Thermally Evaporated ZnSe for Efficient and Stable Regular/Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells by Enhanced Electron Extraction

Electron transport layers(ETLs)are crucial for achieving efficient and stable planar perovskite solar cells(PSCs).Reports on versatile inorganic ETLs using a simple film fabrication method and applicability for both low-cost planar regular and inverted PSCs with excellent efficiencies(>22%)and high stability are very limited.Herein,we employ a novel inorganic ZnSe as ETL for both regular and inverted PSCs to improve the efficiency and stability using a simple thermal evaporation method.The TiO_(2)-ZnSe-FAPbl_(3)heterojunction could be formed,resulting in an improved charge collection and a decreased carrier recombination further proved through theoretical calculations.The optimized regular PSCs based on TiO_(2)/ZnSe have achieved 23.25%efficiency with negligible hysteresis.In addition,the ZnSe ETL can also effectively replace the unstable bathocuproine(BCP)in inverted PSCs.Consequently,the ZnSe-based inverted device realizes a champion efficiency of 22.54%.Moreover,the regular device comprising the TiO_(2)/ZnSe layers retains 92%of its initial PCE after 10:00 h under 1 Sun continuous illumination and the inverted device comprising the C_(60)/ZnSe layers maintains over 85%of its initial PCE at 85℃for 10:00 h.This highlights one of the best results among universal ETLs in both regular and inverted perovskite photovoltaics.

Effect of 10% Si addition on cathodic arc evaporated TiAlSiN coatings

The effect of 10% Si （mole fraction） addition on TiAlSiN coatings was studied. Ti0.5Al0.5N, Ti0.5Al0.4Si0.1N and Ti0.55Al0.35Si0.1N coatings were deposited on WC？Co substrates by cathodic arc evaporation. The microstructure and mechanical properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction （XRD）, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, nano-indentation measurement and scratch test. The mechanisms of how Si affects the properties and failure modes of TiAlSiN coatings were also discussed. The results show that the addition of 10% Si results in the formation of nc-（Ti,Al,Si）N/a-Si3N4 nano-composite structure. The hardness and toughness of TiAlSiN coatings increase, whereas the coating adhesion strength decreases. Compared with Ti0.55Al0.35Si0.1N coating, Ti0.5Al0.4Si0.1N coating has higher hardness but lower toughness. The dominant failure mode of TiAlN coating is wedging spallation due to low toughness and strong interfacial adhesion. The dominant failure mode of TiAlSiN coatings is buckling spallation due to improved toughness and weakened interfacial adhesion.

A Comparative Analysis of Evaporate Sediments on Earth and Mars: Implications for the Climate Change on Mars

The knowledge of Martian salts has gone through substantial changes during the past decades. In the 70th of last century, Viking landers have noticed the existence of salts on Mars. Several salt species have been suggested from then on, such as sulfates and chlorides. However, their origin was a mystery due to the lack of observations. The recent explorations and related studies at the beginning of this century revealed that the crustal composition of Mars is similar to that of Earth, and it was hypothesized that almost one third of Martian surface was covered by oceans and lakes in the early stage of Mars. The huge water bodies may have dissolved a large quantity of ions from Martian primary rocks during the whole Noachian and Hesperian epoch. After the enormous drought event happened during the late Hesperian and the early Amazonian, these dissolved ions have formed huge salts deposits and most of them were preserved on Mars until today. To date, carbonates, sulfates, chlorides have all been detected by orbital remote sensing and by landers and rovers. However, the salt mineral assemblages on Mars seems to have some differences from those on Earth, e.g., rich in sulfates and lack of massive carbonates. To explain this difference, we propose that most of the surface carbonates precipitated from the ancient oceans may have been dissolved by the later ubiquitous acidic fluids originated from the global volcanism in the Hesperian era, and formed the enormous sulfate deposits as detected, and this hypothesis seems to be supported by the evidence that most of the sulfate deposits distribute around the Tharsis volcanic province while the survived carbonates located far from it. This process can release most of the carbon on Mars to the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and then be erased by the late heavy bombardments, which might have profound influence on the climate change happened in the Hesperian age. The positive correlation between the GRS results of the potassium distributions and the distribution of chlorides on Mars, together with the high Br concentration measured from the evaporate sediments at two Mars exploration rover landing sites, indicate that the brines in the regions where the chlorides deposited may have reached the stage for potassium salts deposition, thus we propose for the first time that potassium salts deposits might be prevalent in these regions.

