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Polymer electrolytes (PEs) compatible with NCM cathodes in solid‐state lithium metal batteries (SSLMBs) are gaining recognition as key candidates for advanced electrochemical storage, offering significant safety and stability. Nevertheless, the inherent properties of PEs and interactions at the interface with NCM cathodes are pivotal in influencing SSLMBs' overall performance. This review offers an in‐depth examination of PEs, focusing on design strategies that leverage electron‐group electronegativity for molecular structure adjustments. Furthermore, it delves into the challenges presented by the interface between PEs and NCM cathodes, including issues like poor interface contact, interface reactions, and elevated resistance. The review also discusses a range of strategies aimed at stabilizing these interfaces, such as applying surface coatings to NCM, optimizing the structure of PEs, and employing in situ polymerization techniques to improve compatibility and battery efficiency. The conclusion offers insights into future developments, highlighting the importance of electron‐group optimization and the adoption of effective methods to enhance interface stability and contact, thus advancing the practical implementation of high‐performance SSLMBs. The development of polymer electrolytes with superior properties, combined with stable and compatible interfaces between the polymer electrolyte and the NCM cathode, is crucial for achieving high energy density in solid‐state lithium metal batteries. In this review, we provide an in‐depth overview of various polymer electrolytes, highlighting the interface challenges and strategies to stabilize contact with the NCM cathode. We also offer guidance on enhancing the performance of solid‐state lithium metal batteries by focusing on polymer electrolyte design strategies, particularly those leveraging electron‐group electronegativity for molecular adjustments. Furthermore, we explore methods to improve interface stability, such as surface coatings on the NCM cathode, optimizing polymer electrolyte structures, and employing in situ polymerization techniques.

Superhydrophobic surfaces could repel water due to the capillary force associated with surface roughness, which has a large range of applications, such as underwater drag reduction, heat transfer enhancement, oil/water separation, and so on. However, the engineering applications of superhydrophobic surfaces rely on the stability of the superhydrophobic surfaces. In this study, a hydrophilic metal mesh was modified to be superhydrophobic. The resulting superhydrophobic mesh was designed as a bowl capable of holding water without leaking and as a boat floating on top of water without sinking. The stability of an impacting droplet on a superhydrophobic mesh was investigated using both experiments and theoretical analysis. It was demonstrated that the capillary force is able to prevent water from passing through the mesh and maintain the stability of the air–water interface under dynamic pressure. Furthermore, a theoretical model was developed to diagnose the stability of the air–water interface on the superhydrophobic mesh when in contact with water, and the results are consistent with the experimental findings. The results of this work can be utilized to design robust superhydrophobic meshes and advance the field of droplet manipulation.

We numerically investigate the linear instability problem of Poiseuille flow in a channel partially filled with a porous medium on the bottom side. We are primarily interested in the influence of the interface momentum distribution including stress continuity and jump interface conditions. A spectral collocation method is applied in solving the fully coupled instability problem arising from the adjacent porous and free channel flows. The results show that the \"interface stress coefficient\" in a negative range has a larger effect on the trajectory of the eigenvalues than that in the positive range, especially the most unstable mode. Moreover, with a low permeability in the porous region, the interface momentum distribution has less effect on the stability of core flow. And when the \"interface stress coefficient\" is equal to its minimum negative value, the flow passing through the channel is at its most stable state. If the \"interface stress coefficient\" varies in a positive range, the degree of fluid stability is predicted to slightly diminish due to stress continuity condition at the interface.

