Tandem organic solar cells with two stacked cells were fabricated using semiconducting polymers and fullerene derivatives. A thin intermediate multilayer of calcium, silver, and molybdenum oxide connects the front and the back cells. Bulk heterojunction (BHJ) films of the low band gap (BG) polymer, poly[N-9″-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4′,7′-di-2-thienyl-2′,1′,3′-benzothiadiazole)] (PCDTBT), and [6,6]-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM) are used for the front cell. As for the back cell of the tandem structure, the same PCDTBT:PC71BM BHJ (T1) or the high BG polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) blended with [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM) BHJ (T2) are used. The critical role of interlayer properties on the photovoltaic performance of devices are investigated. The observed open-circuit potential for the tandem cell approaches the sum of the potentials of the two respective subcells, demonstrating the potential for increasing the voltage of the solar cell using the tandem structure even with same or lower band gap polymer in the front.

Anti-solvent treatment assisted crystallization is currently one of the most widely used methods to obtain high-quality perovskite films ascribed to its great operability. However, choosing a proper anti-solvent toward high-quality perovskite film for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) remains elusive. In this study, we qualitatively evaluate the impact of anti-solvent treatment on the grain growth and phase composition of perovskite by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, and UV-vis absorption measurement, etc. The results demonstrate that the chemical groups in anti-solvents also affect the formation of perovskites, and anti-solvents with a low boiling point and good polarity contribute to the superior efficiency and reproducibility of PSCs. The device prepared using ether as an anti-solvent exhibits the best power conversion efficiency of 18.47%. The results indicate a new path toward selecting an ideal anti-solvent to improve the performance of PSCs.

In this work, atomic layer deposition (ALD), as a novel strategy, has been applied to deposit MgO on nano-sized porous Si (pSi) dendrites obtained by etching Al–Si alloy for LIBs. The reversible specific capacity of pSi@MgO electrode is 969.4 mA h/g after 100 cycles at 100 mA/g between 0.01 and 1.5 V, and it presents the discharge specific capacities of 1253.0, 885.5, 642.4, 366.2, and 101.4 mA h/g at 100, 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 mA/g, respectively. What is more, it delivers a high reversible capacity of 765.1 mA h/g even at 500 mA/g after 200 cycles. The performance improvement can be attributed to the protection of the MgO layer and built-in space of porous Si for volume expansion upon cycling. These results illustrate that ALD derived coating is a powerful strategy to enhance electrical properties of anode materials with huge volume change for lithium-ion batteries.

Novel NiMoO4-integrated electrode materials were successfully prepared by solvothermal method using Na2MoO4·2H2O and NiSO4·6H2O as main raw materials, water, and ethanol as solvents. The morphology, phase, and structure of the as-prepared materials were characterized by SEM, XRD, Raman, and FT-IR. The electrochemical properties of the materials in supercapacitors were investigated by cyclic voltammetry, constant current charge–discharge, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques. The effects of volume ratio of water to ethanol (W/E) in solvent on the properties of the product were studied. The results show that the pure phase monoclinic crystal NiMoO4 product can be obtained when the W/E is 2:1. The diameter and length are 0.1–0.3 µm and approximately 3 µm, respectively. As an active material for supercapacitor, the NiMoO4 nanorods material delivered a discharge specific capacitance of 672, 498, and 396 F/g at a current density of 4, 7, and 10 A/g, respectively. The discharge specific capacitance slightly decreased from 815 to 588 F/g with a retention of 72% after 1000 cycles at a current density of 1 A/g. With these superior capacitance properties, the novel NiMoO4 integrated electrode materials could be considered as promising material for supercapacitors.

In this work, hierarchical mesoporous Zn–Ni–Co–S–rGO/NF microspheres have been prepared by hydrothermal, sulfurization, and subsequent calcination process. The effect of different sulfurization time on the morphology and capacitance of composites was tested. The high electrochemical performance of (Zn–Ni–Co–S–rGO/NF) composite was obtained when the sulfurization time was 3 h (Zn–Ni–Co–S–rGO/NF-3h), where a specific capacitance of 627.7 F/g at 0.25 A/g and excellent rate capability of about 97.8% capacitance retention at 2 A/g after 4000 cycles were achieved. Moreover, an asymmetric supercapacitor fabricated by (Zn–Ni–Co–S–rGO/NF-3h) composite and activated carbon (AC) as the positive and the negative electrodes, respectively, showed a high energy density of 75.96 W h/kg at a power density of 362.49 W/kg with a remarkable cycle stability performance of 91.2% capacitance retention over 5000 cycles. This incredible electrochemical behavior illustrates that the hierarchical mesoporous Zn–Ni–Co–S–rGO/N-3h microsphere electrodes are promising electrode materials for application in high-performance supercapacitors.

