Solar energy can be harvested using luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) incorporated with edge-mounted solar cells without sacrificing their see-through visibility, thus facilitating the development of solar windows. Eco-friendly carbon dots (CDs) are promising alternatives to heavy-metal-containing quantum dots in LSC applications. Unfortunately, their solid-state quantum yield (QY) at high optical density (required by laminated LSCs) is still low (<30%) and the Stokes shift is only moderate (<100 nm). Here, we studied the host-guest interaction between aminosilane-functionalized, nitrogen-containing CDs (Si-NCDs) and a silica matrix for preparing efficient laminated LSCs. We found that a sol-gel-derived silica matrix with vacuum treatment can efficiently suppress the direct nonradiative transition of the absorbing states and selectively enhance the long-wavelength-emitting surface states. Therefore, the formed Si-NCDs@silica composites simultaneously exhibited high QYs (>60%) and large Stokes shifts (>200 nm) even at a high loading content (∼10 wt%), while still exhibiting high optical transparency. Moreover, unlike conventional QY reduction upon increasing the excitation wavelengths, such high QY values can be maintained over all excitation wavelengths in the absorption region. Benefiting from these photophysical properties, efficient laminated LSCs were simply prepared, yielding a high optical efficiency of ∼4.4%.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d0nr07163c | DOI Listing |
Clin Exp Optom
January 2025
Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.
Clinical Relevance: There are many recognised risk factors for retinal vein occlusions. It is plausible that musicians who play wind instruments or use their voice as their primary instrument may be at increased risk of branch retinal vein occlusions through repeated Valsalva manoeuvre.
Background: Repeated valsalva manoeuvres are commonly performed by musicians using high resistance wind instruments.
ACS Nano
January 2025
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang 37673, Republic of Korea.
Optical metasurfaces, arrays of nanostructures engineered to manipulate light, have emerged as a transformative technology in both research and industry due to their compact design and exceptional light control capabilities. Their strong light-matter interactions enable precise wavefront modulation, polarization control, and significant near-field enhancements. These unique properties have recently driven their application in biomedical fields.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Sci (Weinh)
January 2025
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, No.100 Science Avenue, Zhengzhou, 450001, P. R. China.
Photoswitchable fluorescent materials have gained significant attention for their potential in advanced information encryption and anti-counterfeiting applications. However, the common use of UV light to trigger the isomerization processes leads to photobleaching and poor fatigue resistance. Visible-light-driven fluorescent photoswitches are highly desirable, but achieving high cyclization yield remains challenging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Nano
January 2025
School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.
Van der Waals electrode integration is a promising strategy to create nearly perfect interfaces between metals and 2D materials, with advantages such as eliminating Fermi-level pinning and reducing contact resistance. However, the lack of a simple, generalizable pick-and-place transfer technology has greatly hampered the wide use of this technique. We demonstrate the pick-and-place transfer of prefabricated electrodes from reusable polished hydrogenated diamond substrates without the use of any sacrificial layers due to the inherent low-energy and dangling-bond-free nature of the hydrogenated diamond surface.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChemphyschem
January 2025
University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, 421 Washington Avenue SE, 55455, Minneapolis, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Broader adoption of 4D ultrafast electron microscopy (UEM) for the study of chemical, materials, and quantum systems is being driven by development of new instruments as well as continuous improvement and characterization of existing technologies. Perhaps owing to the still-high barrier to entry, the full range of capabilities of laser-driven 4D UEM instruments has yet to be established, particularly when operated at extremely low beam currents (~fA). Accordingly, with an eye on beam stability, we have conducted particle tracing simulations of unconventional off-axis photoemission geometries in a UEM equipped with a thermionic-emission gun.
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