Preparation of lithium niobate optical thin film and patterned microstructure via chemical modification

In this paper, a stable lithium niobate (LN) sol was prepared using niobium pentachloride, niobium ethoxide, lithium acetate, anhydrous ethanol, and benzoylacetone (BzAcH) as a chemical modifier. The effects of different starting materials and organic solvents on the obtained gel film quality of the sols were studied and the optimization mechanism of BzAcH on the film quality was analyzed in detail. The effects of heat treatment temperature on the structure and performance of the LN thin films were also studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra showed that LN was more highly crystalline in the heat treatment temperature range of 600–800 °C. The refractive index of the LN thin films first increased and then decreased with increasing heat treatment temperature, and the LN thin film prepared at 700 °C had the largest refractive index. Light transmittance tests showed that as the heat treatment temperature increased, light transmittance decreased. Finally, it was determined that LN gel films modified with BzAcH were more highly sensitive to UV light and that after UV irradiation, it was difficult to dissolve LN gel films in organic solvent. The UV-sensitive property was utilized to realize microstructure processing of the LN thin films. The results indicated that a high-quality, non-destructive, and photoresist-free micro-fabrication method was realized. This method was used to fabricate microscale LN fine patterns with smooth sidewalls while avoiding lateral corrosion. These results are of great significance for LN thin film applications and the development of LN-based optoelectronic devices prepared by chemical methods.     

Facile fabrication of MOF-decorated nickel iron foam for highly efficient oxygen evolution

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as efficient electrocatalysts due to the features of high specific surface area, rich pore structure and diversified composition. It is still challenging to synthesize self-supporting MOF-based catalysts using simple and low-cost fabrication methods. Herein, we successfully fabricated Ni-doped MIL-53(Fe) supported on nickel-iron foam (Ni-MIL-53(Fe)/NFF) as efficient electrocatalyst. A facile two-step solvothermal method without adding any metal salts was used, which can simplify the fabrication process and reduce the experimental cost. In the fabrication process, the bimetallic Ni-MIL-53(Fe)/NFF was in situ converted from an intermediate NiFe₂O₄/NFF. The obtained material exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic oxygen evolution performance with a low overpotential of 248 mV at 50 mA cm^?2, and a small Tafel slope of 46.4 mV dec^?1. This work sheds light on the simple and efficient preparation of bimetallic MOF-based material, which is promising in electrocatalysts.     

Micromembrane absorber with deep-permeation nanostructure assembled by flowing synthesis

A micromembrane adsorber with deep-permeation nanostructure (DPNS) has been successfully fabricated by flowing synthesis. The nanoparticles are in-situ assembled in membrane pores and immobilized in each membrane pore along the direction of membrane thickness. The nanoparticles with a lower size and thinner size distribution can be achieved owing to the confined space effect of the membrane pores. As a concept-of-proof, the nano ZIF-8 and ZIF-67 are fabricated in porous membrane pores for methyl orange (MO) and rhodamine B (RhB) adsorption. The adsorption rate is increased significantly owing to the enhanced contact and mass transfer in the confined space. The adsorption capacity for the RhB is also increased, since the size of the nanoparticles assembled in membrane pores is smaller with more active sites exposed. This micromembrane adsorber with DPNS has good reusability and can provide a promising prospect for industrial application.     

Molecular fingerprint and machine learning to accelerate design of high-performance homochiral metal–organic frameworks

Computational screening was employed to calculate the enantioseparation capabilities of 45 functionalized homochiral metal–organic frameworks (FHMOFs), and machine learning (ML) and molecular fingerprint (MF) techniques were used to find new FHMOFs with high performance. With increasing temperature, the enantioselectivities for (R,S)-1,3-dimethyl-1,2-propadiene are improved. The “glove effect” in the chiral pockets was proposed to explain the correlations between the steric effect of functional groups and performance of FHMOFs. Moreover, the neighborhood component analysis and RDKit/MACCS MFs show the highest predictive effect on enantioselectivities among the four ML classification algorithms with nine MFs that were tested. Based on the importance of MF, 85 new FHMOFs were designed, and a newly designed FHMOF, NO₂-NHOH-FHMOF, with high similarity to the optimal MFs achieved improved chiral separation performance, with enantioselectivities of 85%. The design principles and new chiral pockets obtained by ML and MFs could facilitate the development of new materials for chiral separation.     

Non-Halogenated-Solvent Processed and Additive-Free Tandem Organic Solar Cell with Efficiency Reaching 16.67%

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have recently reached a remarkably high efficiency and become a promising technology for commercial application. However, OSCs with top efficiency are mostly processed by halogenated solvents and with additives that are not environmentally friendly, which hinders large-scale manufacture. In this study, high-performance tandem OSCs, based on polymer donors and two small-molecule acceptors with different bandgaps, are fabricated by solution processing with non-halogenated solvents without additive. Importantly, the two active layers developed from non-halogenated solvents show better phase segregation and charge transport properties, leading to superior performance than halogenated ones. As a result, a tandem OSC with high efficiency of up to 16.67% is obtained, showing unique advantages in future massive production.     

