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Non-fullerene acceptors based organic solar cells represent the frontier of the field, owing to both the materials and morphology manipulation innovations. Non-radiative recombination loss suppression and performance boosting are in the center of organic solar cell research. Here, we developed a non-monotonic intermediate state manipulation strategy for state-of-the-art organic solar cells by employing 1,3,5-trichlorobenzene as crystallization regulator, which optimizes the film crystallization process, regulates the self-organization of bulk-heterojunction in a non-monotonic manner, i.e., first enhancing and then relaxing the molecular aggregation. As a result, the excessive aggregation of non-fullerene acceptors is avoided and we have achieved efficient organic solar cells with reduced non-radiative recombination loss. In PM6:BTP-eC9 organic solar cell, our strategy successfully offers a record binary organic solar cell efficiency of 19.31% (18.93% certified) with very low non-radiative recombination loss of 0.190 eV. And lower non-radiative recombination loss of 0.168 eV is further achieved in PM1:BTP-eC9 organic solar cell (19.10% efficiency), giving great promise to future organic solar cell research. Non-radiative recombination loss suppression is critical for boosting performance of organic solar cells. Here, the authors regulate self-organization of bulk-heterojunction in a non-monotonic manner, and achieve device efficiency over 19% with low non-radiative recombination loss down to 0.168 eV.

The oxygen evolution reaction is known to be a kinetic bottleneck for water splitting. Triggering the lattice oxygen oxidation mechanism (LOM) can break the theoretical limit of the conventional adsorbate evolution mechanism and enhance the oxygen evolution reaction kinetics, yet the unsatisfied stability remains a grand challenge. Here, we report a high-entropy MnFeCoNiCu layered double hydroxide decorated with Au single atoms and O vacancies (Au SA -MnFeCoNiCu LDH), which not only displays a low overpotential of 213 mV at 10 mA cm −2 and high mass activity of 732.925 A g −1 at 250 mV overpotential in 1.0 M KOH, but also delivers good stability with 700 h of continuous operation at ~100 mA cm −2 . Combining the advanced spectroscopic techniques and density functional theory calculations, it is demonstrated that the synergistic interaction between the incorporated Au single atoms and O vacancies leads to an upshift in the O 2 p band and weakens the metal-O bond, thus triggering the LOM, reducing the energy barrier, and boosting the intrinsic activity. The unsatisfied stability of the oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalysts remains a great challenge. The authors activate the lattice oxygen in high-entropy layered double hydroxide, exhibiting durable and robust performance due to the high-entropy effect and optimized electronic structure.

The absence of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) ferromagnetic crystals with both above-room-temperature strong intrinsic ferromagnetism and large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) severely hinders practical applications of 2D vdW crystals in next-generation low-power magnetoelectronic and spintronic devices. Here, we report a vdW intrinsic ferromagnetic crystal Fe 3 GaTe 2 that exhibits record-high above-room-temperature Curie temperature ( Tc , ~350-380 K) for known 2D vdW intrinsic ferromagnets, high saturation magnetic moment (40.11 emu/g), large PMA energy density (~4.79 × 10 5  J/m 3 ), and large anomalous Hall angle (3%) at room temperature. Such large room-temperature PMA is better than conventional widely-used ferromagnetic films like CoFeB, and one order of magnitude larger than known 2D vdW intrinsic ferromagnets. Room-temperature thickness and angle-dependent anomalous Hall devices and direct magnetic domains imaging based on Fe 3 GaTe 2 nanosheet have been realized. This work provides an avenue for room-temperature 2D ferromagnetism, electrical control of 2D ferromagnetism and promote the practical applications of 2D-vdW-integrated spintronic devices. In isotropic two dimensional systems, long range ferromagnetic order is supressed by thermal fluctuations, and it is due to magnetic anisotropy that van der Waals magnetic materials can have ferromagnetic ordering at finite temperatures. Usually this magnetic anisotropy is relatively small, but in this manuscript Zhang et al make a two dimensional van der Waals material with exceptionally large perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and ferromagnetic ordering that exits up to 350 K.

