Stability enhancement of perovskite solar cells using multifunctional inorganic materials with UV protective, self cleaning, and high wear resistance properties.

Organometal halide perovskite solar cells have reached a high power conversion efficiency of up to 25.8% but suffered from poor long-term stability against environmental factors such as ultraviolet irradiation and humidity of the environment. Herein, two different multifunctional transparent coatings containing AZO and ZnO porous UV light absorbers were employed on the front of the PSCs. This strategy is designed to improve the long-term stability of PSCs against UV irradiation. Moreover, the provided coatings exhibit two additional roles, including self-cleaning and high wear resistance. In this regard, AZO coating showed higher wear resistance compared to the ZnO coating. The photocatalytic self-cleaning properties of these prepared coatings make them stable against environmental pollutants. Furthermore, appropriate mechanical properties such as high hardness and low coefficient of friction that leads to high resistance against wear are other features of these coatings. The devices with AZO/Glass/FTO/meso-TiO2/Perovskite/spiro/Au and ZnO/Glass/FTO/meso-TiO2/Perovskite/spiro/Au configurations maintained 40% and 30% of their initial performance for 100 h during 11 days (9 h per day) against the UV light with the high intensity of 50 mW cm-2 which is due to higher absorption of AZO compared with ZnO in the ultraviolet region. Since AZO has a higher light transmission in the visible region in comparison to ZnO, perovskite cells with AZO protective layers have higher efficiency than perovskite cells with ZnO layers. It is worth noting that the mentioned features make these coatings usable for cover glass in all types of solar cells.

Prevalence of anxiety and depression in adult patients with CHD.

INTRODUCTION: CHD are among the most common congenital defects. Due to the chronic nature of CHD, patients face various risk factors that threaten their mental health. However, a comprehensive understanding of the medical and social predictors of mental health issues in adults with CHD is lacking. This study aims to investigate the prevalence of anxiety and depression in adults with CHD. METHODS: This cross-sectional descriptive study focused on adults with CHD in Kerman, Iran. The participants completed demographic information alongside two psychological assessment tools: the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS)-21. The data were analyzed using SPSS 26. FINDINGS: The mean age of the participants was 29.94 ± 12.36 years, and 63.8% were female. According to the DASS, 73.4% did not have depression, 61% did not have anxiety, and 76.2% did not have stress. In total, 19% had mild stress, and 4.8% had moderate stress. According to the BAI, 27.6% did not have anxiety. Individual characteristics were not significantly associated with depression. However, gender, age, and type of surgery were significantly associated with anxiety. Cyanosis was significantly associated with stress. CONCLUSION: The results show that mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and stress are highly prevalent in adults with CHD. The prevalence depends on individual factors such as age, gender, and disease severity. Therefore, it is recommended that mental disorders in this population be evaluated and treated accurately.

Self-healing perovskite solar cells based on copolymer-templated TiO2 electron transport layer.

Inorganic hole-transport materials (HTMs) such as copper indium disulfide (CIS) have been applied in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) to improve the poor stability of the conventional Spiro-based PSCs. However, CIS-PSCs' main drawback is their lower efficiency than Spiro-PSCs. In this work, copolymer-templated TiO2 (CT-TiO2) structures have been used as an electron transfer layer (ETL) to improve the photocurrent density and efficiency of CIS-PSCs. Compared to the conventional random porous TiO2 ETLs, copolymer-templated TiO2 ETLs with a lower refractive index improve the transmittance of input light into the cell and therefore enhance the photovoltaic performance. Interestingly, a large number of surface hydroxyl groups on the CT-TiO2 induce a self-healing effect in perovskite. Thus, they provide superior stability in CIS-PSC. The fabricated CIS-PSC presents a conversion efficiency of 11.08% (Jsc = 23.35 mA/cm2, Voc = 0.995, and FF = 0.477) with a device area of 0.09 cm2 under 100 mW/cm2. Moreover, these unsealed CIS-PSCs retained 100% of their performance after aging tests for 90 days under ambient conditions and even increased from 11.08 to 11.27 over time due to self-healing properties.

Impacts of plasmonic nanoparticles incorporation and interface energy alignment for highly efficient carbon-based perovskite solar cells.

This work utilizes a realistic electro-optical coupled simulation to study the (i) impact of mesoporous TiO2 removal; (ii) the embedding of Ag@SiO2 and SiO2@Ag@SiO2 plasmonic nanoparticles; (iii) utilization of solution-processed inorganic p-type copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) layer at the perovskite/carbon interface; and (iv) the increase of the work function of carbon electrodes (via incorporation of suitable additives/binders to the carbon ink) on the performance of carbon-based PSCs. Removal of mesoporous TiO2 increased the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the device from 14.83 to 16.50% due to the increase in exciton generation rate and charge carriers' mobility in the vicinity of the perovskite-compact TiO2 interface. Subsequently, variable mass ratios of Ag@SiO2 and SiO2@Ag@SiO2 plasmonic nanoparticles are embedded in the vicinity of the perovskite-compact TiO2 interface. In the optimum cases, the PCE of the devices increased to 19.72% and 18.92%, respectively, due to light trapping, scattering, and strong plasmonic fields produced by the plasmonic nanoparticles. Furthermore, adding the CuSCN layer remarkably increased the PCE of the device with a 0.93% mass ratio of Ag@SiO2 nanoparticles from 19.72 to 26.58% by a significant improvement of Voc and FF, due to the proper interfacial energy band alignment and the reduction of the recombination current density. Similar results were obtained by increasing the carbon work function, and the cell PCE was enhanced up to 26% in the optimal scenario. Our results pave the way to achieve high efficiencies in remarkably stable printable carbon-based PSCs.

Performance Enhancement of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Based on TiO2 Thick Mesoporous Photoanodes by Morphological Manipulation.

This study is an attempt to give an account of the preparation of mesoporous TiO2 thick templated films of nonsimilar pore architecture and their use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Highly crystallized mesoporous titania thick templated films with four different morphologies including hexagonal, wormlike, cubic, and gridlike mesostructure, have been successfully synthesized through an evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) route followed by layer-by-layer deposition. Stabilization, followed by each coating, and calcinations, carried out after every five layers, were used to produce crack-free thick films. These mesoporous templated titanium dioxide samples were characterized by TEM, XRD, SEM, BET, and UV-vis measurements and used as a photoelectrode material in DSSCs. The mesostructured films with a thickness of about 7 µm demonstrated better performance in comparison to nanocrystalline TiO2 films (NC-TiO2) at a film thickness of 13 µm as the most typical films utilized in DSSCs. The findings reveal that a surfactant/Ti ratio change undergone for developing cubic mesostructures can enhance the crystallinity and roughness factor and therefore increase the energy conversion efficiency of DSSC. The cell performances derived from these mesofilms were enhanced compared to the efficiencies reported thus far. The best photovoltaic performance of 8.73% came from DSSC using the cubic mesoporous TiO2 photoelectrode with the following properties: open circuit voltage of 743 mV, short circuit photocurrent density of 16.35 mA/cm(2), and fill factor of 0.72.