Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has a variety of impacts including the health of humans, the production of crops, and the lifetime of buildings. Based on the photovoltaic effect, self-powered UV photodetectors can measure and monitor UV radiation without any power consumption. However, the current low photoelectric performance of these detectors has hindered their practical use. In our study, a super-high-performance self-powered UV photodetector based on a GaN/Sn:Ga 2 O 3 pn junction was generated by depositing a Sn-doped n-type Ga 2 O 3 thin film onto a p-type GaN thick film. The responsivity at 254 nm reached up to 3.05 A/W without a power supply and had a high UV/visible rejection ratio of R 254 nm /R 400 nm = 5.9 × 10 3 and an ideal detectivity at 1.69 × 10 13 cm•Hz 1/2 •W −1 , which is well beyond the level of previous self-powered UV photodetectors. Moreover, our device also has a low dark current (1.8 × 10 −11 A), a high I photo /I dark ratio (∼10 4 ), and a fast photoresponse time of 18 ms without bias. These outstanding performance results are attributed to the rapid separation of photogenerated electron−hole pairs driven by a high built-in electric field in the interface depletion region of the GaN/ Sn:Ga 2 O 3 pn junction. Our results provide an improved and easy route to constructing high-performance self-powered UV photodetectors that can potentially replace traditional high-energy-consuming UV detection systems. KEYWORDS: self-powered, ultraviolet photodetector, GaN/Sn:Ga 2 O 3 pn junction, superhigh photoresponsivity, 3.05 A/W, potential barrier U ltraviolet radiation has a significant impact on humankind. Some benefits are UV's ability to facilitate the synthesis of vitamin D, kill germs, and treat or prevent rickets when our skin is exposed to moderate UV light. 1 However, it can cause cataracts and skin cancer and accelerate the aging process due to an excessive amount of UV radiation. 1,2 Additionally, UV radiation strongly affects the production of crops and the lifetime of buildings. Fortunately, UV radiation can be measured and monitored using semiconductor UV photodetectors based on Einstein's photoelectric effect, which transforms UV radiation to measurable electronic signals. After decades of steady development, modern UV photodetectors, with high performances in photoresponsivity, signal-to-noise ratios, stability, and speed, have gained interest recently for their applications in environmental monitoring, advanced communications, air purification, leak detection, space research, etc. 3−13 Unfortunately, to acquire reasonable detectivity, an external electric field is applied to photodetectors to separate the photogenerated electron−hole pairs. 5−13 Therefore, external power sources are generally necessary. This makes photodetectors overall uneconomical and complex. On the contrary, self-powered photodetectors can help solve the energy issues and have attracted significant attention. 14−19 Compared to traditional photodetectors, self-powered structures, based on the photovoltaic effect su...

Many natural fruits and vegetables adopt an approximately spheroidal shape and are characterized by their distinct undulating topologies. We demonstrate that various global pattern features can be reproduced by anisotropic stress-driven buckles on spheroidal core/shell systems, which implies that the relevant mechanical forces might provide a template underpinning the topological conformation in some fruits and plants. Three dimensionless parameters, the ratio of effective size/thickness, the ratio of equatorial/polar radii, and the ratio of core/shell moduli, primarily govern the initiation and formation of the patterns. A distinct morphological feature occurs only when these parameters fall within certain ranges: In a prolate spheroid, reticular buckles take over longitudinal ridged patterns when one or more parameters become large. Our results demonstrate that some universal features of fruit/vegetable patterns (e.g., those observed in Korean melons, silk gourds, ribbed pumpkins, striped cavern tomatoes, and cantaloupes, etc.) may be related to the spontaneous buckling from mechanical perspectives, although the more complex biological or biochemical processes are involved at deep levels. morphogenesis ͉ nonlinear mechanics ͉ pattern formation ͉ physical geometry S pontaneous buckling of thin films on compliant substrates can achieve numerous highly ordered patterns due to mismatched deformation (1-6), which can be manipulated in different ways (1, 7-9). Buckling may also play an important role in the morphogenesis of some plant parts, including phyllotactic pattern in compressed tunica (10, 11), primordium initiation in sunflower capitulum (12), and Fibonacci patterns resembling those in some flowering cactus and pine cones (2), among others, in a way that is similar to the energy-minimizing buckling of a compressed shell on an elastic foundation (10).Many natural fruits and vegetables can be approximated as spheroidal stiff exocarp (shell)/compliant sarcocarp (core) systems, which exhibit intriguing buckle-like profiles. For example, the Korean melon (yellow melon) and ridged gourd (or silk gourd, luffa acutangula) are distinguishable by 10 equidistant longitudinal ridges that run from stem to tip. Small pumpkins, acorn squashes, and carnival squashes often have ϳ10 uniformly spaced ribs, whereas the large pumpkins often have ϳ20 or more ridges. Similar undulating morphologies found in varieties of cucumis melons, gourds, striped cavern tomatoes, bell peppers, and other fruits and vegetables underpin their distinctive appearances. Although pattern formation in plants usually involves various complex biological and biochemical processes (11,13,14), such distinctive yet simple features make one wonder whether there exist other relatively simpler mechanisms contributing to the morphogenesis at the macroscopic scale, and the possibility of stress-driven buckling is explored in this study.Consider a model spheroidal core/shell system where the shell is characterized by (x 2 ϩ y 2 )/a 2 ϩ z 2 /b 2 ϭ 1 with equator...