Perovskite solar cells with an inverted architecture provide a key pathway for commercializing this emerging photovoltaic technology because of the better power conversion efficiency and operational stability compared with the normal device structure. Specifically, power conversion efficiencies of the inverted perovskite solar cells have exceeded 25% owing to the development of improved self-assembled molecules 1 – 5 and passivation strategies 6 – 8 . However, poor wettability and agglomeration of self-assembled molecules 9 – 12 cause interfacial losses, impeding further improvement in the power conversion efficiency and stability. Here we report a molecular hybrid at the buried interface in inverted perovskite solar cells that co-assembled the popular self-assembled molecule [4-(3,6-dimethyl-9 H -carbazol-9-yl)butyl]phosphonic acid (Me-4PACz) with the multiple aromatic carboxylic acid 4,4′,4″-nitrilotribenzoic acid (NA) to improve the heterojunction interface. The molecular hybrid of Me-4PACz with NA could substantially improve the interfacial characteristics. The resulting inverted perovskite solar cells demonstrated a record certified steady-state efficiency of 26.54%. Crucially, this strategy aligns seamlessly with large-scale manufacturing, achieving one of the highest certified power conversion efficiencies for inverted mini-modules at 22.74% (aperture area 11.1 cm 2 ). Our device also maintained 96.1% of its initial power conversion efficiency after more than 2,400 h of 1-sun operation in ambient air. High efficiency in perovskite solar cells is achieved by using a molecular hybrid of a self-assembled monolayer with nitrilotribenzoic acid.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007207.].[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007207.].

Metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) represent a promising low-cost thin-film photovoltaic technology, with unprecedented power conversion efficiencies obtained for both single-junction and tandem applications 1 – 8 . To push PSCs towards commercialization, it is critical, albeit challenging, to understand device reliability under real-world outdoor conditions where multiple stress factors (for example, light, heat and humidity) coexist, generating complicated degradation behaviours 9 – 13 . To quickly guide PSC development, it is necessary to identify accelerated indoor testing protocols that can correlate specific stressors with observed degradation modes in fielded devices. Here we use a state-of-the-art positive-intrinsic-negative (p–i–n) PSC stack (with power conversion efficiencies of up to approximately 25.5%) to show that indoor accelerated stability tests can predict our six-month outdoor ageing tests. Device degradation rates under illumination and at elevated temperatures are most instructive for understanding outdoor device reliability. We also find that the indium tin oxide/self-assembled monolayer-based hole transport layer/perovskite interface most strongly affects our device operation stability. Improving the ion-blocking properties of the self-assembled monolayer hole transport layer increases averaged device operational stability at 50 °C–85 °C by a factor of about 2.8, reaching over 1,000 h at 85 °C and to near 8,200 h at 50 °C, with a projected 20% degradation, which is among the best to date for high-efficiency p–i–n PSCs 14 – 17 . We correlate lab test and field test results to better predict the performance of perovskite photovoltaics as a step towards real-world implementation.

Recent technological advances in hardware design of the robotic platforms enabled the implementation of various control modalities for improved interactions with humans and unstructured environments. An important application area for the integration of robots with such advanced interaction capabilities is human–robot collaboration. This aspect represents high socio-economic impacts and maintains the sense of purpose of the involved people, as the robots do not completely replace the humans from the work process. The research community’s recent surge of interest in this area has been devoted to the implementation of various methodologies to achieve intuitive and seamless human–robot-environment interactions by incorporating the collaborative partners’ superior capabilities, e.g. human’s cognitive and robot’s physical power generation capacity. In fact, the main purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art on intermediate human–robot interfaces (bi-directional), robot control modalities, system stability, benchmarking and relevant use cases, and to extend views on the required future developments in the realm of human–robot collaboration.

Electronic skins (e-skins) are devices that can respond to mechanical stimuli and enable robots to perceive their surroundings. A great challenge for existing e-skins is that they may easily fail under extreme mechanical conditions due to their multilayered architecture with mechanical mismatch and weak adhesion between the interlayers. Here we report a flexible pressure sensor with tough interfaces enabled by two strategies: quasi-homogeneous composition that ensures mechanical match of interlayers, and interlinked microconed interface that results in a high interfacial toughness of 390 J·m −2 . The tough interface endows the sensor with exceptional signal stability determined by performing 100,000 cycles of rubbing, and fixing the sensor on a car tread and driving 2.6 km on an asphalt road. The topological interlinks can be further extended to soft robot-sensor integration, enabling a seamless interface between the sensor and robot for highly stable sensing performance during manipulation tasks under complicated mechanical conditions. E-skins often have poor interfaces that lead to unstable performances. Here, authors report e-skins with a quasi-homogeneous composition and bonded micro-structured interfaces, through which both the sensitivity and stability of the devices are improved.