Superconducting phase qubits with shadow-evaporated Josephson junctions

We develop a fabrication process for the superconducting phase qubits in which Josephson junctions for both the qubit and superconducting quantum interference device（SQUID） detector are prepared by shadow evaporation with a suspended bridge. Al junctions with areas as small as 0.05 μm^2 are fabricated for the qubit, in which the number of the decoherencecausing two-level systems（TLS） residing in the tunnel barrier and proportional to the junction area are greatly reduced. The measured energy spectrum shows no avoided crossing arising from coherent TLS in the experimentally reachable flux bias range of the phase qubit, which demonstrates the energy relaxation time T1 and dephasing time Tφ on the order of 100 ns and 50 ns, respectively. We discuss several possible origins of decoherence from incoherent or weakly-coupled coherent TLS and further improvements of the qubit performance.

Palynology and stratigraphy of the thick evaporate-bearing Shashi Formation in Jiangling Depression,Jianghan Basin of South China,and its paleoclimate change

In the greater inland Jianghan Basin of South China,three salt depressions are lacking accurate geological times,of which Jiangling Depression is the largest.Evaporites are important records of paleoclimate,however,the geological ages of evaporates are very difficult to be determined because often evaporates have scare macrofossils and microfossils.Nonmarine Cretaceous to Tertiary halite deposits interbedded with mudstones are widely distributed in China.Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum had very high temperatures and attracted strong interests of geologists because these times can be compared with future climate change because of global warming.However,previous studies focused on marine sediments found that during the Paleocene-Early Eocene,massive evaporate deposits formed in Jiangling depression of the Jianghan Basin.In this paper,the authors show that the Shashi Formation halite deposits formed in the Paleocene according to palynology.Most of these palynology fossils are arid types,so the massive evaporites in the Jiangling depression could be closely related to the hot Paleocene climate.High temperatures during the Paleocene contributed to the formation of the massive evaporates in the Jiangling Depression,until sylvite was the result.

Discovery,Genesis and Significance of Metallic Minerals in Evaporate Series in the Kuqa Basin

A large-scale evaporate series is developed in Paleogene-Neogene strata in the Kuqa basin. The series is composed mainly of evaporate with thin beds of clastic rock （mainly mudstone and siltstone）. In grayish white medium- and coarse-grained sandstone in Miocene strata, the formation of copper minerals is in close connection with brine. In joint planes, which are developed in vertical strata, are filled with gypsum. Gypsum and copper-mineralized sandstone contains enormous copper minerals, mainly atacamite. According to the SEM analysis for salt rock, gypsum rock, limestone, grayish green siltstone, grayish white medium-coarse-grained sandstone, some minerals are composed of metallic elements including Au, Ag, Cu, Zn, Pb, Co, Ni and U etc., in which Au occurs in a native form, Cu occurs in a native form or as atacamite in salt rock, gypsum rock and limestone, Ag occurs as silver sulfide in gypsum, and Zn, Pb, Co, Ni, U occur as compounds along with the above metallic ions in evaporate or clastic rock. From SEM images, we can see that metallic elements or their compounds （oxides or sulfides） ＂take root＂ as grains in salt or gypsum crystals, which belong to primary chemical sedimentation along with evaporate, while some grains ＂float＂ on surface of salt or gypsum. In the former case, mineral grains were formed together with salt （gypsum） crystals; while in the latter case, minerals were enriched from internal metallic ions （Paleogene evaporate samples） or external metallic ions （Neogene gypsum samples） in the late stage of evaporate formation. The metallic ions in Paleogene evaporate samples might originate from weathered or denudated materials in the south Tianshan Mountains. The metallic ions in the Neogene evaporate samples might be from metal- bearing brine, which migrated upward to surface along fractures and leached into evaporate （gypsum）. Occurrence of metallic minerals and their compounds （elementary substance） in Paleogene evaporate proves that diversified metallic minerals exist in evaporate. The source of metallic ions in the Neogene evaporate series shows that evaporate could provide materials for late-stage metallic mineralization.

Hydrogen and Ozone SAW Based Gas Sensors with RF Magnetron Sputtered InO_x and Electron Beam Evaporated SiN_y

Layered Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) devices with an InO_x/SiN_u/36°YX LiTaO_3 structure were investigated for sensing low concentrations of hydrogen (H_2) and ozone (O_3) at different operating temperatures.The sensor consists of a 1μm thick silicon nitride (SiN_y) intermediate layer deposited by electron beam evaporation on a 36°Y-cut X-propagating piezoelectric lithium tantalate (LiTaO_3) substrate and a 100 nm thin indium oxide (InO_x) sensing layer deposited by R.F.magnetron sputtering.The device fabrication is described and the performance of the sensor is analyzed in terms of response magnitude as a function of operating temperature.Large frequency shifts of 360 kHz for 600μg/g of H_2 and 92 kHz for 40 ng/g O_3 were recorded.In addition,the surface morphology of the deposited films were investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and the chemical composition by X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) to correlate gas-sensing behavior to structural characteristics of the thin film.

