Cu₂ZnSnS(e)₄ (CZTS(e)) solar cells have attracted much attention due to the elemental abundance and the non-toxicity. However, the record efficiency of 12.6% for Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ (CZTSSe) solar cells is much lower than that of Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) solar cells. One crucial reason is the recombination at interfaces. In recent years, large amount investigations have been done to analyze the interfacial problems and improve the interfacial properties via a variety of methods. This paper gives a review of progresses on interfaces of CZTS(e) solar cells, including:(i) the band alignment optimization at buffer/CZTS(e) interface, (ii) tailoring the thickness of MoS(e)₂ interfacial layers between CZTS(e) absorber and Mo back contact, (iii) the passivation of rear interface, (iv) the passivation of front interface, and (v) the etching of secondary phases.

Perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) have attracted extensive studies due to their high power conversion efficiency (PCE) with low-cost in both raw material and processes. However, there remain obstacles that hinder the way to their commercialization. Among many drawbacks in PVSCs, we note the problems brought by the use of noble metal counter electrodes (CEs) such as gold and silver. The costly Au and Ag need high energy-consumption thermal evaporation process which can be made only with expensive evaporation equipment under vacuum. All the factors elevate the threshold of PVSCs' commercialization. Carbon material, on the other hand, is a readily available electrode candidate for the application as CE in the PVSCs. In this review, endeavors on PVSCs with low-cost carbon materials will be comprehensively discussed based on different device structures and carbon compositions. We believe that the PVSCs with carbon-based CE hold the promise of commercialization of this new technology.

The kesterite thin film solar cells based on the quaternary Cu₂ZnSnS₄ and Cu₂ZnSnSe₄ and their alloys Cu₂ZnSn(S,Se)₄ have been considered as environment-friendly and non-toxic alternatives to the currently commercialized CdTe and Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ thin film solar cells. From the theoretical point of view, we will review how the group I₂-Ⅱ-IV-VI₄ quaternary compound semiconductors are derived from the binary CdTe and the ternary CuInSe₂ or CuGaSe₂ through the cation mutation, and how the crystal structure and electronic band structure evolve as the component elements change. The increased structural and chemical freedom in these quaternary semiconductors opens up new possibility for the tailoring of material properties and design of new light-absorber semiconductors. However, the increased freedom also makes the development of high-efficiency solar cells more challenging because much more intrinsic point defects, secondary phases, surfaces, and grain-boundaries can exist in the thin films and influence the photovoltaic performance in a way different from that in the conventional CdTe and Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ solar cells. The experimental characterization of the properties of defects, secondary phase, and grain-boundaries is currently not very efficient and direct, especially for these quaternary compounds. First-principles calculations have been successfully used in the past decade for studying these properties. Here we will review the theoretical progress in the study of the mixed-cation and mixed-anion alloys of the group I₂-Ⅱ-IV-VI₄ semiconductors, defects, alkaline dopants, and grain boundaries, which provided very important information for the optimization of the kesterite solar cell performance.

Colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solar cells have attracted great interest due to their low cost and superior photo-electric properties. Remarkable improvements in cell performances of both quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSCs) and PbX (X=S, Se) based CQD solar cells have been achieved in recent years, and the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) exceeding 12% were reported so far. In this review, we will focus on the recent progress in CQD solar cells. We firstly summarize the advance of CQD sensitizer materials and the strategies for enhancing carrier collection efficiency in QDSCs, including developing multi-component alloyed CQDs and core-shell structured CQDs, as well as various methods to suppress interfacial carrier recombination. Then, we discuss the device architecture development of PbX CQD based solar cells and surface/interface passivation methods to increase light absorption and carrier extraction efficiencies. Finally, a short summary, challenge, and perspective are given.

It is important to know the mechanisms of water molecules across carbon-based nanochannels, which is not only beneficial for understanding biological activities but also for designing various smart devices. Here we review the recent progress of research for water transfer across carbon-based nanochannels. In this review, we summarize the recent methods which can affect water molecules across these nanochannels. The methods include exterior factors (i.e., dipolar molecules and gradient electric fields) and interior factors (namely, cone-shaped structures, nonstraight nanochannels, and channel defects). These factors can control water permeation across nanochannels efficiently.

