Synergistic Ni-W Dimer Sites Induced Stable Compressive Strain for Boosting the Performance of Pt as Electrocatalyst for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

Alloying Pt catalysts with transition metal elements is an effective pathway to enhance the performance of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), but often accompanied with severe metal dissolution issue, resulting in poor stability of alloy catalysts. Here, instead of forming traditional alloy structure, we modify Pt surface with a novel Ni-W dimer structure by the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. The obtained NiW@PtC catalyst exhibits superior ORR performance both in liquid half-cell and practical fuel cell compared with initial Pt/C. It is discovered that strong synergistic Ni-W dimer structure arising from short atomic distance induced a stable compressive strain on the Pt surface, thus boosting Pt catalytic performance. This surface modification by synergistic dimer sites offers an effective strategy in tailoring Pt with excellent activity and stability, which provides a significant perspective in boosting the performance of commercial Pt catalyst modified with polymetallic atom sites.

Recent Progress in Self-Powered Wireless Sensors and Systems Based on TENG.

With the development of 5G, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, diversified sensors (such as the signal acquisition module) have become more and more important in people's daily life. According to the extensive use of various distributed wireless sensors, powering them has become a big problem. Among all the powering methods, the self-powered sensor system based on triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) has shown its superiority. This review focuses on four major application areas of wireless sensors based on TENG, including environmental monitoring, human monitoring, industrial production, and daily life. The perspectives and outlook of the future development of self-powered wireless sensors are discussed.

Triboelectric Potential Powered High-Performance Organic Transistor Array.

Triboelectric potential gated transistors have inspired various applications toward mechanical behavior controlled logic circuits, multifunctional sensors, artificial sensory neurons, etc. Their rapid development urgently calls for high-performance devices and corresponding figure of merits to standardize the tribotronic gating properties. Organic semiconductors paired with solution processability promise low-cost manufacture of high-performance tribotronic transistor devices/arrays. Here, we demonstrate a record high-performance tribotronic transistor array composed of an integrated triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and a large-area device array of C8-BTBT-PS transistors. The working mechanism of effective triboelectric potential gating is elaborately explained from the aspect of conjugated energy bands of the contact-electrification mediums and organic semiconductors. Driven by the triboelectric potential, the tribotronic transistor shows superior properties of record high current on/off ratios (>108), a steep subthreshold swing (29.89 µm/dec), high stability, and excellent reproducibility. Moreover, tribotronic logic devices modulated by mechanical displacement have also been demonstrated with good stability and a high gain of 1260 V/mm. The demonstrated large-area tribotronic transistor array of organic semiconductor exhibits record high performance and offers an effective R&D platform for mechano-driven electronic terminals, interactive intelligent system, artificial robotic skin, etc.