The combination between macroscopic structure designs and microscopic material designs offers tremendous possibilities for the development of advanced electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorbers. Herein, we propose a metamaterial design to address persistent challenges in this field, including narrow bandwidth, low–frequency bottlenecks, and, particularly, the urgent issue of robustness (i.e., oblique, and polarized incidence). Our absorber features a semiconductive metal-organic framework/iron 2D/2D assembly (CuHT–FCIP) with abundant crystal/crystal heterojunctions and strong magneto-electric coupling networks. This design achieves remarkable EMW absorption across a broad range (2 to 40 GHz) at a thickness of just 9.3 mm. Notably, it maintains stable performance against oblique incidence (within 75°) and polarizations (both transverse electric and transverse magnetic). Furthermore, the absorber demonstrates high specific compressive strength (201.01 MPa·cm 3 ·g −1 ) and low density (0.89 g·cm −3 ). This advancement holds promise for developing robust EMW absorbers with superior performance. Here the Authors showcase a microwave absorber design that combines semiconductive metal-organic frameworks with iron 2D layers, achieving ultra-broadband absorption in the whole 5 G frequencies and stable performance against various angles and polarizations.

Achieving high selectivity of Li + and Mg 2+ is of paramount importance for effective lithium extraction from brines, and nanofiltration (NF) membrane plays a critical role in this process. The key to achieving high selectivity lies in the on-demand design of NF membrane pores in accordance with the size difference between Li + and Mg 2+ ions, but this poses a huge challenge for traditional NF membranes and difficult to be realized. In this work, we report the fabrication of polyamide (PA) NF membranes with ultra-high Li + /Mg 2+ selectivity by modifying the interfacial polymerization (IP) process between piperazine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) with an oil-soluble surfactant that forms a monolayer at oil/water interface, referred to as OSARIP. The OSARIP benefits to regulate the membrane pores so that all of them are smaller than Mg 2+ ions. Under the solely size sieving effect, an exceptional Mg 2+ rejection rate of over 99.9% is achieved. This results in an exceptionally high Li + /Mg 2+ selectivity, which is one to two orders of magnitude higher than all the currently reported pressure-driven membranes, and even higher than the microporous framework materials, including COFs, MOFs, and POPs. The large enhancement of ion separation performance of NF membranes may innovate the current lithium extraction process and greatly improve the lithium extraction efficiency. Achieving high selectivity of Li+ and Mg2+ is of paramount importance for effective lithium extraction from brines, and nanofiltration (NF) membrane plays a critical role in this process. Here the authors report the fabrication of polyamide NF membranes with ultra-high Li + /Mg2+ selectivity by modifying the interfacial polymerization process with an oil-soluble surfactant.

Incorporating mixed ion is a frequently used strategy to stabilize black-phase formamidinum lead iodide perovskite for high-efficiency solar cells. However, these devices commonly suffer from photoinduced phase segregation and humidity instability. Herein, we find that the underlying reason is that the mixed halide perovskites generally fail to grow into homogenous and high-crystalline film, due to the multiple pathways of crystal nucleation originating from various intermediate phases in the film-forming process. Therefore, we design a multifunctional fluorinated additive, which restrains the complicated intermediate phases and promotes orientated crystallization of α-phase of perovskite. Furthermore, the additives in-situ polymerize during the perovskite film formation and form a hydrogen-bonded network to stabilize α-phase. Remarkably, the polymerized additives endow a strongly hydrophobic effect to the bare perovskite film against liquid water for 5 min. The unencapsulated devices achieve 24.10% efficiency and maintain >95% of the initial efficiency for 1000 h under continuous sunlight soaking and for 2000 h at air ambient of ~50% humid, respectively. Formamidinum lead iodide perovskite solar cells commonly suffer from photoinduced phase segregation and humidity instability. Here, the authors design a multifunctional fluorinated additive to promote orientated crystallization of α-phase, and achieve maximum efficiency of 24.1% and T95 over 1000 h.

