Monitoring the Dynamic Process of Formation of Plasmonic Molecular Junctions during Single Nanoparticle Collisions

The capability to study the dynamic formation of plasmonic molecular junction is of fundamental importance, and it will provide new insights into molecular electronics/plasmonics, single‐entity electrochemistry, and nanooptoelectronics. Here, a facile method to form plasmonic molecular junctions is reported by utilizing single gold nanoparticle (NP) collision events at a highly curved gold nanoelectrode modified with a self‐assembled monolayer. By using time‐resolved electrochemical current measurement and surface‐enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy, the current changes and the evolution of interfacial chemical bonding are successfully observed in the newly formed molecular tunnel junctions during and after the gold NP “hit‐n‐stay” and “hit‐n‐run” collision events. The results lead to an in‐depth understanding of the single NP motion and the associated molecular level changes during the formation of the plasmonic molecular junctions in a single NP collision event. This method also provides a new platform to study molecular changes at the single molecule level during electron transport in a dynamic molecular tunnel junction.     

A Two‐Stage Annealing Strategy for Crystallization Control of CH3NH3PbI3 Films toward Highly Reproducible Perovskite Solar Cells

The solvent‐engineering method is widely used to fabricate top‐performing perovskite solar cells, which, however, usually exhibit inferior reproducibility. Herein, a two‐stage annealing (TSA) strategy is demonstrated for processing of perovskite films, namely, annealing the intermediate phase at 60 °C for the first stage then at 100 °C for the second stage. Compared to conventional direct annealing temperature (DHA) at 100 °C, using this strategy, MAPbI₃ films become more controllable, leading to superior film uniformity and device reproducibility with the champion device efficiency reaching 19.8%. More specifically, the coefficient of variation of efficiency for 49 cells is reduced to 5.9%, compared to 9.8% for that using DHA. The TSA process is carefully studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. It is found that in comparison with DHA the formation of hydrogen bonding and crystallization of perovskite are much slower and can be better controlled when using TSA. The improvements in film uniformity and device reproducibility are attributed to: 1) controllable MAPbI₃ crystal growth stemming from the progressive formation of hydrogen bonding between methylammonium and halide; 2) suppression of intermediate phase film dewetting, which is believed to be due to its decreased mobility at the initial low‐temperature annealing stage.     

In-situ synthesis of TiO2 nanostructures on Ti foil for enhanced and stable photocatalytic performance

TiO_2 nanostructures with strong interfacial adhesion and diverse morphologies have been in-situ grown on Ti foil substrate through a multiple-step method based on conventional plasma electrolytic oxidation(PEO) technology, hydrothermal reaction and ion exchange process. The PEO process is critical to the formation of TiO_2 seeding layer for the nucleation of Na_2Ti_3O_7 and H_2Ti_3O_7 mediates that are strongly attached to the Ti foil. An ion exchange reaction can finally lead to the formation of H_2Ti_3O_7 nanostructures with diverse morphologies and the calcination process can turn the H_2Ti_3O_7 nanostructures into TiO_2 nanostructures with enhanced crystallinity. The morphology of the TiO_2 nanostructures including nanoparticles(NP), nanowhiskers(NWK), nanowires(NW) and nanosheets(NS) can be easily tailored by controlling the NaOH concentration and reaction time during hydrothermal process. The morphology, composition and optical properties of TiO_2 photocatalysts were analyzed using scanning electron microscope(SEM), X-ray diffraction(XRD), photoluminescence(PL) spectroscopy and UV–vis absorption spectrum. Photocatalytic tests indicate that the TiO_2 nanosheets calcined at 500?C show good crystallization and the best capability of decomposing organic pollutants. The decoration of Ag cocatalyst can further improve the photocatalytic performance of the TiO_2 nanosheets as a result of the enhanced charger separation efficiency. Cyclic photocatalytic test using TiO_2 nanostructures grown on Ti foil substrate demonstrates the superior stability in the photodegradation of organic pollutant, suggesting the promising potential of in-situ growth technology for industrial application.     

Large capacitance and fast polarization response of thin electrolyte dielectrics by spin coating for two-dimensional MoS2 devices

Nano Research - A spin-coating method was applied to obtain thinner and smoother PEO/LiClO4 polymer electrolyte films (EFs) with a lower level of crystallization than those obtained using a...     

A relativistic extension of the complex scaling method using oscillator basis functions

We develop the complex scaling method within the relativistic framework by expanding the Dirac spinors in the complete set of eigensolutions of a harmonic oscillator potential, and present the theoretical formalism of describing the discrete bound and resonant states on the same footing. Based on a well established and frequently used model, we demonstrate the utility and applicability of the extended method and examine the stability of the results with respect to the variations of the parameters of the model. Satisfactory agreements are found for all the calculated results in comparison with some other calculations in references. Especially, the present calculation in the nonrelativistic limit gives a consistent result with that in the nonrelativistic calculation.     

The establishment of edge-based loop algebra theory of kinematic chains and its applications

Based on the edge-based array representation of loops in the topological graphs of kinematic chains, this paper first proposes three arithmetic operations of loops. Then the concept of the independent loop set as well as its determination rules is introduced, and a new structure decomposition algorithm of kinematic chains is presented. Based on the algorithm, an automatic and efficient method for rigid sub-chain detection and driving pair selection of kinematic chains is proposed. Finally, an index is proposed to assess computation complexity of kinematic analysis with respect to different driving pair selections.     

Video analysis based on volumetric event detection

During the past decade, feature extraction and knowledge acquisition based on video analysis have been extensively researched and tested on many applications such as closed-circuit television(CCTV)data analysis, large-scale public event control, and other daily security monitoring and surveillance operations with various degrees of success. However, since the actual video process is a multi-phased one and encompasses extensive theories and techniques ranging from fundamental image processing, computational geometry and graphics, and machine vision, to advanced artificial intelligence, pattern analysis, and even cognitive science, there are still many important problems to resolve before it can be widely applied. Among them, video event identification and detection are two prominent ones. Comparing with the most popular frame-to-frame processing mode of most of today's approaches and systems, this project reorganizes video data as a 3D volume structure that provides the hybrid spatial and temporal information in a unified space. This paper reports an innovative technique to transform original video frames to 3D volume structures denoted by spatial and temporal features. It then highlights the volume array structure in a so-called "pre-suspicion" mechanism for a later process. The focus of this report is the development of an effective and efficient voxel-based segmentation technique suitable to the volumetric nature of video events and ready for deployment in 3D clustering operations. The paper is concluded with a performance evaluation of the devised technique and discussion on the future work for accelerating the pre-processing of the original video data.     

单磁悬浮系统的纵向解耦控制研究

磁悬浮系统是复杂的强耦合系统,研究中未充分考虑轨道的弹性形变,会造成磁浮列车和轨道之间产生耦合振动的现象,而考虑这一因素对系统的影响无疑增加了研究的难度;为了便于问题的求解,采用非线性系统理论解耦的方法,对单电磁铁悬浮系统进行纵向解耦控制,并对解耦后的子系统进行极点配置使其满足要求的性能指标;仿真结果表明该方法有效地使复杂问题简单化,并且能够实现系统的全局稳定和良好的动态性能.