Kinetic Control over Self-Assembly of Semiconductor Nanoplatelets.

Semiconductor nanoplatelets exhibit spectrally pure, directional fluorescence. To make polarized light emission accessible and the charge transport effective, nanoplatelets have to be collectively oriented in the solid state. We discovered that the collective nanoplatelets orientation in monolayers can be controlled kinetically by exploiting the solvent evaporation rate in self-assembly at liquid interfaces.

Acid-Cleavable Poly(ethylene glycol) Hydrogels Displaying Protein Release at pH 5.

PEG is the gold standard polymer for pharmaceutical applications, however it lacks degradability. Degradation under physiologically relevant pH as present in endolysosomes, cancerous and inflammatory tissues is crucial for many areas. The authors present anionic ring-opening copolymerization of ethylene oxide with 3,4-epoxy-1-butene (EPB) and subsequent modification to introduce acid-degradable vinyl ether groups as well as methacrylate (MA) units, enabling radical cross-linking.

Removal of Surface Oxygen Vacancies Increases Conductance Through TiO Thin Films for Perovskite Solar Cells.

We report that UV-ozone treatment of TiO anatase thin films is an efficient method to increase the conductance through the film by more than 2 orders of magnitude. The increase in conductance is quantified via conductive scanning force microscopy on freshly annealed and UV-ozone-treated TiO anatase thin films on fluorine-doped tin oxide substrates. The increased conductance of TiO anatase thin films results in a 2% increase of the average power conversion efficiency (PCE) of methylammonium lead iodide-based perovskite solar cells.