Effect of TiN diffusion barrier layer on residual stress and carrier transport in flexible CZTSSe solar cells

The major drawback of flexible Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ (CZTSSe) solar cells is the inevitable residual stress in CZTSSe that considerably limits the efficiency and flexibility of these cells. Hence, in this work, TiN layers with varying thicknesses were sputtered between flexible Ti substrates and back contact Mo layers as diffusion barriers. The TiN barrier layer relieved residual stress, facilitated grain growth, and decreased the porosity of CZTSSe, thereby effectively suppressing the formation of carrier recombination paths and improving the mechanical strength of CZTSSe. Meanwhile, the band alignment of the CZTSSe/CdS heterojunction could be significantly tailored, leading to an improved ‘‘cliff-like’’ conduction band offset from ?0.49 eV to ?0.33 eV. Under the optimized TiN layer thickness of 50 nm, the power conversion efficiency of the fabricated flexible CZTSSe solar cell increased considerably from 3.43% to 4.85% along with high bending stability. Therefore, introducing the TiN diffusion barrier into traditional flexible CZTSSe solar cells improves the efficiency and flexibility of these devices. Moreover, this method could be a promising pathway for the large-scale production of smart, flexible, and portable electronic devices.     

High carrier mobility low-voltage ZnO thin film transistors fabricated at a low temperature via solution processing

Wide-bandgap ZnO TFTs have many potential applications in large-area, flexible electronics and transparent devices because of their low cost, high performance and excellent optical transmittance. High-performance ZnO TFTs fabricated via simple solution processing have been widely studied. However, the key issues of solution-processable ZnO TFTs are the relatively high processing temperature (> 300?°C) and the high operating voltage for achieving the desired electrical properties. Here, we successfully fabricated low-voltage ZnO TFTs at an annealing temperature of ≤?250?°C. The resulting ZnO transistors with high-k terpolymer P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) showed a mobility of up to 5.3?cm² V^?1 s^?1 and an on/off ratio of >?10⁵ at 3?V. Furthermore, the influence of the dielectric constant on the carrier mobility was investigated. A lower k-value dielectric resulted in a high carrier mobility under the same carrier density. Therefore, with a low-k CYTOP dielectric applied to modify the interface between the ZnO semiconductor and the P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) layer, ZnO transistors annealed at 250?°C showed an electron mobility of 13.6?cm² V^?1 s^?1 and an on/off ratio of >?10⁵ at 3?V. To the best of our knowledge, this mobility is the highest value reported to date among the low-voltage solution-processable undoped ZnO TFTs annealed at temperatures of ≤?300?°C.     

Low temperature synthesis and spark plasma sintering of a boron carbide with a low residual carbon content

Using spark plasma sintering (SPS), >98.5 % dense boron carbide (B₄C) samples were made from commercially available and lab-synthesised powders made via a low temperature synthesis (LTS) process. The work showed that the LTS powder can be produced in batches of tens to hundreds of grams whilst maintaining a high purity material with lower levels of residual free carbon (20.6–21.3 wt.% C) than commercially available samples (22.4 wt.% C). The LTS material was seen to exhibit higher hardness values (37.8 GPa) than the commercial grade material (32.5 GPa) despite featuring a coarser average grain size (10.8 μm and 2.4 μm respectively). This is largely thought to be due to the influence of ZrO₂ and AlB₂ impurities introduced to the material during micronising milling of the powder after synthesis, as opposed to the influence of the materials lower carbon content.     

High temperature fracture toughness and residual stress in thermal barrier coatings evaluated by an in-situ indentation method

High temperature fracture toughness and residual stress are important for the evaluation of TBCs. In this paper, an in-situ high temperature indentation method was originally developed to investigate the high temperature fracture toughness and residual stress in a typical TBC, nanostructured 8?wt% yttria partially stabilized zirconia (YSZ) coating. The cracks caused by in-situ high temperature indentation tests were observed, and high temperature fracture toughness and residual stress were experimentally measured. The fracture toughness was measured to be 1.25, 0.91 and 0.75?MPa*m^1/2 at 25, 800 and 1000?°C, respectively. The residual stress was measured to be ? 131.3, ? 55.5 and ? 45.5?MPa, correspondingly. Moreover, the residual stress and fracture toughness both decrease with increasing environmental temperature. It is also found that the fracture toughness without consideration of residual stress is significantly larger than the intrinsic fracture toughness, which may result from the compressive stress state.     