An investigation on bonding interface microstructure of ceramic coating prepared on AZ91D by evaporated pattern casting technique

PbO-ZnO-Na20 ceramic coating was fabricated on the AZ91D Mg-alloy substrate surface by using of evaporated pattern casting （EPC） process. The ceramic coating was characterized through scanning electron microscopy （SEM） observation, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer （EDS） and so on. The research was emphasized on the formation process of ceramic coating and the interface bonding conditions between ceramic coating and the substrate. Results show that the glass powder （PbO-ZnO-NazO） melts when contacts with the high temperature liquid metal, and solidifies on the surface of the substrate with the decrease of temperature. Therefore, the ceramic coating was successfully prepared with the formation of the bonding interface with the substrate, Beside the influence of coating layer thickness, the vacuum level was also investigated. Further analysis indicates that oxide inclusions and decomposition products of foam pattern had a significant effect on the bonding interface： To obtain a good bonding interface between the ceramic coating and the substrate, the metal liquid oxidation and inclusions must be decreased and the decomposition products of foam pattern should be exhausted from the EPC coating completely.

Design of experiments unravels insights into selective ethylene or methane production on evaporated Cu catalysts

As a highly tempting technology to close the carbon cycle,electrochemical CO_(2)reduction calls for the development of highly efficient and durable electrocatalysts.In the current study,Design of Experiments utilizing the response surface method is exploited to predict the optimal process variables for preparing high-performance Cu catalysts,unraveling that the selectivity towards methane or ethylene can be simply modulated by varying the evaporation parameters,among which the Cu film thickness is the most pivotal factor to determine the product selectivity.The predicted optimal catalyst with a low Cu thickness affords a high methane Faradaic efficiency of 70.6%at the partial current density of 211.8 m A cm^(-2),whereas that of a high Cu thickness achieves a high ethylene selectivity of 66.8%at267.2 m A cm^(-2)in the flow cell.Further structure-performance correlation and in-situ electrospectroscopic measurements attribute the high methane selectivity to isolated Cu clusters with low packing density and monotonous lattice structure,and the high ethylene efficiency to coalesced Cu nanoparticles with rich grain boundaries and lattice defects.The high Cu packing density and crystallographic diversity is of essence to promoting C–C coupling by stabilizing*CO and suppressing*H coverage on the catalyst surface.This work highlights the implementation of scientific and mathematic methods to uncover optimal catalysts and mechanistic understandings toward selective electrochemical CO_(2)reduction.

Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Evaporated CdSe Films

CdSe films are of great interest for use in thin film photoelectric devices. A simple chemical precipitation method is adopted for the first time to synthesise CdSe powder. Films on glass obtained at different substrate temperatures TS such as 300, 373, 423 and 473 K have been characterised by X-ray diffraction, optical absorption and Hall measurements.

Evaporated Thin Films of CdS and CdTe: Optimization for Photovoltaic Applications

Thin films of cadmium sulphide and cadmium telluride have been prepared by thermal evaporation under various conditions of deposition. These films have been characterized optically. electrically and for structure determination. The results of these characterizations along with the initial results of all thin film CdS/CdTe solar cells are presented in this paper

Dependence of Structural and Optoelectrical Properties on the Composition of Electron Beam Evaporated Zn_xCd_(1-x)S Thin Films

Thin films of ZnxCd1-xS have been prepared by electron beam evaporation of a mixture of ZnS & CdS powders. The films are deposited onto sodalime glass slides under similar conditions.The composition of the films is varied from CdS to ZnS (x=0 to 1). The films show a regular change in color from toner red to orange yellow as Zn concentration increases to maximum.These films are characterized for their optical, electricaI and structural properties. The bandgap value of ZnxCd1-xS films is found to vary linearIy from 2.20 eV to 3.44 eV with change in the x value from 0 to 1. The resistivity of these films is in the range of 171.0 Ωcm to 5.5× 106Ωcm for x=0~0.6. All the samples show cubic structure after annealing in air at 250℃ for 40 min.The lattice constant ao varies from 0.5884 nm to 0.54109 nm linearly.

