Ternary blend approaches are demonstrated as a universal means to improve overall performance of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) in both indoor and outdoor conditions. A comparative study on two ...donors:one acceptor (2D:1A) and one donor:two acceptors (1D:2A) ternary blends shows that both approaches are universally effective for indoor and outdoor operation; the 1D:2A devices incorporating a nonfullerene acceptor (NFA) benefit from less charge recombination and higher power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) for various irradiation conditions, while the performance of the 2D:1A blends depends on the emission spectrum of the incident light source. The synergistic merits of NFAs and ternary structure in the 1D:2A ternary OPVs secure better performance and generality regardless of the incident lighting. A combination of experimental and theoretical analyses unveils that NFAs optimize packing and arrangement of molecules to build efficient cascade ternary junctions in the 1D:2A blends, which can be important design guidelines for the third component in ternary OPVs. The optimized 1D:2A ternary OPV exhibits a new record PCE of 25.6% under a 200 lux light‐emitting diode (LED) and 26.4% under a 1000 lux LED, and superior durability under industrial relevant thermal stress, suggesting new opportunities in diverse practical applications challenging the currently dominant PV technologies.
This study provides important guidelines for the third component in ternary organic photovoltaics (OPVs), involving high molecular compatibility with main components and favorable ternary junction formation with cascade band alignment. With a high efficiency in any irradiation conditions (≈26.4% under light‐emitting diodes) and superior thermal durability, ternary OPVs incorporating nonfullerene acceptors open new opportunities in broad practical applications.
Energy‐storing functional photovoltaics, which can simultaneously harvest and store solar energy, are proposed as promising next‐generation multifunction energy systems. For the extension of ...conventional organic photovoltaics (OPVs), electrochromic supercapacitors (ECSs) are monolithically integrated with semitransparent (ST) quaternary blend‐based OPVs (ST Q‐OPVs) to achieve compact, energy‐efficient storage with great aesthetic appeal. In particular, ST Q‐OPVs with low‐power‐consumption ECSs allow full operation, even under low‐intensity irradiance, including artificial indoor light circumstances, and thereby exhibit potential for all‐day operating energy suppliers. The prepared ST energy‐storing functional photovoltaics also serve as a backup power source for external electronic equipment (e.g., light‐emitting diodes, and sensor nodes for Internet of Things) by consuming charged power. In addition to features that include unrestricted operation under any circumstances, color tunability, feasibility of designs with various shapes, rapid charging/discharging, and real‐time indication of stored energy levels, ST energy‐storing functional photovoltaics could potentially be applied in electronic devices such as advanced smart windows or portable smart electronics.
Semitransparent energy‐storing functional photovoltaics are developed by integrating quaternary blends‐based organic photovoltaics and electrochromic supercapacitor in a monolithic structure. Highly efficient operation under versatile irradiation circumstances including outdoor sun and ambient artificial indoor lighting and feasibility of any designed shape, size, and color can extend potentials for practical applications.
The unique properties of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) offer great promise in emerging applications such as wearable electronics or the Internet of Things. For their successful utilization, OPV ...operation should be designed for versatile irradiation circumstances in addition to solar light since they should be capable of providing electric power when there is no sunlight or when they operate indoors. Here, a quaternary OPV (Q‐OPV) as a semitransparent, colorful energy platform that operates efficiently under both solar and artificial light irradiation is demonstrated. The experimentally optimized Q‐OPV shows a broadened spectral response and improved charge transport process with suppressed recombination, thereby providing high output powers that are sufficient to autonomously operate low‐power electronic devices. In addition, the Q‐OPV benefits from improved morphological stability with a reduced driving force for grain growth by the increased entropy in the quaternary blend system. The important features of the Q‐OPV platform such as semitransparency, high tolerance to film thickness, and color codability, while pursuing the improved performance and thermal durability, further open new opportunities as an all‐day (24/7/365) power generator in broad practical applications.