低温合成高铬烧结料

通过对高纯氧化铬的烧结温度和烧结气氛以及保温时间的实验研究 ,利用复合覆盖剂的方式 ,确定了无反应层高铬料的最佳烧成温度为 15 5 0℃保温 1h ,其相对密度可达 97%以上。     

EIS analysis on low temperature fabrication of TiO2 porous films for dye-sensitized solar cells

A low temperature (<150 °C) fabrication method for preparation of TiO₂ porous films with high efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) has been developed. The Ti(IV) tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) was added to the paste of TiO₂ nanoparticles to interconnect the TiO₂ particles. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique was employed to quantify the charge transport resistance at the TiO₂/dye/electrolyte interface (R_ct2) and electron lifetime in the TiO₂ film (τ_e) under different molar ratios of TTIP/TiO₂ and also at various TiO₂ thicknesses. It was found that the R_ct2 decreased as the molar ratio increased from 0.02 to 0.08, however, it increased at a molar ratio of 0.2 due to the reduction in surface area for dye adsorption. In addition, the characteristic frequency peak shifted to lower frequency at a molar ratio of 0.08, indicating the longer electron lifetime. As for the thickness effect, TiO₂ film with a thickness around 17 μm achieved the best cell efficiency. EIS study also confirmed that, under illumination, the smallest R_ct2 was associated with a TiO₂ thickness of 17 μm, with the R_ct2 increased as the thickness of TiO₂ film increased. In the Bode plots, the characteristic frequency peaks shifted to higher frequency when the thickness of TiO₂ increased from 17.2 to 48.2 μm, indicating the electron recombination increases as the thickness of the TiO₂ electrode increases.Finally, to make better use of longer wavelength light, 30 wt% of larger TiO₂ particle (300 nm) was mixed with P25 TiO₂ as light scattering particles. It effectively increased the short-circuit current density and cell conversion efficiency from 7.44 to 8.80 mA cm⁻² and 3.75 to 4.20%, respectively.     

Comparative study on the electrochemical performance of LiFePO4 cathodes fabricated by low temperature 3D printing,direct ink writing and conventional roller coating process

Electrodes for lithium-ion batteries can be fabricated in many ways including conventional roller coating and 3D printing. Roller coating is a standardized process in current lithium-ion battery industry, while 3D printing has been used to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) unconventional electrodes with tailored geometries. Our previous study proposed a low temperature 3D printing process to fabricate highly-porous LiFePO₄ (LFP) electrodes. However, there still lack a study on the comparison of electrochemical performance of LFP electrodes fabricated via the three different fabrication processes including low temperature direct writing-based 3D printing (LTDW), room temperature direct ink writing (DIW) and roller coating process. In this study, we fabricated LFP cathodes using these three fabrication processes from LFP inks with different solid contents. By varying the solid content, LFP electrodes with different geometries (including width and thickness), morphologies and porous microstructures were obtained via LTDW and DIW. Mercury porosimetry was performed to examine the differences of the three types of LFP electrodes in porous microstructures. Electrochemical performance including charge/discharge, rate performance, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) of the three types of electrodes were measured and compared. Results showed that electrode fabrication processes have important effects on the electrochemical performance of LFP electrodes depending on the ink solid content. LTDW-fabricated electrodes had the best performance at high solid content (≥0.467 g/mL) and conventional roller coated electrodes performed better at low solid content (≤0.356 g/mL). Relationships between ink solid content, fabrication process, resulting porous microstructures and electrochemical performance were discussed. Finally, an optimal specific capacity of ∼82 mAh.g-1 @ 10C was achieved at a solid content of 0.467 g/mL by LTDW process.     

含球面凹坑缺陷压力管道的高温蠕变应力分析

通过大型有限元分析软件ABAQUS对在蠕变条件下运行、受内压作用含凹坑缺陷管道进行有限元数值模拟,获得蠕变应力重分布的变化过程.结果表明:含局部凹坑缺陷管道,由于受结构不连续和高温条件的影响,导致应力水平提高,降低了管道的承载能力.同时,在高温环境下,应力最大位置和应力集中系数最大位置可能会随蠕变时间的延长而改变.     

