Search results for "Volt"

Growth of gold tips onto hyperbranched CdTe nanostructures

2008

Wide range local resistance imaging on fragile materials by conducting probe atomic force microscopy in intermittent contact mode

2016

International audience; An imaging technique associating a slowly intermittent contact mode of atomic force microscopy (AFM) with a home-made multi-purpose resistance sensing device is presented. It aims at extending the widespread resistance measurements classically operated in contact mode AFM to broaden their application fields to soft materials (molecular electronics, biology) and fragile or weakly anchored nano-objects, for which nanoscale electrical characterization is highly demanded and often proves to be a challenging task in contact mode. Compared with the state of the art concerning less aggressive solutions for AFM electrical imaging, our technique brings a significantly wider r…

Energy and charge transfer in nanoscale hybrid materials.

2015

Hybrid materials composed of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots and π-conjugated organic molecules and polymers have attracted continuous interest in recent years, because they may find applications in bio-sensing, photodetection, and photovoltaics. Fundamental processes occurring in these nanohybrids are light absorption and emission as well as energy and/or charge transfer between the components. For future applications it is mandatory to understand, control, and optimize the wide parameter space with respect to chemical assembly and the desired photophysical properties. Accordingly, different approaches to tackle this issue are described here. Simple organic dye molecules (Dye)/quantum…

Optimizing Energy Transduction of Fluctuating Signals with Nanofluidic Diodes and Load Capacitors

2018

[EN] The design and experimental implementation of hybrid circuits is considered allowing charge transfer and energy conversion between nanofluidic diodes in aqueous ionic solutions and conventional electronic elements such as capacitors. The fundamental concepts involved are reviewed for the case of fluctuating zero-average external potentials acting on single pore and multipore membranes. This problem is relevant to electrochemical energy conversion and storage, the stimulus-response characteristics of nanosensors and actuators, and the estimation of the accumulative effects caused by external signals on biological ion channels. Half-wave and full-wave voltage doublers and quadruplers can…

Role of Nanoelectromechanical Switching in the Operation of Nanostructured Bi2Se3 Interlayers between Conductive Electrodes

2016

We demonstrate a simple low-cost method of preparation of layered devices for opto- and thermoelectric applications. The devices consist of a functional Bi2Se3 layer of randomly oriented nanoplates and flexible nanobelts enclosed between two flat indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes. The number of functional interconnections between the ITO electrodes and correspondingly the efficiency of the device can be increased by gradual nanoelectromechanical (NEM) switching of flexible individual Bi2Se3 nanobelts in the circuit. NEM switching is achieved through applying an external voltage to the device. For the first time, we investigate in situ NEM switching and breakdown parameters of Bi2Se3 nanobel…

Resonance assisted jump-in voltage reduction for electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based gateless NEM switches.

2019

Electrostatically actuated nanobeam-based electromechanical switches have shown promise for versatile novel applications, such as low power devices. However, their widespread use is restricted due to poor reliability resulting from high jump-in voltages. This article reports a new method for lowering the jump-in voltage by inducing mechanical oscillations in the active element during the switching ON process, reducing the jump-in voltage by more than three times. Ge0.91Sn0.09 alloy and Bi2Se3 nanowire-based nanoelectromechanical switches were constructed in situ to demonstrate the operation principles and advantages of the proposed method.

Enhancement of photoconversion efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells exploiting pulsed laser deposited niobium pentoxide blocking layers

2015

Abstract Among all the photovoltaic technologies developed so far, dye-sensitized solar cells are considered as a promising alternative to the expensive and environmentally unfriendly crystalline silicon-based solar cells. One of the possible strategies employed to increase their photovoltaic efficiency is to reduce the charge recombination at the cell conductive substrate through the use of a compact blocking layer. In this paper, we report on the fabrication and characterization of dye-sensitized solar cells employing niobium pentoxide (Nb 2 O 5 ) thin film blocking layer deposited through the pulsed laser deposition technique on conductive substrates. The careful selection of the optimal…

Electrothermal Feedback and Absorption-Induced Open-Circuit-Voltage Turnover in Solar Cells

2018

A solar panel gets hot as it works up on the roof, yet photoinduced self-heating is often ignored when characterizing lab-sized samples. The authors present their understanding of the turnover effect in measurements of open-circuit voltage versus light intensity (Suns-${V}_{O\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}C}$ curves), which is identified as a unique feature of all semiconductor-based solar cells. This effect is explained in terms of electrothermal feedback arising when the incident irradiation heats up the device. The authors' model fully explains the experimental data, and allows one to determine key device parameters such as the ideality factor and the band gap from a single measurement.

Use of the electrochemical microcell technique and the SVET for monitoring pitting corrosion at MnS inclusions

2004

The purpose of this paper is to report on use of the electrochemical microcell technique and the scanning vibrating electrode technique for monitoring pitting corrosion on the same stainless steel microstructure. First, the electrochemical behaviour of sites containing a single inclusion was investigated in order to the determine both the successive steps occurring during the inclusions activation and some key-parameters such as the onset potential for MnS dissolution and the pitting potential. Then, the local current distribution around a pitting site was monitored at open circuit potential in order to locate anodic and cathodic regions and to obtain informations on the galvanic coupling b…

Influence of hole transport material ionization energy on the performance of perovskite solar cells

2019

Halide perovskites have shown excellent photophysical properties for solar cell applications which led to a rapid increase of the device efficiency. Understanding the charge carrier dynamics within the active perovskite absorber and at its interfaces will be key to further progress in their development. Here we present a series of fully evaporated devices employing hole transport materials with different ionization energies. The open circuit voltage of the devices, along with their ideality factors, confirm that the former is mainly determined by the bulk and surface recombination in the perovskite, rather than by the energetic offset between the valence band of the perovskite and the highe…