Affinity-Engineered Flexible Scaffold toward Energy-Dense, Highly Reversible Na Metal Batteries

The practical deployment of metallic anodes in the energy-dense batteries is impeded by the thermodynamically unstable interphase in contact with the aprotic electrolyte,structural collapse of the substrates as well as their insufficient affinity toward the metallic deposits.Herein,the mechanical flexible,lightweight(1.2 mg cm^(−2))carbon nanofiber scaffold with the monodispersed,ultrafine Sn_(4)P_(3) nanoparticles encapsulation(Sn_(4)P_(3)NPs@CNF)is proposed as the deposition substrate toward the high-areal-capacity sodium loadings up to 4 mAh cm^(−2).First-principles calculations manifest that the alloy intermediates,namely the Na_(15)Sn_(4) and Na_(3)P matrix,exhibit the intimate Na affinity as the“sodiophilic”sites.Meanwhile,the porous CNF regulates the heterogeneous alloying process and confines the deposit propagation along the nanofiber orientation.With the precise control of pairing mode with the NaVPO4F cathode(8.7 mg cm^(−2)),the practical feasibility of the Sn_(4)P_(3) NPs@CNF anode(1^(*)Na excess)is demonstrated in 2 mAh single-layer pouch cell prototype,which achieves the 95.7%capacity retention for 150 cycles at various mechanical flexing states as well as balanced energy/power densities.

Heavy-ion fusion and scattering with Skyrme energy density functional

In our recent studies,an empirical barrier distribution was proposed for a unified description of the fusion cross sections of light and medium-heavy fusion systems,the capture cross sections of the reactions leading to superheavy nuclei,and the large-angle quasi-elastic scattering cross sections based on the Skyrme energy-density functional approach.In this paper,we first give a brief review of these results.Then,by examining the barrier distributions in detail,we find that the fusion cross sections depend more strongly on the shape of the left side of the barrier distribution while the quasi-elastic scattering cross sections depend more strongly on the right side.Furthermore,by combining these studies and the HIVAP calculations for the survival probability,the formation probability of the compound nucleus is deduced from the measured evaporation residue cross sections for "cold" and "hot" fusion reactions.

Constraining symmetry energy at subnormal density by isovector giant dipole resonances of spherical nuclei

In our previous study, the deduced Langevin equation has been applied to investigate the isoscalar giant monopole resonance. In the current study, the framework is extended to study the isovector giant dipole resonance(IVGDR). The potential well in the IVGDR is calculated by separating the neutron and proton densities based on the Hartree-Fock ground state. Subsequently, the Langevin equation is solved self-consistently, resulting in the centroid energy of the IVGDR without width. The symmetry energy around the density of 0.02 fm^-3 contributes the most to the potential well in the IVGDR. By comparison with the updated experimental data of IVGDR energies in spherical nuclei, the calculations within 37 sets of Skyrme functionals suggest the symmetry energy to be in the range of 8.13-9.54 MeV at a density of 0.02 fm^-3.

Deformation dependence of symmetry energy coefficients of nuclei

Based on the semi-classical Thomas-Fermi approximation together with the Skyrme energy-density functional, we study the deformation dependence of symmetry energy coefficients of finite nuclei. The symmetry energy coefficients of nuclei with mass number A = 40, 100, 150, 208 are extracted from two-parameter parabola fitting to the calculated energy per particle. We find that the symmetry energy coefficients decrease with the increase of nuclear quadrupole deformations, which is mainly due to the isospin dependence of the difference between the proton and neutron surface diffuseness. Large deformations of nuclei can cause the change of the symmetry energy coefficient by about 0.5 Me V and the influence of nuclear deformations on the symmetry energy coefficients is more evident for light and intermediate nuclei.