Porosity-graded, conductor- and binder-free porous FeS2 films through the entire thickness were deposited by spray pyrolysis. The film layers deposited at 15 versus 10 L/min are grown in different modes. The film layer deposited at 15 L/min showed Frank–van der Merwe layer-like growth mode whereas the one deposited at 10 L/min showed island growth mode. These growth modes lead to the formation of large pores on the electrolyte side and small ones on the substrate side of the film deposited using 15 and 10 L/min, sequentially. The porosity-graded films showed discharge capacities at C/10 of 879 mA h/g and 754 mA h/g for the 5th and 20th cycles, respectively. Such capacity values are superior to the literature findings for FeS2 powders and nongraded films mixed with conductor and binder additions.

The activated carbon paper (ACP) has been designed as the active electrode material of supercapacitor to improve its capacitive performance. ACP is prepared by electrochemical nitrate ion–assisted exfoliation, sulfate ion–assisted exfoliation, and subsequent hydrothermal reduction processes. The as-prepared ACP shows obviously rougher surface along with the expanded layer distance. ACP exhibits higher specific capacitance of 380 mF/cm2 at 1 mA/cm2 than that of 21 mF/cm2 for carbon paper. ACP electrode shows the cycling capacitance retention of 98% after 5000 cycles at 10 mA/cm2. The symmetric ACP supercapacitor is constructed using ACP electrode and H2SO4 involved polyvinyl alcohol gel electrolyte. ACP supercapacitor presents the specific capacitance of 97 mF/cm2, the energy density of 0.343 mW h/cm3, and the output voltage of 1.6 V at 1 mA/cm2. ACP with high capacitance performance presents the promising supercapacitor application for the electrochemical energy storage.

Nanoindentation is commonly used to determine the mechanical properties of the engineering materials. Young’s modulus of a bulk material can be extracted from the load–depth data obtained from an indentation test with a prescribed Poisson’s ratio that is unknown for a new material. The effect of Poisson’s ratio on material’s mechanical property characterization remains unknown. In this paper, finite element analysis was used to simulate nanoindentation testing on specimens of low-carbon steel AISI1018, steel alloy AISI4340, and aluminum alloy 6061T6 with a cylindrical flat-tip indenter. The effects of Poisson’s ratio on measurements of indentation load versus depth curves, Young’s modulus, hardness, and pile-up of the specimens were investigated and formulated. The Poisson ratio ranging from 0 to 0.49 was considered. It was found that the linear part at the beginning of the indentation loading process from the load versus depth curve was proportional to the Young’s modulus and significantly affected by the Poisson’s ratio. The indentation pile-up was also sensitive to the Poisson’s ratio. Combining the formulas from this work with the Hertzian contact equation, the Young’s modulus and the Poisson’s ratio can be determined simultaneously.

A new constant contact pressure (CCP) indentation creep method is presented, which is based on keeping the mean contact pressure as defined through Sneddon’s hardness constant, until a steady-state strain rate is achieved. This is in contrast to the conventional constant load–hold (CLH) creep experiments, where the load is held constant and relaxation in both hardness and strain rate occurs at the same time. Besides controlling the mean contact pressure, the dynamic stiffness is furthermore used to assess the indentation depth, thereby minimizing thermal drift influence and pile-up or sink-in effects during long-term experiments. The CCP method has been tested on strain rate sensitive ultrafine-grained (UFG) CuZn30 and UFG CuZn5 as well as on fused silica, comparing the results with those of strain rate jump tests as well as the CLH nanoindentation creep tests. With the CCP method, strain rates from 5 × 10−4 s−1 down to 5 × 10−6 s−1 can be achieved, keeping the mean contact pressure constant over a long period of time, in contrast to the CLH method. The CCP technique thus offers the possibility of performing long-term creep experiments while retaining the contact stress underneath the tip constant.

The basis of the virtual machine concept, which is commonly used in coordinate measuring machines, was implemented to determine more realistic uncertainties on the estimation of the elastic modulus obtained from nanoindentation tests. The methodology is based on a mathematical model applied to simulate the testing process and to evaluate the uncertainties through Monte Carlo simulations whose application depends on the studied system (instrument, material, scale, etc.). The methodology was applied to the study of fused silica (FQ) and steel samples tested in a nanoindentation system. The results revealed that the most relevant sources of uncertainty are related to the calibration procedure, particularly to the elastic modulus of the calibration material, and to the contact depth estimation; however, the relevance of the uncertainties is system dependent. This work represents a first insight for a deeper consideration of the uncertainties in instrumented indentation testing.

