Photonic nanostructures mimicking floral epidermis for perovskite solar cells.

Here, we report photonic nanostructures replicated from the adaxial epidermis of flower petals onto light-polymerized coatings using low-cost nanoimprint lithography at ambient temperature. These multifunctional nanocoatings are applied to confer enhanced light trapping, water repellence, and UV light and environmental moisture protection features in perovskite solar cells. The former feature helps attain a maximum power conversion efficiency of 24.61% (21.01% for the reference cell) without any additional device optimization. Added to these merits, the nanocoatings also enable stable operation under AM 1.5G and UV light continuous illumination or in real-world conditions. Our engineering approach provides a simple way to produce multifunctional nanocoatings optimized by nature's wisdom.

NH3 Sensor Based on rGO-PANI Composite with Improved Sensitivity.

This work reports on a reduced graphene oxide and poly(aniline) composite (rGO-PANI), with rGO clusters inserted between PANI chains. These clusters were formed due the plasticizing effect of N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) solvent, which was added during the synthesis. Further, this composite was processed as thin film onto an interdigitated electrode array and used as the sensitive layer for ammonia gas, presenting sensitivity of 250% at 100 ppm, a response time of 97 s, and a lowest detection limit of 5 ppm. The PANI deprotonation process, upon exposure to NH3, rGO, also contributed by improving the sensitivity due its higher surface area and the presence of carboxylic acids. This allowed for the interaction between the hydrogen of NH3 (nucleophilic character) and the -COOH groups (electrophilic character) from the rGO surface, thereby introducing a promising sensing composite for amine-based gases.

Micropipette-Based Microfluidic Device for Monodisperse Microbubbles Generation.

Microbubbles have various applications including their use as carrier agents for localized delivery of genes and drugs and in medical diagnostic imagery. Various techniques are used for the production of monodisperse microbubbles including the Gyratory, the coaxial electro-hydrodynamic atomization (CEHDA), the sonication methods, and the use of microfluidic devices. Some of these techniques require safety procedures during the application of intense electric fields (e.g., CEHDA) or soft lithography equipment for the production of microfluidic devices. This study presents a hybrid manufacturing process using micropipettes and 3D printing for the construction of a T-Junction microfluidic device resulting in simple and low cost generation of monodisperse microbubbles. In this work, microbubbles with an average size of 16.6 to 57.7 µm and a polydispersity index (PDI) between 0.47% and 1.06% were generated. When the device is used at higher bubble production rate, the average diameter was 42.8 µm with increased PDI of 3.13%. In addition, a second-order polynomial characteristic curve useful to estimate micropipette internal diameter necessary to generate a desired microbubble size is presented and a linear relationship between the ratio of gaseous and liquid phases flows and the ratio of microbubble and micropipette diameters (i.e., Qg/Ql and Db/Dp) was found.

Extremely stable all solution processed organic tandem solar cells with TiO2/GO recombination layer under continuous light illumination.

One approach to harvest a wide solar spectral solar energy is to stack two solar cells with different absorption characteristics in a tandem cell architecture. Herein, solution processed tandem solar cells, with highly transparent titanium oxide (TiO2) and graphene oxide (GO) as an efficient recombination layer, were designed, fabricated and characterized. We have adopted poly[(4,4'-bis(3-ethylhexyl)dithieno[3,2-b:''3'-d]silole)-2,6-diyl-alt-(2,5-(3-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole]:indene-C60 bisadduct (PSEHTT:ICBA) and poly[(4,4'-bis(2-ethylhexyl)dithieno[3,2-b:2',3'-d]silole)-2,6-diyl-alt-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)-4,7-diyl]:[6,6]-phenyl-C70 butyric acid methyl ester (PSBTBT:PC70BM) as the active layers for the front and rear cells, respectively. The TiO2/GO serves as an electron and hole collecting and recombination layer. The tandem solar cells showed a high open circuit voltage (VOC) 1.62 V, a moderate short circuit current density (JSC) 8.23 mA cm(-2), fill factor (FF) 62.98%, leading to the power conversion efficiency of 8.40%. The obtained VOC value of tandem solar cells is ideal for the summation of VOCs attained from front and rear cells and it is evident that our tandem solar cells are well connected in series. Moreover, this tandem cell exhibits a 20% drop in conversion efficiency under continuous AM illumination for 2880 h.