Investigation of Evaporated Fragments in Intermediate Energy Heavy Ion Collisions

The reactions induced by intermediate energy heavy ions are investigated.The evap-orated fragment multiplicity and excitation energy distributions are calculated and comparedwith the experimental data of the reaction Ar+Ag at 50 and 70 MeV/u.

Multiplicity Distribution of Evaporated Fragments in Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions

The multiplicity distribtuion of evaporated fragments in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions are discussed.The calculated results are in agreement with the exper-imental data in the energy range from 3.7 to 200 GeV/N.

Model for Periodic Analysis of the Quantity of Water Evaporated during Thermo-processing of Clay Designated for Production of Oven Refractory

A model has been derived for periodic analysis of the quantity of water evaporated during thermo-processing of clay designated for production of oven refractory. The model;γ = exp〔〔lnt/2.9206〕1.3〕 shows that the quantity of evaporated water during the drying process is dependent on the drying time, with the evaporating surface being constant. It was found that the validity of the model is rooted on the expression lnγ = (lnt/Logβ)N where both sides of the equation are correspondingly almost equal. The maximum deviation of the model-predicted quantity of evaporated water from the corresponding experimental value is less than 19% which is quite within the acceptable deviation range of experimental results. Water evaporation rate as obtained from experiment and derived model were evaluated to be 0.0536 and 0.0337g mins -1 respectively.

Characteristic Research on Evaporated Explosive Film

The evaporation source of evaporated explosive was designed and improved based on the inherent specialties of explosive. The compatibility of explosives and addition agent with evaporation vessels was analyzed. The influence of substrate temperature on explosive was analyzed, the control method of substrate temperature was suggested. The influences of evaporation rate on formation of explosive film and mixed explosive film were confirmed. Optimum evaporation rate for evaporation explosive and the better method for evaporating mixed explosive were presented. The necessary characteristics of the evaporated explosive film were obtained by the research of the differences between the evaporated explosive and other materials.

Properties of Evaporated Si_(1-x)Sn_x and Si_(1_x)Sn_x:H Amorphous Alloys

Amorphous Si_(1-x)Sn_x alloys have been prepared by co-evaporation onto substrates maintained at liquid nitrogen temperature. Their atomic structure is investigated using density measurements, scanning high-energy electron diffraction and Mossbauer spectroscopy. The optical and electrical properties are reported. Then, a method to hydrogenate the films during the evaporation process is described and applied to the preparation of amorphous semiconductors from pure silicon to pure tin. Finally, multilayers of type Si / Si:H / ... or Si:H / Si:D / ... are studied. The modulation of hydrogen is shown by low-angle neutron scattering and measurements of hydrogen diffusivity are presented.

Different Interaction Mechanisms of Evaporated Porphyrin Films Exposed to NO₂

In this work, metal free and zinc tetraphenylporphyrin films were employed as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas sensors. The films were vacuum evaporated and the sensor response was evaluated as changes in the optical absorption spectra, hydrophobic properties and conductivity at different gas concentrations. From UV-Vis results, important changes in the absorption peaks were observed after gas exposure. The morphology of the films before and after gas interaction was obtained by using scanning electron and atomic force microscopy. The films morphology showed a degradation after gas adsorption for the metal free system but gas entrapment for the zinc porphyrin film. In order to elucidate the gas adsorption phenomena, density functional theory calculations were also performed. Here, it was observed that the porphyrin chemical structure not only affects the gas coordination sites which affect the porphyrin electronic distribution and packing arrangement, but also, determines the gas detection mechanism for sensing applications.

Electron beam evaporated gold doped tungsten oxide nanostructured films for sensor applications

Gas sensors play a vital role in monitoring environmental pollution for human health,safety,and the detection of various gasses in the environment.Nanostructured metal oxide thin films have been widely used in sensor applications owing to their unique properties.In this study,pure and gold(Au)doped nanostructured tungsten trioxide(WO_(3))films were deposited on glass substrates by electron beam evaporation at room temperature.The microstructure of the WO_(3) films changed from nanoflakes to nanorods upon variation of the wt%of Au.The sensing properties of WO_(3) based nanostructure films were measured using a computer-controlled system.The gas sensing results showed that the Au-doped WO_(3) films exhibited a higher sensitivity than the undoped films.The 15 wt%Au-doped WO_(3) nanostructure films showed high sensitivity towards ethanol and the response(sensitivity)value was 89.The response and recovery times for 15 wt%Au-doped WO_(3) were 8 and 10 s,respectively.