Quaternary blend organic photovoltaics (Q‐OPVs) exhibit efficient operation under diverse irradiation conditions and improved thermal durability with suppressed morphological evolution during operation. The unique properties of the Q‐OPVs such as semitransparency, high film thickness tolerance, and color codability expand their applicability to emerging energy systems, which operate autonomously by any incident light all day, even when there is no sunlight.
A 48 WL stacked 256-Gb V-NAND flash memory with a 3 b MLC technology is presented. Several vertical scale-down effects such as deteriorated WL loading and variations are discussed. To enhance ...performance, reverse read scheme and variable-pulse scheme are presented to cope with nonuniform WL characteristics. For improved performance, dual state machine architecture is proposed to achieve optimal timing for BL and WL, respectively. Also, to maintain robust IO driver strength against PVT variations, an embedded ZQ calibration technique with temperature compensation is introduced. The chip, fabricated in a third generation of V-NAND technology, achieved a density of 2.6 Gb/mm 2 with 53.2 MB/s of program throughput.
Most memory-chip manufacturers keep trying to supply cost-effective storage devices with high-performance characteristics such as shorter tPROG, lower power consumption and higher endurance. For many ...years, every effort has been made to shrink die size to lower cost and to improve performance. However, the previously used node-shrinking methodology is facing challenges due to increased cell-to-cell interference and patterning difficulties caused by decreasing dimension. To overcome these limitations, 3D-stacking technology has been developed. As a result of long and focused research in 3D stacking technology, we succeed in developing 128 Gb 3b/cell Vertical NAND with 32 stack WL layers for the first time, which is the smallest 128 Gb NAND Flash. The die size is 68.9 mm 2 , program time is 700 us and I/O rate is 1 Gb/s.
Solution-based metal oxide semiconductors (MOSs) have emerged, with their potential for low-cost and low-temperature processability preserving their intrinsic properties of high optical transparency ...and high carrier mobility. In particular, MOS field-effect transistors (FETs) using the spray pyrolysis technique have drawn huge attention with the electrical performances compatible with those of vacuum-based FETs. However, further intensive investigations are still desirable, associated with the processing optimization and operational instabilities when compared to other methodologies for depositing thin-film semiconductors. Here, we demonstrate high-performing transparent ZnO FETs using the spray pyrolysis technique, exhibiting a field-effect mobility of ~14.7 cm2 V−1 s−1, an on/off ratio of ~109, and an SS of ~0.49 V/decade. We examine the optical and electrical characteristics of the prepared ZnO films formed by spray pyrolysis via various analysis techniques. The influence of spray process conditions was also studied for realizing high quality ZnO films. Furthermore, we measure and analyze time dependence of the threshold voltage (Vth) shifts and their recovery behaviors under prolonged positive and negative gate bias, which were expected to be attributed to defect creation and charge trapping at or near the interface between channel and insulator, respectively.
Coumestrol is a dietary phytoestrogen with estrogen-mimicking characteristics. This study investigated the molecular mechanisms of antiobesity effects of coumestrol. Two weeks of coumestrol treatment ...reduced body weight and improved glucose tolerance of high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. Notably, coumestrol treatment reduced adiposity but expanded brown adipose tissue mass. In addition, coumestrol treatment induced up-regulation of brown adipocyte markers and lipolytic gene expression in adipose tissue. Mechanistically, coumestrol induced an increase in mitochondrial contents of brown adipose tissue, which was associated with up-regulation of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase and sirtuin 1. In vitro knockdown of estrogen receptor 1 inhibited the effect of coumestrol on brown adipogenic marker expression, increase in mitochondrial contents and oxygen consumption rate in brown adipocytes. Furthermore, lineage tracing of platelet-derived growth factor receptor A-positive (PDGFRA+) adipocyte progenitors confirmed increased levels of de novo brown adipogenesis from PDGFRA+ cells by coumestrol treatment. In conclusion, our results indicate that coumestrol has antiobesity effects through the expansion and activation of brown adipose tissue metabolism.
