Reducing Thermal Degradation of Perovskite Solar Cells during Vacuum Lamination by Internal Diffusion Barriers.

Current photovoltaic (PV) panels typically contain interconnected solar cells that are vacuum laminated with a polymer encapsulant between two pieces of glass or glass with a polymer backsheet. This packaging approach is ubiquitous in conventional photovoltaic technologies such as silicon and thin-film solar modules, contributing to thermal management, mechanical reinforcement, and environmental protection to enable the long lifetimes necessary to become financially acceptable. Commercial vacuum lamination processes typically occur at 150 °C to ensure cross-linking and/or glass bonding of the encapsulant to the glass and PV cells.

Remote chirality transfer in low-dimensional hybrid metal halide semiconductors.

In hybrid metal halide perovskites, chiroptical properties typically arise from structural symmetry breaking by incorporating a chiral A-site organic cation within the structure, which may limit the compositional space. Here we demonstrate highly efficient remote chirality transfer where chirality is imposed on an otherwise achiral hybrid metal halide semiconductor by a proximal chiral molecule that is not interspersed as part of the structure yet leads to large circular dichroism dissymmetry factors (g) of up to 10. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the transfer of stereochemical information from the chiral proximal molecule to the inorganic framework is mediated by selective interaction with divalent metal cations.

Mn Additive Improves Zr Grain Boundary Diffusion for Sintering of a Y-Doped BaZrO Proton Conductor.

Yttrium-doped barium zirconate (BZY) has garnered attention as a protonic conductor in intermediate-temperature electrolysis and fuel cells due to its high bulk proton conductivity and excellent chemical stability. However, the performance of BZY can be further enhanced by reducing the concentration and resistance of grain boundaries. In this study, we investigate the impact of manganese (Mn) additives on the sinterability and proton conductivity of Y-doped BaZrO (BZY).

Intermediate-phase engineering via dimethylammonium cation additive for stable perovskite solar cells.

Achieving the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells is arguably the most important challenge required to enable widespread commercialization. Understanding the perovskite crystallization process and its direct impact on device stability is critical to achieving this goal. The commonly employed dimethyl-formamide/dimethyl-sulfoxide solvent preparation method results in a poor crystal quality and microstructure of the polycrystalline perovskite films.

Substrate Analogues for the Enzyme-Catalyzed Detoxification of the Organophosphate Nerve Agents-Sarin, Soman, and Cyclosarin.

The G-type nerve agents, sarin (GB), soman (GD), and cyclosarin (GF), are among the most toxic compounds known. Much progress has been made in evolving the enzyme phosphotriesterase (PTE) from for the decontamination of the G-agents; however, the extreme toxicity of the G-agents makes the use of substrate analogues necessary. Typical analogues utilize a chromogenic leaving group to facilitate high-throughput screening, and substitution of an -methyl for the -methyl group found in the G-agents, in an effort to reduce toxicity.

Chiral-induced spin selectivity enables a room-temperature spin light-emitting diode.

In traditional optoelectronic approaches, control over spin, charge, and light requires the use of both electrical and magnetic fields. In a spin-polarized light-emitting diode (spin-LED), charges are injected, and circularly polarized light is emitted from spin-polarized carrier pairs. Typically, the injection of carriers occurs with the application of an electric field, whereas spin polarization can be achieved using an applied magnetic field or polarized ferromagnetic contacts.

Effect of Water Concentration in LiPF-Based Electrolytes on the Formation, Evolution, and Properties of the Solid Electrolyte Interphase on Si Anodes.

A trace amount of water in an electrolyte is one of the factors detrimental to the electrochemical performance of silicon (Si)-based lithium-ion batteries that adversely affect the formation and evolution of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) on Si-based anodes and change its properties. Thus far, a lack of fundamental and mechanistic understanding of SEI formation, evolution, and properties in the presence of water has inhibited efforts to stabilize the SEI for improved electrochemical performance. Thus, we investigated the SEI formed in a Gen2 electrolyte (1.

Surface SiO Thickness Controls Uniform-to-Localized Transition in Lithiation of Silicon Anodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Silicon is a promising anode material for lithium-ion batteries because of its high capacity, but its widespread adoption has been hampered by a low cycle life arising from mechanical failure and the absence of a stable solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI). Understanding SEI formation and its impact on cycle life is made more complex by the oxidation of silicon materials in air or during synthesis, which leads to SiO coatings of varying thicknesses that form the true surface of the electrode. In this paper, the lithiation of SiO-coated Si is studied in a controlled manner using SiO coatings of different thicknesses grown on Si wafers via thermal oxidation.

Triple-halide wide-band gap perovskites with suppressed phase segregation for efficient tandems.

Wide-band gap metal halide perovskites are promising semiconductors to pair with silicon in tandem solar cells to pursue the goal of achieving power conversion efficiency (PCE) greater than 30% at low cost. However, wide-band gap perovskite solar cells have been fundamentally limited by photoinduced phase segregation and low open-circuit voltage. We report efficient 1.

Hydrolysis and enzymatic degradation of Novichok nerve agents.

Several parameters of the Novichok nerve agents A230, A232 and A234 were determined. Hydrolysis rates were approximately one to three orders of magnitude slower than G-type nerve agents and approximately zero to two orders of magnitude slower than V-type nerve agents. A230 was the most labile Novichok compound followed by A232 then A234.

High-Throughput Screening of MOFs for Breakdown of V-Series Nerve Agents.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown promise for the catalytic decomposition of chemical weapons. Finding the best materials for the degradation of nerve agents requires the ability to screen a high number of samples and elucidate the key parameters of effective catalysis. In this work, a high-throughput screening (HTS) method has been developed to evaluate MOFs as catalysts, specifically against the V-class of nerve agents.

Mitigating Measurement Artifacts in TOF-SIMS Analysis of Perovskite Solar Cells.

Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) is one of the few techniques that can specifically distinguish between organic cations such as methylammonium and formamidinium. Distinguishing between these two species can lead to specific insight into the origins and evolution of compositional inhomogeneity and chemical gradients in halide perovskite solar cells, which appears to be a key to advancing the technology. TOF-SIMS can obtain chemical information from hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells (PSCs) in up to three dimensions, while not simply splitting the organic components into their molecular constituents (C, H, and N for both methylammonium and formamidinium), unlike other characterization methods.

Carrier lifetimes of >1 μs in Sn-Pb perovskites enable efficient all-perovskite tandem solar cells.

All-perovskite-based polycrystalline thin-film tandem solar cells have the potential to deliver efficiencies of >30%. However, the performance of all-perovskite-based tandem devices has been limited by the lack of high-efficiency, low-band gap tin-lead (Sn-Pb) mixed-perovskite solar cells (PSCs). We found that the addition of guanidinium thiocyanate (GuaSCN) resulted in marked improvements in the structural and optoelectronic properties of Sn-Pb mixed, low-band gap (~1.