Invited for this month's cover is the group of Shun-Li Chen and Ming-De Li at the Shantou University. The image shows that one electron can be transferred easily from donor to acceptor unit to obtain integer-charge-transfer cocrystals for realizing high-efficient solar-harvesting and photothermal conversion. The Research Article itself is available at 10.1002/cssc.202300644.

Ag-sheathed Bi-2223 multifilamentary tapes were prepared with a hot-pressing technique to study its effect on grain connectivity. The critical current density after hot-pressing was significantly enhanced with the maximum increase reached more than double that before. Hot pressing raised the from to for 81-filament tape. However, the critical current density in an applied magnetic field was not improved by hot-pressing. The in a magnetic field of 1 T decreased from 33% of for the original tape to 21% of for the hot-pressed tapes before and after hot pressing. The fraction of strong links was improved from 64% to 73% for the 81-filament tape as a result of hot pressing. Microstructural analysis showed that hot pressing chiefly improved grain connectivity, increased core density, recovered microcracks and reduced secondary phase impurities.

Inspired by the concept of ionic charge-transfer complexes for the Mott insulator, integer-charge-transfer (integer-CT) cocrystals are designed for NIR photo-thermal conversion (PTC). With amino-styryl-pyridinium dyes and F4TCNQ (7,7',8,3,5, serving as donor/acceptor (D/A) units, integer-CT cocrystals, including amorphous stacking "salt" and segregated stacking "ionic crystal", are synthesized by mechanochemistry and solution method, respectively. Surprisingly, the integer-CT cocrystals are self-assembled only through multiple DÀ A hydrogen bonds (CÀ H•••X (X=N, F)). Strong chargetransfer interactions in cocrystals contribute to the strong light-harvesting ability at 200-1500 nm. Under 808 nm laser illumination, both the "salt" and "ionic crystal" display excellent PTC efficiency beneficial from ultrafast (~2 ps) nonradiative decay of excited states. Thus integer-CT cocrystals are potential candidates for rapid, efficient, and scalable PTC platforms. Especially amorphous "salt" with good photo/thermal stability is highly desirable in practical large-scale solar-harvesting/conversion applications in water environment. This work verifies the validity of the integer-CT cocrystal strategy, and charts a promising path to synthesize amorphous PTC materials by mechanochemical method in one-step.

Several recent developments in powder-in-tube (PIT) processing are presented. A cryogenic deformation process has been developed, involving rolling or pressing the wires and tapes in supercold conditions, such as in liquid nitrogen. Cryogenic deformation has been found to improve the density, grain alignment and Ag-oxide core interface and to increase dislocation density, thereby enhancing and flux pinning. By incorporating Pb into Bi-2212 phase the sintering temperature can be raised above , resulting in a significant reduction of total sintering time from several hundred hours to 100 h. Recently, a new process to eliminate the decomposition and recovery of Bi-2223 during cooling and heating has been developed that further reduces the heat treatment time for Ag/Bi-2223 tapes to 20-30 h, with and Bi-2223 volume fraction in the tapes comparable with those in tapes treated for 120 h. A two-stage annealing procedure in the final thermal cycle has been used to eliminate residual amorphous phase and Bi-2201, which has been identified to be one of the major causes of weak links in PIT tapes. By incorporating hot deformation in a two-step process not only can Bi-2201 be eliminated, but also texture and density are improved, resulting in a very high at 77 K in multifilamentary tapes.

The Front Cover shows integer‐charge‐transfer cocrystals are self‐assembled via multiple intermolecular hydrogen bonds with one electron transferred from donor to acceptor unit for high‐efficiency (∼87 %) NIR photothermal conversion. “D‐A pairs” as the basic “micro‐stacking units” in cocrystals guarantee strong donor‐acceptor interactions and excellent photothermal performance. Amorphous cocrystals synthesized by one‐step mechanochemical method exhibit good photo/thermal stability, which is highly desirable in practical large‐scale solar‐harvesting/conversion applications without the puzzle of maintaining an ideal stacking structure. More information can be found in the Research Article by S.‐L. Chen et al.