The observations of long-lived surface nanobubbles in various experiments have presented a theoretical challenge, as they were supposed to be dissolved in microseconds owing to the high Laplace pressure. However, an increasing number of studies suggest that contact line pinning, together with certain levels of oversaturation, is responsible for the anomalous stability of surface nanobubbles. This mechanism can interpret most characteristics of surface nanobubbles. Here, we summarize recent theoretical and computational work to explain how the surface nanobubbles become stable with contact line pinning. Other related work devoted to understanding the unusual behaviors of pinned surface nanobubbles is also reviewed here.

Neuraminidase (NA), a major surface glycoprotein of influenza virus with well-defined active sites, is an ideal platform for the development of antiviral drugs. However, a growing number of NA mutations have drug resistance to today's inhibitors. Numerous efforts are made to explore the resistance mechanisms through understanding the structural changes in mutated NA proteins and the associated different binding profiles of inhibitors, via x-ray, nuclear magnetic resonance, electron microscopy, and molecular dynamics methods. This review presents the architectural features of mutated NA proteins, as well as the respective inhibitor sensitivities arising from these spatial differences. Finally, we summarize the resistance mechanisms of today's neuraminidase inhibitors and the outlook for the development of novel inhibitors.

Oscillatory behaviors can be ubiquitously observed in various systems. Biological rhythms are significant in governing living activities of all units. The emergence of biological rhythms is the consequence of large numbers of units. In this paper we discuss several important examples of sustained oscillations in biological media, where the unit composed in the system does not possess the oscillation behavior. The dominant phase-advanced driving method is applied to study the skeletons and oscillatory organizing motifs in excitable networks and gene regulatory networks.

We investigate the quantum speed limit time (QSLT) of a two-level atom under quantum-jump-based feedback control or homodyne-based feedback control. Our results show that the two different feedback control schemes have different influences on the evolutionary speed. By adjusting the feedback parameters, the quantum-jump-based feedback control can induce speedup of the atomic evolution from an excited state, but the homodyne-based feedback control cannot change the evolutionary speed. Additionally, the QSLT for the whole dynamical process is explored. Under the quantum-jump-based feedback control, the QSLT displays oscillatory behaviors, which implies multiple speed-up and speed-down processes during the evolution. While, the homodyne-based feedback control can accelerate the speed-up process and improve the uniform speed in the uniform evolution process.

The evolution of electron correlation and charge density wave (CDW) in 1T-TaS₂ single crystal has been investigated by temperature-dependent Raman scattering, which undergoes two obvious peaks of A_1g modes about 70.8 cm^-1 and 78.7 cm^-1 at 80 K, respectively. The former peak at 70.8 cm^-1 is accordant with the lower Hubbard band, resulting in the electron-correlation-driven Mott transition. Strikingly, the latter peak at 78.7 cm^-1 shifts toward low energy with increasing the temperature, demonstrating the occurrence of nearly commensurate CDW phase (melted Mott phase). In this case, phonon transmission could be strongly coupled to commensurate CDW lattice via Coulomb interaction, which likely induces appearance of hexagonal domains suspended in an interdomain phase, composing the melted Mott phase characterized by a shallow electron pocket. Combining electronic structure, atomic structure, transport properties with Raman scattering, these findings provide a novel dimension in understanding the relationship between electronic correlation, charge order, and phonon dynamics.

Dirac semimetals are materials in which the conduction and the valence bands have robust crossing points protected by topology or symmetry. Recently, a new type of Dirac semimetals, so called the Dirac line-node semimetals (DLNSs), have attracted a lot of attention, as they host robust Dirac points along the one-dimensional (1D) lines in the Brillouin zone (BZ). In this work, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and first-principles calculations, we systematically investigated the electronic structures of non-symmorphic ZrSiS crystal where we clearly distinguished the surface states from the bulk states. The photon-energy-dependent measurements further prove the existence of Dirac line node along the X-R direction. Remarkably, by in situ surface potassium doping, we clearly observed the different evolutions of the bulk and surface electronic states while proving the robustness of the Dirac line node. Our studies not only reveal the complete electronic structures of ZrSiS, but also demonstrate the method manipulating the electronic structure of the compound.

