Filter-Free Narrowband Photomultiplication-Type Planar Heterojunction Organic Photodetectors

Filter-free narrowband photomultiplication-type planar heterojunction (PHJ) organic photodetectors (PM-PHOPDs) are first realized by employing a thick front donor layer and an ultrathin PC₇₁BM layer. The thick front donor layer is employed as an optical field adjusting (OFA) layer. The sequentially coated PC₇₁BM will diffuse slightly into OFA layer, which works as interfacial electron traps to capture photogenerated electrons for assisting hole tunneling injection. The P3HT/PC₇₁BM-based PM-PHOPDs exhibit narrowband response with full-width of half-maximum of 32 nm and external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 1700% at 650 nm under −20 V bias. Due to the enhanced hole transport and reduced charge recombination in PHJ compared to those in bulk heterojunction (BHJ), the EQE of P3HT/PC₇₁BM-based narrowband PM-PHOPDs is twice as P3HT:PC₇₁BM BHJ-based narrowband PM-OPDs under the same bias. The response peak of PM-PHOPDs is adjusted from 650 to 695 or 745 nm by incorporating SMPV1 or DRCN5T in OFA layers due to the red-shifted absorption edge. The EQEs of 3600% at 695 nm and 870% at 745 nm are obtained for P3HT:SMPV1 and P3HT:DRCN5T-based PM-PHOPDs under −20 V bias, respectively. This work provides a smart strategy to achieve narrowband PM-OPDs by designing different OFA layers.     

Catalytically Induced Robust Inorganic-Rich Cathode Electrolyte Interphase for 4.5 V Li||NCM622 Batteries

Tailoring inorganic components of cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) and solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is critical to improving the cycling performance of lithium metal batteries. However, it is challenging due to complicated electrolyte reactions on cathode/anode surfaces. Herein, the species and inorganic component content of the CEI/SEI is enriched with an objectively gradient distribution through employing pentafluorophenyl 4-nitrobenzenesulfonate (PFBNBS) as electrolyte additive guided by engineering bond order with functional groups. In addition, a catalytic effect of LiNi_0.6Mn_0.2Co_0.2O₂ (NCM622) cathode is proposed on the decomposition of PFBNBS. PFBNBS with lower highest occupied molecular orbital can be preferentially oxidized on the NCM622 surface with the help of the catalytic effect to induce an inorganic-rich CEI for superior electrochemical performance at high voltage. Moreover, PFBNBS can be reduced on the Li surface due to its lower lowest unoccupied molecular orbital , increasing inorganic moieties in SEI for inhibiting Li dendrite generation. Thus, 4.5 V Li||NCM622 batteries with such electrolyte can retain 70.4% of initial capacity after 500 cycles at 0.2 C, which is attributed to the protective effect of the excellent CEI on NCM622 and the inhibitory effect of its derived CEI/SEI on continuous electrolyte decomposition.     

A Low-Hysteresis and Highly Stretchable Ionogel Enabled by Well Dispersed Slidable Cross-Linker for Rapid Human-Machine Interaction

Ionic conductive soft materials for mimicking human skin are a promising topic since they can be thought of as a possible basis for biomimetic sensing. In pursuit of devices with a long working range and low signal delay, conductive materials with low hysteresis and good stretchability are highly demanded. To overcome the challenges of highly stretchable conductive materials with good resilience, herein a chemical design is proposed where polyrotaxanes act as topological cross-linkers to enhance the stretchability by sliding-induced reduced stress concentration while the compatible ionic liquid is introduced as a dispersant for low hysteresis. The obtained ionogels exhibit versatile properties more than low hysteresis (residual strain = 7%) and good stretchability (550%), and also anti-fatigue, biocompatibility, and good adhesion. The low hysteresis is attributed to lower energy dissipation from the well-dispersed polyrotaxanes by compatible ionic liquids. The mechanism provides a new insight in fabricating highly stretchable and low-hysteresis slide-ring materials. Furthermore, the conductivity of the ionogels and their responses to strains and temperatures are measured. Benefiting from the good conductivity and low hysteresis, the ionogel is applied to develop a wireless communication system to realize rapid human-machine interactions.     