A novel microtensile setup was developed to overcome typical issues encountered in small-scale testing, particularly sample fabrication, sample handling, and misalignment. The system features a silicon (Si) gripper, which is able to self-align with the specimen main axis. Finite element simulations were employed to optimize the microtensile specimen geometry and to mechanically characterize the system. Specimens were prepared using focused ion beam milling, while reactive ion etching was employed to produce the grippers. The system was calibrated using single-crystal (100) Si specimens. The strength asymmetry of brittle crystals was investigated on the example of gallium arsenide (GaAs). Microtensile GaAs specimens and square micropillars sharing lowest dimensions of 1.70 ± 0.19 µm were tested along the [001] crystallographic orientation. Micropillars underwent plastic deformation via twinning in {111} planes and exhibited yield stress of 2.60 ± 0.14 GPa. The tensile experiment showed brittle failure at 1.86 ± 0.17 GPa associated with complex fracture surfaces and no measurable dislocation activity.

AlMgB14–TiB2 ceramic was successfully brazed to TC4 alloy with inactive AgCu filler alloy. X-ray diffractometer, SEM, and energy-dispersive spectrometer were used to study interfacial microstructure and shear strength of the joints under different brazing temperatures. The results indicated that the typical microstructure of the TC4/AlMgB14–TiB2 joint was TC4/Ti(s.s) + Ti2Cu/Ti2Cu/TiCu/TiCu2Al/Ag(s.s) + Cu(s.s)/TiB whiskers/TiB2 reaction layer/AMBT. By increasing the brazing temperature, the thickness of the TC4 diffusion layer was improved, whereas that of the brazing seam decreased remarkably. When the brazing temperature was increased to 880 °C, the brazing seam was composed of Ti–Cu intermetallic Ag(s.s) with a few Cu(s.s), TiCu2Al distributed. Meanwhile, the formation of a continuous TiB2 reaction layer at the interface of the AMBT and brazing filler facilitated the improvement of joint shear strength. The joint with the maximum shear strength of 46.7 MPa was obtained while brazing at 880 °C for 10 min.

Sn–Sb alloy is an ideal candidate for lead-free solder; however, its performance has been inferior to that of Sn–Pb alloy. Here, the authors used ab initio molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the interatomic interaction in Sn–Sb-based lead-free solders. By calculating the electron density distribution, bond population, and partial density of states, the authors found that the Sn–Sb bonds are a mixture of nonlocalized metal and localized covalent bonds. The covalent bond between Sn and Sb is easy to break at higher temperatures, so Sn–Sb (6.4 wt%) had better fluidity than other studied Sn–Sb alloys. Furthermore, adding Cu or Ag into Sn–Sb alloys can decrease the strength of covalent bonds and stabilize the metal bonds, which improves the metallicity and wettability of the Sn–Sb–Cu and Sn–Sb–Cu–Ag systems when the temperature increases. These results are all in good agreement with experimental findings and have significant value for the development of new solder alloys.

This article mainly focuses on stabilization treatments that influence stress corrosion resistance of an AA5383-H15 alloy after undergoing sensitization treatment at 100 °C/168 h. The results show that without stabilization of the sensitized AA5383-H15 alloy, the β precipitates are distributed continuously like a mesh at grain boundary, and this is the main cause of intergranular corrosion failure. However, applying 3 different stabilization treatments (220 °C/3 h, 250 °C/3 h, and 280 °C/3 h) to the AA5383-H15 alloy shows a dramatic decrease in the β phase precipitation routes along the grain boundaries after the sensitization treatment, and thus an effective improvement in the corrosion resistance performance of AA5383-H15 alloys. Of all the stabilization treatments, the application of 250 °C/3 h stabilization treatment is found to be most effective. Applying 250 °C/3 h stabilization treatment facilitated partial recrystallization of the matrix, leading to suppress the continuous precipitation of the β phase along the grain boundaries during sensitization but instead precipitate in discontinuous mesh-like distribution, which can decrease its sensitivity to stress corrosion.

Under conventional solidification conditions, immiscible alloy melt would undergo large-scale composition segregation after liquid–liquid phase separation, resulting in the loss of properties and application value. In the present study, the ternary immiscible Al70Bi10Sn20 alloy was chosen to study the effect of cooling rate on its resultant microstructure by casting the melt under different cooling conditions. The results indicated that the Al–Bi–Sn alloy with a slow cooling rate exhibits a strong spatial phase separation trend during solidification. However, as the cooling rate increases, the decreasing volume fraction of the segregated Bi–Sn-rich regions indicates the efficient suppression of spatial phase separation. The relatively dispersed distribution of Bi–Sn phase in the Al-rich matrix can be obtained by quenching the melt into water. The influence mechanism of cooling rate on the microstructure of the alloy is also discussed. The present study is beneficial to further tailoring the microstructure of immiscible alloys.