Bioactive glass has a wide range of biomedical applications. It has attracted immense interest due to its unique ability to bond with a bone through ion exchange in simulated body fluid (SBF) when implanted inside the body. This study concerns sol-gel synthesis of a new bioactive glass composition: 55SiO 2 -40CaO-(5-x) SrO-xAg 2 O doped with different mol% of silver as an antibacterial agent, i.e. 0%, 2% and 4% AgSr(0), AgSr(2) & AgSr(3), respectively. This method is a widely used in the preparation of glass ceramics because of its lowtemperature. The effect of introducing strontium in addition to silver as an antimicrobial agent into the bioglass matrix was studied. Structural studies were conducted using various techniques including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). Bioactivity was investigated by in-vitro synthesis involving immersion of the samples in SBF for different time intervals. The XRD, FTIR and FE-SEM results confirmed the formation of a hydroxylapatite layer on the surface of the finally prepared bioglass materials. An antimicrobial study revealed that the prepared bioactive glass showed a significant effect on two bacteria E. coli and S. aureus.
ARTICLE HISTORY
We employ simulation based approach for enhancing the efficiency of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) based solar cells. Initial benchmarking of simulation with the experimentally reported solar cell in literature is performed by incorporating a suitable defect model. We then explore the effects of: (a) conduction band offset (CBO) at CZTS/CdS junction, (b) back surface field (BSF) due to an additional layer with higher carrier density, and (c) high work function back contact. Efficiency is observed to improve by about 70% upon optimizing the above three parameters. We also observe that utilizing BSF in the configuration can reduce the high work function requirement of the back contact. A work function of 5.2 eV (e.g., using Ni), a BSF layer (e.g., using SnS), and a CBO of 0.1 eV (e.g., using ZnS) constitute an optimal configuration.
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