Perovskite thin films have many attractive properties for use in photovoltaics, but their assembly into practical devices has led to trade-offs between efficiency and stability. The addition of surfactant-type molecules with hydrophobic chains helped produce perovskite solar cells that are both efficient and stable. Read more »
Freeze Frame: Scientists Capture Atomic-Scale Snapshots of Artificial Proteins
Protein-like molecules called polypeptoids have great promise as precision building blocks for creating a variety of designer nanomaterials. In this study, rsearchers used cryo-EM, a technique originally designed to image proteins in solution, as well as x-ray scattering techniques, to characterize the structure of polypeptide nanosheets. Read more »
Scientists Explore Egyptian Mummy Bones With X-Rays and Infrared Light to Gain New Insight on Ancient Life
Researchers from Cairo University worked with teams at the ALS to study soil and bone samples dating back 4,000 years. The experiments are casting a new light on Egyptian soil and ancient mummified bone samples that could provide a richer understanding of daily life and environmental conditions thousands of years ago. Read more »
Go With the Flow: Scientists Design Better Batteries for a Renewable Energy Grid
Researchers developed a versatile yet affordable battery membrane—from a class of polymers known as AquaPIMs. This class of polymers makes long-lasting and low-cost grid batteries possible based solely on readily available materials such as zinc, iron, and water. Read more »
Linking Structure to Behavior in Twisted Liquid Crystals
Researchers untangled connections between structure and behavior in a class of liquid crystals consisting of flexible, chain-like molecules that self-organize into twisting patterns. The study opens up new possibilities for designing novel liquid-crystal molecules that allow greater control of nanoscale behavior for technological applications. Read more »
Mechanical Competence and Bone Quality Develop During Skeletal Growth
Researchers explored how bone quality and mechanical competence progress during longitudinal bone growth. Deformation at the tissue, fibril, and mineral length scales was investigated with mechanical tensile tests during small and wide-angle x-ray scattering/diffraction (SAXS/WAXD) experiments, revealing dramatic differences in mechanical resistance with age. Read more »
Conductive triethylene glycol monomethyl ether substituted polythiophenes with high stability in the doped state
Researchers synthesized and characterized two iodine-doped polymers with high conductivity and stability. The doping increases the transparency of thin films of the polymer, which are resistant to common organic solvents. All these properties indicate great potential for the polymers to be used in applications such as organic field effect transistors, organic photovoltaic devices, and sensors. Read more »
Self‐Assembly of Large‐Area 2D Polycrystalline Transition Metal Carbides for Hydrogen Electrocatalysis
Xining Zang et al. develop a self‐assembly process to synthesize 2D transition metal carbides (TMCs). The metal ions (Mo, Co, W) self‐organize within a gelatin template into a lamellar nanostructure. Subsequent carbonization at moderate temperatures in a reducing atmosphere yields ultrathin 2D‐TMC sheets with high conductivity and rich active sites ideal for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Read more »
Rational Optimization of Organic Solar-Cell Materials
Researchers have established a new quantitative model that connects molecular interactions in organic solar-cell materials to device performance. The work suggests a way to quickly identify ideal material mixtures and processing methods, bypassing trial-and-error strategies and minimizing labor-intensive synthesis. Read more »
Enhancing the Efficiency of Organic Photovoltaics by a Photoactive Molecular Mediator
In the search for high-efficiency organic solar cells, additives often play an important role in improving the film morphology. Liquid additives, while often effective, evaporate or migrate over time. Herein, Liu et al. report a solid photoactive molecular mediator that could be employed to replace the liquid additives to tune the morphology of bulk heterojunction films for improved device performance. Read more »
