News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Researchers at Institute for Molecular Science in Japan report that organic solar cells (OSCs) with high mobility and highly crystalline donor (D) and acceptor (A) materials were able to reduce an open-circuit voltage (V_OC) loss. The origin of the high V_OC was that the highly crystalline D/A interface reduced the energy loss related to charge recombination. The results demonstrate that careful design of the D/A interface enables high power conversion efficiencies in OSCs.

Electromagnetism was discovered 200 years ago, but the origin of the very large electromagnetic fields in the universe is still a mystery.

Using a range of theoretical and simulation approaches, physicists from the University of Bristol have shown that liquids in contact with substrates can exhibit a finite number of classes of behavior and identify the important new ones.

Hydrogen-containing substances are important for many industries, but scientists have struggled to obtain detailed images to understand the element's behavior. In Review of Scientific Instruments, researchers demonstrate the quantification of hydrogen for different states of water -- i.e., liquid, frozen and supercooled -- for applications to eco-friendly fuel cells.

Australian researchers have fabricated a self-assembled, carbon-based nanofilm where the charge state (ie, electronically neutral or positive) can be controlled at the level of individual molecules. Molecular self-assembly on a metal results in a high-density, 2D, organic quantum-dot array with electric-field-controllable charge state, with the organic molecules used as 'nano-sized building blocks' in fabrication of functional nanomaterials. Achieved densities are an order of magnitude larger than conventional inorganic systems.