We report an optical spectroscopy study on intermediate valence system Yb_1-xLu_xAl₃ with x=0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1. The Kondo temperature in the system is known to increase with increasing Lu concentration. Therefore, it is expected that the energy scale of the hybridization gap should increase with increasing Lu concentration based on the periodic Anderson model. On the contrary, we find that the spectral structure associated with the hybridization effect shifts monotonically to lower energy. Furthermore, the Lu substitution results in a substantial increase of the free carrier spectral weight and less pronounced plasma frequency reduction upon lowering temperature. We attribute the effect to the disruption of the Kondo lattice periodicity by the random substitution of Yb by Lu. The work highlights the importance of the lattice periodicity of the rare earth element for understanding the Kondo lattice phenomena.

Plasma-screening effects on positronium (Ps) formation for positron-hydrogen collisions in a Debye plasma environment is further investigated using the screening approximation model with the inclusion of the modified structure of Ps. More accurate Ps formation cross sections (n=1, 2) are obtained for various Debye lengths from the Ps formation thresholds to 50 eV. The influence of considering modified bound-state wave functions and eigenenergies for the Ps is found to result in the reduction of the Ps formation cross sections at low energies, whereas it cannot counteract the enhancement of the Ps formation by the Debye screening.

We investigated the sensitivities of atom interferometers in the usual fringe-scanning method (FSM) versus the fringe-locking method (FLM). The theoretical analysis shows that for typical noises in atom interferometers, the FSM will degrade the sensitivity while the FLM does not. The sensitivity-improvement factor of the FLM over the FSM depends on the type of noises, which is validated by numerical simulations. The detailed quantitative analysis on this fundamental issue is presented, and our analysis is readily extendable to other kinds of noises as well as other fringe shapes in addition to a cosine one.

A new compact conformal dome optical system was designed, and the aberration characteristics of the dome were investigated using Zernike aberration theory. The aberrations induced by the conformal dome at different fields of regard (FORs) from 0^o to 90^o were effectively balanced by a pair of rotating cylindrical lenses. A design method was introduced and the optimization results were analyzed in detail. The results showed that the Zernike aberrations produced by the conformal dome were decreased dramatically. Also, a complete conformal optical system was designed to further illustrate the aberration correction effect of the rotating cylindrical lenses. Using a pair of rotating cylindrical lenses not only provided an ultra-wide FOR, but also perduced a better image quality of the optical system.

We consider a passive and active hybrid interferometer for phase estimation, which can reach the sub-shot-noise limit in phase sensitivity with only the cheapest coherent sources. This scheme is formed by adding an optical parametric amplifier before a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It is shown that our hybrid protocol can obtain a better quantum Cramer-Rao bound than the pure active (e.g., SU(1,1)) interferometer, and this precision can be reached by implementing the parity measurements. Furthermore, we also draw a detailed comparison between our scheme and the scheme suggested by Caves[Phys. Rev. D 23 1693 (1981)], and it is found that the optimal phase sensitivity gain obtained in our scheme is always larger than that in Caves' scheme.

Due to their significant roles in the radiation belts dynamics, chorus waves are widely investigated in observations, experiments, and simulations. In this paper, numerical studies for the generation of chorus-like waves in a launching device, dipole research experiment (DREX), are carried out by a hybrid code. The DREX plasma is generated by electron cyclotron resonance (ECR), which leads to an intrinsic temperature anisotropy of energetic electrons. Thus the whistler instability can be excited in the device. We then investigate the effects of three parameters, i.e., the cold plasma density n_c, the hot plasma density n_h, and the parallel thermal velocity of energetic electrons, on the generation of chorus-like waves under the DREX design parameters. It is obtained that a larger temperature anisotropy is needed to excite chorus-like waves with a high n_c with other parameters fixed. Then we fix the plasma density and parallel thermal velocity, while varying the hot plasma density. It is found that with the increase of n_h, the spectrum of the generated waves changes from no chorus elements, to that with several chorus elements, and then further to broad-band hiss-like waves. Besides, different structures of chorus-like waves, such as rising-tone and/or falling-tone structures, can be generated at different parallel thermal velocities in the DREX parameter range.

