Optimized CeO_(2) Nanowires with Rich Surface Oxygen Vacancies Enable Fast Li-Ion Conduction in Composite Polymer Electrolytes

Low-cost and flexible solid polymer electrolytes are promising in all-solid-state Li-metal batteries with high energy density and safety.However,both the low room-temperature ionic conductivities and the small Li^(+)transference number of these electrolytes significantly increase the internal resistance and overpotential of the battery.Here,we introduce Gd-doped CeO_(2) nanowires with large surface area and rich surface oxygen vacancies to the polymer electrolyte to increase the interaction between Gd-doped CeO_(2) nanowires and polymer electrolytes,which promotes the Li-salt dissociation and increases the concentration of mobile Li ions in the composite polymer electrolytes.The optimized composite polymer electrolyte has a high Li-ion conductivity of 5×10^(-4)4 S cm^(-1) at 30℃ and a large Li+transference number of 0.47.Moreover,the composite polymer electrolytes have excellent compatibility with the metallic lithium anode and high-voltage LiNi_(0.8)Mn _(0.1)Co_(0.1)O_(2)(NMC)cathode,providing the stable cycling of all-solid-state batteries at high current densities.

Coordinated organogel templated fabrication of silver/polypyrrole composite nanowires

A new method to fabricate metal/conducting polymer composite nanowires is presented by taking silver/polypyrrole composite nanowires as an example. A silver （D-coordinated organogel as template was prepared firstly, and redox-polymerization of pyrrole took place on the gel fiber, giving product of silver/polypyrrole nanowires. The silver/polypyrrole nanowires were characterized by multiple techniques. This strategy could be carried out in one-step procedure at room temperature, and it proves the utility of coordinated organogels in template synthesis of polymer nanostructures.

A High-Efficiency Broadband Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector with a Composite Optical Structure

Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors （SNSPDs） with a composite optical structure composed of phase-grating and optical cavity structures are designed to enhance both the system detection efficiency and the response bandwidth. Numerical simulation by the finite-difference time-domain method shows that the photon absorption capacity of SNSPDs with a composite optical structure can be enhanced significantly by adjusting the parameters of the phase-grating and optical cavity structures at multiple frequency bands. The absorption capacity of the superconducting nanowires reaches 70%, 72%, 60.73%, 61.7%, 41.2%, and 46.5% at wavelengths of 684, 850, 732, 924, 1256, and 1426nm, respectively. The use of a composite optical structure reduces the total filling factor of superconducting nanowires to only 0.25, decreases the kinetic inductance of SNSPDs, and improves the count rates.

Microwave absorption properties of Ag naowires/carbon black composites

The composite that can absorb the high-performance electromagnetic（EM） wave is constructed into a sandwiched structure composed of carbon black（CB）/ethylene-vinyl acetate（EVA） and Ag naowires（Ag NWs）. The Ag NWs sandwiched between two CB/EVA layers are used to improve the absorption properties of composite. The effects of EVA-to-CB weight ratio, concentration and diameter of Ag NWs with a thickness of 0.4 mm on microwave absorption are investigated.The results indicate that for an EVA-to-CB weight ratio of 1：3, Ag NW concentration of 1.0 mg/100 m L, and average diameter of 56 nm, the reflection loss（RL） of the composite is below-10 d B in a frequency range of 9.3 Ghz–18.0 GHz, with the minimum values of-40.0 d B and-25.6 d B at 13.5 GHz and 15.3 GHz, respectively. A finite element method（FEM）is used for calculating the RL of the composite. The calculated results are in agreement with the experimental data.