Separating molecules or ions with sub-Angstrom scale precision is important but technically challenging. Achieving such a precise separation using membranes requires Angstrom scale pores with a high level of pore size uniformity. Herein, we demonstrate that precise solute-solute separation can be achieved using polyamide membranes formed via surfactant-assembly regulated interfacial polymerization (SARIP). The dynamic, self-assembled network of surfactants facilitates faster and more homogeneous diffusion of amine monomers across the water/hexane interface during interfacial polymerization, thereby forming a polyamide active layer with more uniform sub-nanometre pores compared to those formed via conventional interfacial polymerization. The polyamide membrane formed by SARIP exhibits highly size-dependent sieving of solutes, yielding a step-wise transition from low rejection to near-perfect rejection over a solute size range smaller than half Angstrom. SARIP represents an approach for the scalable fabrication of ultra-selective membranes with uniform nanopores for precise separation of ions and small solutes. Separating molecules or ions with sub-Angstrom scale precision is important but technically challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate that precise solute-solute separation can be achieved using polyamide membranes formed via surfactant-assembly regulated interfacial polymerization.

In organic solar cells (OSCs), cathode interfacial materials are generally designed with highly polar groups to increase the capability of lowering the work function of cathode. However, the strong polar group could result in a high surface energy and poor physical contact at the active layer surface, posing a challenge for interlayer engineering to address the trade-off between device stability and efficiency. Herein, we report a hydrogen-bonding interfacial material, aliphatic amine-functionalized perylene-diimide (PDINN), which simultaneously down-shifts the work function of the air stable cathodes (silver and copper), and maintains good interfacial contact with the active layer. The OSCs based on PDINN engineered silver-cathode demonstrate a high power conversion efficiency of 17.23% (certified value 16.77% by NREL) and high stability. Our results indicate that PDINN is an effective cathode interfacial material and interlayer engineering via suitable intermolecular interactions is a feasible approach to improve device performance of OSCs. It is desired to design cathode interfacial layers to simultaneously improve the efficiency and stability of organic solar cells and tune the cathode properties. Here, Yao et al. develop such interfacial layers for the best donor-acceptor system and achieve a high certified efficiency close to 17%.

Distributed photovoltaics in living environment harvest the sunlight in different incident angles throughout the day. The development of planer solar cells with large light-receiving angle can reduce the requirements in installation form factor and is therefore urgently required. Here, thin film organic photovoltaics with nano-sized phase separation integrated in micro-sized surface topology is demonstrated as an ideal solution to proposed applications. All-polymer solar cells, by means of a newly developed sequential processing, show large magnitude hierarchical morphology with facilitated exciton-to-carrier conversion. The nano fibrilar donor-acceptor network and micron-scale optical field trapping structure in combination contributes to an efficiency of 19.06% (certified 18.59%), which is the highest value to date for all-polymer solar cells. Furthermore, the micron-sized surface topology also contributes to a large light-receiving angle. A 30% improvement of power gain is achieved for the hierarchical morphology comparing to the flat-morphology devices. These inspiring results show that all-polymer solar cell with hierarchical features are particularly suitable for the commercial applications of distributed photovoltaics due to its low installation requirement. A large light-receiving angle in planar solar cells is crucial for flexible installation of distributed photovoltaics. Here, authors report sequential-processed all-polymer solar cells with nano-sized phase separation integrated in micro-sized surface topology and maximum efficiency of over 19%.

Minimizing energy loss is of critical importance in the pursuit of attaining high-performance organic solar cells. Interestingly, reorganization energy plays a crucial role in photoelectric conversion processes. However, the understanding of the relationship between reorganization energy and energy losses has rarely been studied. Here, two acceptors, Qx-1 and Qx-2, were developed. The reorganization energies of these two acceptors during photoelectric conversion processes are substantially smaller than the conventional Y6 acceptor, which is beneficial for improving the exciton lifetime and diffusion length, promoting charge transport, and reducing the energy loss originating from exciton dissociation and non-radiative recombination. So, a high efficiency of 18.2% with high open circuit voltage above 0.93 V in the PM6:Qx-2 blend, accompanies a significantly reduced energy loss of 0.48 eV. This work underlines the importance of the reorganization energy in achieving small energy losses and paves a way to obtain high-performance organic solar cells. Minimising energy loss is important for achieving high-performance organic solar cells. Here, the authors design and synthesise two acceptors with small reorganisation energies and reveal the relationship between reorganisation energy and energy losses.