A solar-blind photodetector based on β-GaO/NSTO (NSTO = Nb:SrTiO) heterojunctions were fabricated for the first time, and its photoelectric properties were investigated. The device presents a typical positive rectification in the dark, while under 254 nm UV light illumination, it shows a negative rectification, which might be caused by the generation of photoinduced electron-hole pairs in the β-GaO film layer. With zero bias, that is, zero power consumption, the photodetector shows a fast photoresponse time (decay time τ = 0.07 s) and the ratio I/I ≈ 20 under 254 nm light illumination with a light intensity of 45 μW/cm. Such behaviors are attributed to the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs driven by the built-in electric field in the depletion region of β-GaO and the NSTO interface, and the subsequent transport toward corresponding electrodes. The photocurrent increases linearly with increasing the light intensity and applied bias, while the response time decreases with the increase of the light intensity. Under -10 V bias and 45 μW/cm of 254 nm light illumination, the photodetector exhibits a responsivity R of 43.31 A/W and an external quantum efficiency of 2.1 × 10 %. The photo-to-electric conversion mechanism in the β-GaO/NSTO heterojunction photodetector is explained in detail by energy band diagrams. The results strongly suggest that a photodetector based on β-GaO thin-film heterojunction structure can be practically used to detect weak solar-blind signals because of its high photoconductive gain.

A nature-inspired water-cycling system, akin to trees, to perform effective water and solar energy management for photosynthesis and transpiration is considered to be a promising strategy to solve water scarcity issues globally. However, challenges remain in terms of the relatively low transport rate, short transport distance, and unsatisfactory extraction efficiency. Herein, enlightened by conifer tracheid construction, an efficient water transport and evaporation system composed of a hierarchical structured aerogel is reported. This architecture with radially aligned channels, micron pores, and molecular meshes is realized by applying a radial ice-template method and in situ cryopolymerization technique. This nature-inspired design benefits the aerogel excellent capillary rise performance, realizing a long-distance (>28 cm at 190 min) and quick (>1 cm at 1 s, >9 cm at 300 s) antigravity water transport on a macroscopic scale, regardless of clean water, seawater, sandy groundwater, or dye-including effluent. Furthermore, an efficient water transpiration and collection is performed by the bilayer-structured aerogel with a carbon heat collector on an aerogel top, demonstrating a solar steam generation rate of 2.0 kg m–2 h–1 with the energy conversion efficiency up to 85.7% under one solar illumination. This biomimetic design with the advantage of water transport and evaporation provides a potential approach to realize water purification, regeneration, and desalination.

We investigated the possibility of controlling thin film buckling patterns by varying the substrate curvature and the stress induced therein upon cooling. The numerical and experimental studies are based on a spherical Ag core/SiO(2) shell system. For Ag substrates with a relatively larger curvature, the dentlike triangular buckling pattern comes out when the film nominal stress exceeds a critical value. With increasing film stress and/or substrate radius, the labyrinthlike buckling pattern takes over. Both the buckling wavelength and the critical stress increase with the substrate radius.