Hardness Measurement and Evaluation of Thin Film on Material Surface

A method for hardness measurement and evaluation of thin films on the material surface was proposed. Firstly, it is studied how to obtain the force indentation response with a finite element method when the indentation is less than 100 nanometers, in which current nanoindentation experiments have not reliable accuracy. The whole hardness indentation curve and fitted equation were obtained. At last, a formula to predict the hardness of the thin film on the material surface was derived and favorably compared with experiments.

Thin Films Fabricated by Pulsed Laser Deposition for Electrocatalysis

Advances in energy conversion and storage technologies,such as water electrolyzers,rechargeable metal-air batteries,and fuel cells,have enabled a renewable and sustainable future.The efficiency and effectiveness of these technologies largely relies on the physicochemical properties of the functional materials used,specifically electrocatalysts.Pulsed laser deposition(PLD)is a powerful technique for the synthesis of thin film materials,offering a unique platform for understanding electrochemical reaction mechanisms and searching for low-cost and high-performance electrocatalysts.In this mini-review,we present the latest studies in which thin film materials(mainly focused on perovskite oxide thin films)via PLD have been actively utilized in the field of electrocatalysis.The fundamentals and advantages of PLD in the synthesis of thin films are discussed first.Then,emerging types of thin films associated with electrochemical applications are presented.Special emphasis is placed on material design methods to reveal the reaction mechanisms and establish the structure–performance relationships by understanding structural variations in precatalysts and surface reconstruction under reaction conditions.Finally,we discuss remaining challenges and future perspectives.

Aligned carbon nanostructures based 3D electrodes for energy storage

Electrochemical energy storage systems with high specific energy and power as well as long cyclic stability attract increasing attention in new energy technologies. The principles for rational design of electrodes are discussed to reduce the activation, concentration, and resistance overpotentials and improve the active ma- terial efficiency in order to simultaneously achieve high specific energy and power. Three dimensional （3D） nanocomposites are currently considered as promising electrode materials due to their large surface area, reduced electronic and ionic diffusion distances, and synergistic effects. This paper reviews the most recent progress on the synthesis and application of 3D thin film nanoelectrode arrays based on aligned carbon nan- otubes （ACNTs） directly grown on metal foils for energy storages and special attentions are paid on our own representative works. These novel 3D nanoelectrode arrays on metal foil exhibit improved electrochemical performances in terms of specific energy, specific power and cyclic stability due to their unique structures. In this active materials coated ACNTs over conductive substrate structures, each component is tailored to address a different demand. The electrochemical active material is used to store energy, while the ACNTs are employed to provide a large surface area to support the active material and nanocable arrays to facilitate the electron transport. The thin film of active materials can not only reduce ion transport resistance by shorten- ing the diffusion length but also make the film elastic enough to tolerate significant volume changes during charge and discharge cycles. The conductive substrate is used as the current collector and the direct contact of the ACNT arrays with the substrate reduces significantly the contact resistance. The principles obtained from ACNT based electrodes are extended to aligned graphene based electrodes. Similar improvements have been achieved which confirms the reliability of the principles obtained. In addition, we also discuss and view the ongoing trends in development of aligned carbon nanostructures based electrodes for energy storage.

Preparation of Ag@CuFe_(2)O_(4)@TiO_(2) nanocomposite films and its performance of photoelectrochemical cathodic protection

A Ag@CuFe_(2)O_(4)@TiO_(2) nanocomposite film with high performance of photogenerated cathodic protection was prepared by hydrothermal and photoreduction methods.The results showed that when the CuFe_(2)O_(4) hydrothermal reaction time was 6 h and the AgNO_(3) concentration was 0.1 M,the Ag@CuFe_(2)O_(4)@TiO_(2) nanocomposite material performed the best cathodic protection capability for 304 stainless steel(304SS).In this case,the protective potential achieved-930 mV(versus SCE)associated with the photocurrent density of 475μA/cm^(2),which was 14.8 times that of pure TiO_(2) nanowires.In the dark,the nanocomposite provided cathodic protection of up to 485 mV for 304SS.Due to the heterogeneous junctions at the two interfaces among the three kinds of nanocomposite materials,the build-in electric field was fabricated,which promoted the separation efficiency of photogenerated electrons and holes and effectively improved the photochemical cathodic protection of 304SS.