Highlights This work provides a brand-new approach to the “conversion-protection” strategy to overcome the drawbacks of composite cathode interfaces. The Mo 3 Ni 3 N not only makes it difficult for hydroxide groups (-OH) to survive on the surface but also allows the in situ surface reconstruction to generate the ultra-stable MoS 2 -Mo 3 Ni 3 N heterostructures after the initial cycling stage. The Mo-Ni@NPCs/LCO/LPSC-based ASSLBs achieve high-capacity retention (90.62%) and excellent cycle life (1000 cycles). The electrochemical performance of all-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) can be prominently enhanced by minimizing the detrimental degradation of solid electrolytes through their undesirable side reactions with the conductive carbon additives (CCAs) inside the composite cathodes. Herein, the well-defined Mo 3 Ni 3 N nanosheets embedded onto the N-doped porous carbons (NPCs) substrate are successfully synthesized (Mo-Ni@NPCs) as CCAs inside LiCoO 2 for Li 6 PSC 5 Cl (LPSCl)-based ASSLBs. This nano-composite not only makes it difficult for hydroxide groups (–OH) to survive on the surface but also allows the in situ surface reconstruction to generate the ultra-stable MoS 2 -Mo 3 Ni 3 N heterostructures after the initial cycling stage. These can effectively prevent the occurrence of OH-induced LPSC decomposition reaction from producing harmful insulating sulfates, as well as simultaneously constructing the highly-efficient electrons/ions dual-migration pathways at the cathode interfaces to facilitate the improvement of both electrons and Li + ions conductivities in ASSLBs. With this approach, fine-tuned Mo-Ni@NPCs can deliver extremely outstanding performance, including an ultra-high first discharge-specific capacity of 148.61 mAh g −1 (0.1C), a high Coulombic efficiency (94.01%), and a capacity retention rate after 1000 cycles still attain as high as 90.62%. This work provides a brand-new approach of “conversion-protection” strategy to overcome the drawbacks of composite cathodes interfaces instability and further promotes the commercialization of ASSLBs.

Many of the best-performing perovskite photovoltaic devices make use of 2D/3D interfaces, which improve efficiency and stability – but it remains unclear how the conversion of 3D-to-2D perovskite occurs and how these interfaces are assembled. Here, we use in situ Grazing-Incidence Wide-Angle X-Ray Scattering to resolve 2D/3D interface formation during spin-coating. We observe progressive dimensional reduction from 3D to n  = 3 → 2 → 1 when we expose (MAPbBr 3 ) 0.05 (FAPbI 3 ) 0.95 perovskites to vinylbenzylammonium ligand cations. Density functional theory simulations suggest ligands incorporate sequentially into the 3D lattice, driven by phenyl ring stacking, progressively bisecting the 3D perovskite into lower-dimensional fragments to form stable interfaces. Slowing the 2D/3D transformation with higher concentrations of antisolvent yields thinner 2D layers formed conformally onto 3D grains, improving carrier extraction and device efficiency (20% 3D-only, 22% 2D/3D). Controlling this progressive dimensional reduction has potential to further improve the performance of 2D/3D perovskite photovoltaics. Many best-performing perovskite photovoltaics use 2D/3D interfaces to improve efficiency and stability, yet the mechanism of interface assembly is unclear. Here, Proppe et al. use in-situ GIWAXS to resolve this transformation, observing progressive dimensional reduction from 3D to 2D perovskites.