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Highly efficient light‐trapping polymer films are designed to enhance the photocurrent of semitransparent organic photovoltaics (ST‐OPVs) in indoor and outdoor conditions. An asymmetric‐reflection ...film fabricated through the novel combination of randomly arranged nanostructures with periodically assembled microstructures exhibits selectivity for the direction of incident light. The film effectively traps light within the device by selectively reflecting light that escapes from the inside out. Moreover, this light‐trapping effect is maximized by attaching the films to both sides of the bifacial ST‐OPVs operating under solar and indoor sources, simultaneously. Accordingly, the light‐trapping polymer film platform presents short‐circuit current density ( JSC) enhancement of ST‐OPVs by 13.49% and 46.19% under air mass 1.5G and light‐emitting diodes (1000 lux) illumination, respectively, and provides new opportunities for ST‐OPVs in a variety of practical applications.
The reported hierarchically designed light‐trapping system effectively confines light inside bifacially operating semitransparent photovoltaics. The trapping system consists of two asymmetric‐reflection surfaces, which exclusively permit the one‐way transmission of the incident light. All‐day operating semitransparent photovoltaics developed herein simultaneously exhibit the properties of a nearly black absorber and high‐performance current generation under solar and artificial light illumination.
Abstract Narrow bandgap non‐fullerene acceptors (NBG NFAs) are crucial in advancing near‐infrared organic photodetectors (NIR OPDs). However, the polymorphous behavior of NFAs introduces energetic ...disorder and charge‐trapping sites in the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) active layers, thereby hindering the NIR performance of OPDs. This study demonstrates the design and optimization of the molecular structures of alkyl side chains in NFAs to morphologically address these electrical limitations and shed light on how side chains affect the crystallization‐driven control of the morphogenesis process in BHJ layers. The structure, linearity, and length of the alkyl side chain molecules are strategically designed and controlled to synthesize a series of NBG NFAs, namely COT‐R (R = EH, BO, Oct, or Dod). The in‐depth quantitative investigations into the morphological and electrical factors reveal that side‐chain optimization effectively enhances various morphological properties, such as the molecular alignment and compatibility between components in the BHJ layer, resulting in the mitigation of energetic disorders and charge traps in the BHJ layers. Therefore, the optimized BHJ system, comprising COT‐Oct blended with PTB7‐Th, achieves a reduced dark current and increased responsivity, contributing to the development of high‐performance NIR OPDs with an impressive specific detectivity of 1.49 × 10 12 Jones at 1000 nm under ‐0.5 V.
Recent studies have emphasized the role of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) in the development of asthma. The involvement of group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) in asthma is well studied: however, the ...participation of other types of ILCs in the development of asthma remains unclear.
This study aims to understand the role of various ILCs in patients with asthma, especially their effect on macrophage polarization.
Each subset of ILCs and macrophages in induced sputum from 51 steroid-naive patients with asthma and 18 healthy donors was analyzed by using flow cytometry. Alveolar macrophages (AM) were sorted and cocultured with each subset of ILCs to determine whether the polarization of macrophages could be regulated by ILCs.
In addition to ILC2s, numbers of group 1 innate lymphoid cells (ILC1s) and group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) were increased in induced sputum from asthmatic patients when compared with those in healthy control subjects. The dominance of macrophages in induced sputum was more prominent in asthmatic patients than in healthy control subjects. A positive correlation between numbers of ILC2s and numbers of M2 macrophages and those of ILC1s/ILC3s and M1 macrophages was observed. Coculture of ILC2s with AMs induced expression of M2 macrophage–related genes, whereas coculture of ILC1s and ILC3s with AMs induced expression of M1 macrophage–related genes through cytokine secretion, as well as cell-cell contact. According to the inflammatory signature, patients with eosinophilic asthma have more ILC2s and M2 macrophages, and those with noneosinophilic asthma have an M1 macrophage–dominant profile.
A different subset of ILCs regulates macrophage polarization, contributing to developing the distinct phenotype of asthma.
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