AI Article Synopsis

  • Solar energy can be effectively harvested through luminescent solar concentrators with edge-mounted solar cells that maintain transparency, leading to the creation of solar windows.
  • Eco-friendly carbon dots (CDs) have potential as alternatives to heavy metal quantum dots in these systems, but their efficiency is limited by low quantum yield and moderate Stokes shift.
  • A study on the interaction between nitrogen-containing carbon dots and a silica matrix reveals that proper treatment can enhance their optical properties, achieving over 60% quantum yield and enabling high optical efficiency for laminated solar concentrators.

Article Abstract

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%.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d0nr07163cDOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

high optical
12
quantum yield
8
carbon dots
8
luminescent solar
8
solar concentrators
8
laminated lscs
8
excitation wavelengths
8
solar
5
high
5
utilizing host-guest
4

Similar Publications

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.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

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 PDF

Visible-Light-Driven Fluorescence Turn-on Photoswitches With Near Quantitative Photocyclization Yield.

Adv 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 PDF

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 PDF

Influence of Photoemission Geometry on Timing and Efficiency in 4D Ultrafast Electron Microscopy.

Chemphyschem

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.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!