Two complementary types NPN and PNP of bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) were exposed to high dose of neutrons and gamma rays. The change in the base and collector currents, minority carriers lifetime, and current gain factor β with respect to the dose were analyzed. The contributions of the base current according to the defect types were also reported. It was declared that the radiation effect of neutrons was almost similar between the two transistor types, this effect at high dose may decrease the value of β to less than one. The Messenger-Spratt equation was used to describe the experimental results in this case. However, the experimental data demonstrated that the effect of gamma rays was generally higher on NPN than PNP transistors. This is mainly attributed to the difference in the behavior of the trapped positive charges in the SiO₂ layers. Meanwhile, this difference tends to be small for high gamma dose.

The elastic, magnetoelastic, and phonon properties of Ni₂ FeGa were investigated through first-principles calculations. The obtained elastic and phonon dispersion curves for the austenite and martensite phases agree well with available theoretical and experimental results. The isotropic elastic moduli are also predicted along with the polycrystalline aggregate properties including the bulk modulus, shear modulus, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio. The Pugh ratio indicates that Ni₂ FeGa shows ductility, especially the austenite phase, which is consistent with the experimental results. The Debye temperatures of the Ni₂ FeGa in the austenite and martensite phases are 344 K and 392 K, respectively. It is predicted that the magnetoelastic coefficient is -5.3×10⁶ J/m³ and magnetostriction coefficient is between 135 and 55 ppm in the Ni₂ FeGa austenite phase.

First-principle calculations reveal that the configuration system of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) monolayer with triangular vacancy can induce obvious magnetism, contrary to that of the nonmagnetic pristine boron nitride monolayer. Interestingly, the h-BN with boron atom vacancy (V_B-BN) displays metallic behavior with a total magnetic moment being 0.46μ_B per cell, while the h-BN with nitrogen atom vacancy (V_N-BN) presents a half-metallic characteristic with a total magnetic moment being 1.0μ_B per cell. Remarkably, piezoelectric stress coefficient e₁₁ of the V_N-BN is about 1.5 times larger than that of pristine h-BN. Furthermore, piezoelectric strain coefficient d₁₁ (12.42 pm/V) of the V_N-BN is 20 times larger than that of pristine h-BN and also one order of magnitude larger than the value for the h-MoS₂ monolayer, which is mainly due to the spin-down electronic state in the V_N-BN system. Our study demonstrates that the nitrogen atom vacancies can be an efficient route to tailoring the magnetic and piezoelectric properties of h-BN monolayer, which have promising performances for potential applications in nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) and nanoscale electronics devices.

The local charge distributions of different shape graphene sheets are investigated by using the quantum calculations. It is found that the charge distribution on carbon atom is not uniform, strongly depending on its position in the graphene and its local atomic environment condition. The symmetrical characteristic and geometrical structures of graphene also have an important influence on the charge distribution. The charges of atom at the graphene edge are strongly related to their surrounding bonds. It is found that the charges of double-bonded atom at the zigzag edge are closely related to the bond angle, but the charges of double-bonded atom at the armchair edge are mainly influenced by the area of triangle. The charges of triple-bonded atom at the edge are mainly affected by the standard deviation of the length of the associated triple bonds.

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) has demonstrated its promising capability for biochemical sensing and surface-enhanced spectroscopy applications. However, harnessing LSPR for remote sensing and spectroscopy applications remains a challenge due to the difficulty in realizing a configuration compatible with the current optical communication system. Here, we propose and theoretically investigate a hybrid plasmonic-photonic device comprised of a single gold nanorod and an optical fiber-based one-dimensional photonic crystal microcavity, which can be integrated with the optical communication system without insertion loss. The line width of the LSPR, as a crucial indicator that determines the performances for various applications, is narrowed by the cavity-plasmon coupling in our device. Our device provides a promising alternative to exploit the LSPR for high-performance remote sensing and spectroscopy applications.