Bifunctional Edge-Rich Nitrogen Doped Porous Carbon for Activating Oxygen and Sulfur

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and sulfur reduction reaction (SRR) play key roles in advanced batteries. However, they both suffer from sluggish reaction kinetics. Here, an interesting nitrogen doped porous carbon material that can simultaneously activate oxygen and sulfur is reported. The carbon precursor is a nitrogen containing covalent organic framework (COF), constituting periodically stacked 2D sheets. The COF structure is well preserved upon pyrolysis, resulting in the formation of edge-rich porous carbon with structure resembling stacked holey graphene. The nitrogen containing groups in the COF are decomposed into graphitic and pyridinic nitrogen during pyrolysis. These edge sites and uniform nitrogen doping endow the carbon product with high intrinsic catalytic activities toward ORR and SRR. The COF derived carbon delivers outstanding performances when assembling as cathodes in the Li-S and Li-O₂ batteries. Simultaneous activation of oxygen and sulfur also enables a new battery chemistry. A proof-of-concept Li-S/O₂ hybrid battery is assembled, delivering a large specific capacity of 2,013 mAh g⁻¹. This study may inspire novel battery designs based on oxygen and sulfur chemistry.     

Interfacial Connections between Organic Perovskite/n+ Silicon/Catalyst that Allow Integration of Solar Cell and Catalyst for Hydrogen Evolution from Water

The rapidly increasing solar conversion efficiency (PCE) of hybrid organic–inorganic perovskite (HOIP) thin-film semiconductors has triggered interest in their use for direct solar-driven water splitting to produce hydrogen. However, application of these low-cost, electronic-structure-tunable HOIP tandem photoabsorbers has been hindered by the instability of the photovoltaic-catalyst-electrolyte (PV+E) interfaces. Here, photolytic water splitting is demonstrated using an integrated configuration consisting of an HOIP/n⁺silicon single junction photoabsorber and a platinum (Pt) thin film catalyst. An extended electrochemical (EC) lifetime in alkaline media is achieved using titanium nitride on both sides of the Si support to eliminate formation of insulating silicon oxide, and as an effective diffusion barrier to allow high-temperature annealing of the catalyst/TiO₂-protected-n⁺silicon interface necessary to retard electrolytic corrosion. Halide composition is examined in the (FA_1-xCs_x)PbI₃ system with a bandgap suitable for tandem operation. A fill factor of 72.5% is achieved using a Spiro-OMeTAD-hole-transport-layer (HTL)-based HOIP/n⁺Si solar cell, and a high photocurrent density of −15.9 mA cm⁻² (at 0 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode) is attained for the HOIP/n⁺Si/Pt photocathode in 1 m NaOH under simulated 1-sun illumination. While this thin-film design creates stable interfaces, the intrinsic photo- and electro-degradation of the HOIP photoabsorber remains the main obstacle for future HOIP/Si tandem PEC devices.     

Field-Induced Multiscale Polarization Configuration Transitions of Mesentropic Lead-Free Piezoceramics Achieving Giant Energy Harvesting Performance

The development of high-performance (K,Na)NbO₃ (KNN)-based lead-free piezoceramics for next-generation electronic devices is crucial for achieving environmentally sustainable society. However, despite recent improvements in piezoelectric coefficients, correlating their properties to underlying multiscale structures remains a key issue for high-performance KNN-based ceramics with complex phase boundaries. Here, this study proposes a medium-entropy strategy to design “local polymorphic distortion” in conjunction with the construction of uniformly oversize grains in the newly developed KNN solid-solution, resulting in a novel large-size hierarchical domain architecture (≈0.7 µm wide). Such a structure not only facilitates polarization rotation but also ensures a large residual polarization, which significantly improves the piezoelectricity (≈3.2 times) and obtains a giant energy harvesting performance (W_out = 2.44 mW, P_D = 35.32 µW mm⁻³, outperforming most lead-free piezoceramics). This study confirms the coexistence of multiphase through the atomic-resolution polarization features and analyzes the domain/phase transition mechanisms using in situ electric field structural characterizations, revealing that the electric field induces highly effective multiscale polarization configuration transitions based on T–O–R sequential phase transitions. This study demonstrates a new strategy for designing high-performance piezoceramics and facilitates the development of lead-free piezoceramic materials in energy harvesting applications.     

Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporation Accelerated Electrocatalytic Water Splitting on 2D Perovskite Oxide/MXene Heterostructure

The rational design of economic and high-performance electrocatalytic water-splitting systems is of great significance for energy and environmental sustainability. Developing a sustainable energy conversion-assisted electrocatalytic process provides a promising novel approach to effectively boost its performance. Herein, a self-sustained water-splitting system originated from the heterostructure of perovskite oxide with 2D Ti₃C₂T_x MXene on Ni foam (La_1-xSr_xCoO₃/Ti₃C₂T_x MXene/Ni) that shows high activity for solar-powered water evaporation and simultaneous electrocatalytic water splitting is presented. The all-in-one interfacial electrocatalyst exhibits highly improved oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance with a low overpotential of 279 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² and a small Tafel slope of 74.3 mV dec⁻¹, superior to previously reported perovskite oxide-based electrocatalysts. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the integration of La_0.9Sr_0.1CoO₃ with Ti₃C₂T_x MXene can lower the energy barrier for the electron transfer and decrease the OER overpotential, while COMSOL simulations unveil that interfacial solar evaporation could induce OH⁻ enrichment near the catalyst surfaces and enhance the convection flow above the catalysts to remove the generated gas, remarkably accelerating the kinetics of electrocatalytic water splitting.     

Transmission Scheme for 2D Antenna Array MIMO Systems with Limited Feedback

Three-dimensional (3D) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems exploit spatial richness and provide another degree of freedom to transmit signals and eliminate spatial interference. Currently, however, there is no 3D codebook for two-dimensional (2D) antenna array MIMO systems with limited feedback. In this paper, based on the existing 2D codebook, we present a limited feedback and transmission scheme for 2D antenna array MIMO systems. In this scheme, the mobile station (MS) has imperfect channel knowledge, and the base station (BS) only acquires partial information relating the channel instantiation. MS must feed back two channel state information (CSI) instances, i.e., the horizontal and vertical CSIs. After receiving the two CSI instances, the BS interpolates a new vertical precoding vector using the vertical CSI. Then, the BS re-constructs a 3D beamforming vector using horizontal and vertical precoding vectors and compensates the reported horizontal channel quality indicator. System level simulation is employed, and the simulation results show that the proposed method improves the system spectral efficiency and the cell-edge SE significantly.     

利用改善的静态隐含策略加速等价性验证

随着近年来高效SAT(Satisfiability)求解算法提出，SAT已成为集成电路形式验证方法中重要引擎之一。但在运用SAT验证时需将电路结构转化为成OR-AND两级逻辑描述，丢失了电路的拓扑信息。本文利用改善的静态隐含策略来提取有用子句作为预处理，来加快验证过程。本文算法在原有静态隐含技术的基础上，引入了关联节点隐含及隐含过程加速策略。给出的ISCAS85电路的实验结果表明算法的有效性。     

Analysis of error in the fixed-point implementation of two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms

Computational error due to the fixed-point implementation of two-dimensional (2-D) discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is analyzed. This analysis is based on the exact knowledge of the DWT analysis and synthesis filters and the word length of the original image. In the fixed-point implementation, it is crucial to understand and analyze effects of finite precision in filters coefficients as well as rounding of intermediate calculations for the purpose of storage and/or transmission. Analyses and formulations are presented for both convolution and lifting approaches and they are validated by Monte Carlo simulations. The specific example used throughout this work is the lossy wavelet transformation used in the JPEG2000 compression standard.