Toward High-Performance Dihydrophenazine-Based Conjugated Microporous Polymer Cathodes for Dual-Ion Batteries through Donor–Acceptor Structural Design

Recent studies have demonstrated that dihydrophenazine (Pz) with high redox-reversibility and high theoretical capacity is an attractive building block to construct p-type polymer cathodes for dual-ion batteries. However, most reported Pz-based polymer cathodes to date still suffer from low redox activity, slow kinetics, and short cycling life. Herein, a donor–acceptor (D–A) Pz-based conjugated microporous polymer (TzPz) cathode is constructed by integrating the electron-donating Pz unit and the electron-withdrawing 2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine (Tz) unit into a polymer chain. The D–A type structure enhances the polymer conjugation degree and decreases the band gap of TzPz, facilitating electron transportation along the polymer skeletons. Therefore the TzPz cathode for dual-ion battery shows a high reversible capacity of 192 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.2 A g⁻¹ with excellent rate performance (108 mAh g⁻¹ at 30 A g⁻¹), which is much higher than that of its counterpart polymer BzPz produced from 1,3,5-triphenylbenzene (Bz) and Pz (148 and 44 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.2 and 10 A g⁻¹, respectively). More importantly, the TzPz cathode also shows a long and stable cyclability of more than 10 000 cycles. These results demonstrate that the D–A structural design is an efficient strategy for developing high-performance polymer cathodes for dual-ion batteries.     

High-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells Based on a Low-Cost Fully Non-Fused Electron Acceptor

A series of tetrathiophene-based fully non-fused ring acceptors (4T-1, 4T-2, 4T-3, and 4T-4), which can be paired with the star donor polymer PBDB-T to fabricate highly efficient organic solar cells are developed. Tailoring the size of lateral chains can tune the solubility and packing mode of acceptor molecules in neat and blend films. It is found that the incorporation of 2-ethylhexyl chains can effectively change the compatibility with the donor polymer PBDB-T, and an encouraging power conversion efficiency of 10.15% is accomplished by 4T-3-based organic solar cells. It also presents good compatibility with the other polymer donor and an even higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.04% is achieved based on D18:4T-3 blend, which is the champion PCE for the fully non-fused acceptors. Importantly, these inexpensive tetrathiophene fully non-fused ring acceptors provide cost-effective photovoltaic performance. The results demonstrate a high photovoltaic performance from synthetically inexpensive materials could be achieved by the rational design of non-fused ring acceptor molecules.     

Alkylated indolo[3,2,1-jk]carbazoles as new building blocks for solution processable organic electronics

A facile strategy for the introduction of tert-butyl and hexyl chains to the indolo[3,2,1-jk]carbazole scaffold is presented. With these building blocks six materials based on three different 4,4′-bis(N-carbazolyl)-1,1-biphenyl derivatives with varying degree of planarization were prepared. Characterization of the materials showed that the alkyl chains have only minor effects on the photophysical properties of the compounds. In contrast, thermal robustness towards decomposition and electrochemical stability are increased by the introduced alkyl chains. Detailed investigation of the solubility in five different solvents revealed that the incorporation of the alkyl chains increases the solubility significantly. The increased solubility of the materials allowed the application as host materials in red, green and sky-blue solution processed phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes. Hence, this work presents the first solution processed light emitting devices based on the indolo[3,2,1-jk]carbazole scaffold.     

High-Performance Solution-Processed Nondoped Circularly Polarized OLEDs with Chiral Triptycene Scaffold-Based TADF Emitters Realizing Over 20% External Quantum Efficiency

Recently, circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) fabricated with thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters are developed rapidly. However, most devices are fabricated by vacuum deposition technology, and developing efficient solution-processed CP-OLEDs, especially nondoped devices, is still a challenge. Herein, a pair of triptycene-based enantiomers, (S,S)-/(R,R)-TpAc-TRZ, are synthesized. The novel chiral triptycene scaffold of enantiomers avoids their intermolecular π–π stacking, which is conducive to their aggregation-induced emission characteristics and high photoluminescence quantum yield of 85% in the solid state. Moreover, the triptycene-based enantiomers exhibit efficient TADF activities with a small singlet-triplet energy gap (ΔE_ST) of 0.03 eV and delayed fluorescence lifetime of 1.1 µs, as well as intense circularly polarized luminescence with dissymmetry factors (|g_PL|) of about 1.9 × 10⁻³. The solution-processed nondoped CP-OLEDs based on (S,S)-/(R,R)-TpAc-TRZ not only display obvious circularly polarized electroluminescence signals with g_EL values of +1.5 × 10⁻³ and −2.0 × 10⁻³, respectively, but also achieve high efficiencies with external quantum, current, and power efficiency up to 25.5%, 88.6 cd A⁻¹, and 95.9 lm W⁻¹, respectively.