MVSI with seventeen switching angles, DE covers a wider range of M; the maximum achievable M is 2.80. Furthermore, it exhibits very low second order distortion factor (DF₂): for the worst case, the value of DF₂ is 0.0014%. To verify the viability of the proposed algorithm, simulation is carried out and hardware prototype is constructed. Both results show very good agreement with the theoretical prediction.     

工艺参数对超声辅助脉冲电沉积镍-氮化钛复合镀层的影响

在45钢表面以超声波辅助脉冲电沉积制备Ni-TiN复合镀层。研究了平均阴极电流密度、脉冲占空比、超声功率和TiN粒子(平均直径20~30 nm)添加量对复合镀层的TiN粒子含量和显微硬度的影响。得到较优的工艺参数为:NiSO4ꞏ6H2O 300 g/L,NiCl2ꞏ6H2O 30 g/L,H3BO330 g/L,十二烷基硫酸钠0.3 g/L,TiN 25 g/L,pH 4.1~4.3,温度40°C,平均阴极电流密度4 A/dm2,脉冲占空比40%,脉冲频率1000 Hz,超声功率300 W,机械搅拌速率200 r/min,时间60 min。该条件下所得Ni-TiN复合镀层的TiN质量分数为8.35%,显微硬度为819 HV,表面平整、致密,晶粒尺寸均匀。