Optical and electrical properties of Al doped ZnO thin film with preferred orientation in situ grown at room temperature

To optimize the process and obtain highly conducting and transparent Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films, AZO films were deposited on glass substrates at room temperature by Radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering with various Argon flow rates. The influences of Argon flow rate on structure, morphology, optical, electrical and photoluminescence properties of AZO films were investigated by varying the Argon flow rate from 36 to 68 sccm. The best quality AZO film with resistivity 1.39 × 10⁻³ Ω cm, sheet resistance 8.2 Ω/sq and 84.2% average visible transmittance was prepared at 44 sccm for 30 min. Also, the self-heating effect of target was investigated by preparing AZO films for 10 min and 20 min at 44 sccm, 180 W and 1.0 Pa. The influence of increasing structural quality actually affected by Argon flow rate was more prominent on carrier concentration than mobility. The schematic illustration of microstructural evolution was proposed. The average growth rate of around 60 nm/min demonstrated the self-heating effect of target was weak and could be ignored.     

低温法制备二氧化钛薄膜及其光催化氧化处理电镀含铬废水

以钛酸四丁酯为原料,采用微波辅助低温法在玻璃表面制备锐钛矿结构的二氧化钛薄膜。分别用X射线衍射法(XRD)和扫描电子显微镜(SEM)表征其相结构和表面形貌;通过光催化降解实际电镀含铬废水实验,探讨了光源、废水pH、废水初始浓度、光照时间及涂膜层数对总铬去除率的影响。光催化氧化的最优条件为:废水初始浓度3 000~9 000 mg/L,pH=8.3,负载4层薄膜,254 nm紫外光照射3 h。在最优条件下,废水的总铬去除率高达99.8%。     

Synthesis of ZrCx with controlled carbon stoichiometry by low temperature solid state reaction

Zirconium carbide (ZrC_x) powders were synthesized at temperatures between 1300℃ and 2000℃ by solid state reaction of zirconium hydride (ZrH₂) and carbon black. Crystal structure, lattice parameters, and grain sizes of the as-synthesized ZrC_x powders were characterized for two different starting ZrH₂:C ratios of 1:0.60 and 1:0.98. Powders with stoichiometry approaching ZrC_0.98 were synthesized at temperatures as low as 1600℃ whereas ZrC_x powders synthesized at lower temperatures had lower carbon contents regardless of the starting ZrH₂:C ratio. Crystallite sizes as small as about 50 nm were obtained due to the low synthesis temperature. Oxygen dissolved into the ZrC_x lattice when carbon vacancies were present. Neutron diffraction analysis was used to determine that carbon stoichiometry increased and dissolved oxygen content decreased as synthesis temperature increased.     

30t·d-1低温多效海水淡化装置中试试验

引言缺水问题已经是一个世界性问题,与跨流域调水、蓄水、开采地下水等解决水资源短缺的传统措施相比,海水淡化是一种可持续、长久解决水资源缺乏的方式。我国是一个海洋大国,在11个沿     

低温陈化法制备SO_4~(2-)/ZrO_2-Al_2O_3固体超强酸催化合成氯乙酸异辛酯

采用ZrOCl2.8H2O和Al(NO3)3.9H2O共沉淀法制备固体超强酸SO42-/ZrO2-Al2O3催化剂。固体超强酸SO24-/ZrO2-Al2O3制备条件为nZr∶nAl=3∶1,-15℃陈化24 h,120℃干燥12 h,浸渍液硫酸浓度为0.5 mol/L,浸渍4 h,120℃干燥1 h,650℃焙烧4 h。将此固体超强酸酯用于氯乙酸和异辛醇合成氯乙酸异辛酯的酯化反应,考察了异辛醇和氯乙酸的摩尔比、催化剂用量、反应时间、带水剂环己烷的用量对酯化反应的影响。结果表明,醇酸比为1.1∶1,催化剂用量为所用氯乙酸质量的1.7%,环己烷为异辛醇体积的46%,反应时间1.5 h条件下酯化率达94.3%。