We study the electronic band structure, density distribution, and transport of a Bi₂Se₃ nanoribbon. We find that the density distribution of the surface states is dependent on not only the shape and size of the transverse cross section of the nanoribbon, but also the energy of the electron. We demonstrate that a transverse electric field can eliminate the coupling between surface states on the walls of the nanoribbon, remove the gap of the surface states, and restore the quantum spin Hall effects. In addition, we study the spin-dependent transport property of the surface states transmitting from top and bottom surfaces (x-y plane) to the side surfaces (z-x plane) of a Bi₂Se₃ nanoribbon. We find that transverse electric fields can open two surface channels for spin-up and -down Dirac electrons, and then switch off one channel for the spin-up Dirac electron. Our results may provide a simple way for the design of a spin filter based on topological insulator nanostructures.

The pressure-induced structural evolution of apatite-type La_9.33Si₆O₂₆ was systematically studied using in situ synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD). The XRD spectra indicated that a subtly reversible phase transition from P6₃/m to P6₃ symmetry occurred at~13.6 GPa because of the tilting of the SiO₄ tetrahedra under compression. Furthermore, the La_9.33Si₆O₂₆ exhibited a higher axial compression ratio for the a-axis than the c-axis, owing to the different axial arrangement of the SiO₄ tetrahedra. Interestingly, the high-pressure phase showed compressibility unusually higher than that of the initial phase, suggesting that the low P6₃ symmetry provided more degrees of freedom. Moreover, the La_9.33Si₆O₂₆ exhibited a lower phase transition pressure (P_T) and a higher lattice compression than La₁₀Si₆O₂₇. Comparisons between La_9.33Si₆O₂₆ and La₁₀Si₆O₂₇ provided a deeper understanding of the effect of interstitial oxygen atoms on the structural evolution of apatite-type lanthanum silicates (ATLSs).

We demonstrate a photon-counting chirped amplitude modulation (CAM) light detection and ranging (lidar) system incorporating a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) and operated at a wavelength of 1550 nm. The distance accuracy of the lidar system was determined by the CAM bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of an intermediate frequency (IF) signal. Owing to a short dead time (10 ns) and negligible dark count rate (70 Hz) of the SNSPD, the obtained IF signal attained an SNR of 42 dB and the direct distance accuracy was improved to 3 mm when the modulation bandwidth of the CAM signal was 240 MHz and the modulation period was 1 ms.

We study the excessive levitation effect in the magnetically levitated loading process of ultracold Cs atoms into a large-volume crossed optical dipole trap. We analyze the motion of atoms with a non-zero combined gravito-magnetic force during the loading, where the magnetically levitated force catches up with and surpasses the gravity. We present the theoretical variations of both acceleration and velocity with levitation time and magnetic field gradient. We measure the evolution of the number of trapped atoms with the excessive levitation time at different magnetic field gradients. The dependence of the number of atoms on the magnetic field gradient is also measured for different excessive levitation times. The theoretical analysis shows reasonable agreement with the experimental results. Our investigation illustrates that the excessive levitation can be used to reduce the heating effect of atoms in the magnetically levitated loading process, and to improve the loading rate of a large-volume optical dipole trap.

A compact, low-cost and high-output-power silicon-wafer solar strip-cells-array module (SCAM) was experimentally demonstrated. The proposed SCAM consisted mainly of a silicon-wafer strip-cell sparse array and low-concentration-ratio array concentrator based on an epoxy resin polymer (ERP) cylindrical plano-convex lens. A polymer replication process based on a polydimethylsiloxane mold was used to fabricate the ERP lens array concentrator. The results show that 46.94% of the silicon-wafer cell was saved in the designed SCAM. Moreover, the output power of the SCAM with a low concentration ratio of 8 suns was improved by 8.6%, compared with a whole piece of a conventional silicon-wafer solar cell with the same area as the module. The proposed method encapsulating solar cells provides a means to reduce the usage of silicon cells in modules as well as improving the output power of modules.