The Persistent Photoconductivity (PPC) effect was studied in individual tin oxide (SnO 2 ) nanobelts as a function of temperature, in air, helium, and vacuum atmospheres, and low temperature Photoluminescence measurements were carried out to study the optical transitions and to determine of the acceptor/donors levels and their best representation inside the band gap. Under ultraviolet (UV) illumination and at temperatures in the range of 200 to 400K we observed a fast and strong enhancement of the photoconductivity, and the maximum value of the photocurrent induced increases as the temperature or the oxygen concentration decreases. By turning off the UV illumination the induced photocurrent decays with lifetimes up to several hours. The photoconductivity and the PPC results were explained by adsorption and desorption of molecular oxygen at the surface of the SnO 2 nanobelts. Based on the temperature dependence of the PPC decay an activation energy of 230 meV was found, which corresponds to the energy necessary for thermal ionization of free holes from acceptor levels to the valence band, in agreement with the photoluminescence results presented. The molecular-oxygen recombination with holes is the origin of the PPC effect in metal oxide semiconductors, so that, the PPC effect is not related to the oxygen vacancies, as commonly presented in the literature.

The amount of information exchanged per unit of time between two nodes in a dynamical network or between two data sets is a powerful concept for analysing complex systems. This quantity, known as the mutual information rate (MIR), is calculated from the mutual information, which is rigorously defined only for random systems. Moreover, the definition of mutual information is based on probabilities of significant events. This work offers a simple alternative way to calculate the MIR in dynamical (deterministic) networks or between two time series (not fully deterministic), and to calculate its upper and lower bounds without having to calculate probabilities, but rather in terms of well known and well defined quantities in dynamical systems. As possible applications of our bounds, we study the relationship between synchronisation and the exchange of information in a system of two coupled maps and in experimental networks of coupled oscillators.

The temperature dependence of electrical conductivity and the photoconductivity of polycrystalline Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 were investigated. It was found that at high temperatures the electrical conductivity was dominated by band conduction and nearest-neighbour hopping. However, at lower temperatures, both Mott variable-range hopping (VRH) and Efros-Shklovskii VRH were observed. The analysis of electrical transport showed high doping levels and a large compensation ratio, demonstrating large degree of disorder in Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 . Photoconductivity studies showed the presence of a persistent photoconductivity effect with decay time increasing with temperature, due to the presence of random local potential fluctuations in the Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 thin film. These random local potential fluctuations cannot be attributed to grain boundaries but to the large disorder in Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 .the CZTS absorber layer and the Mo back contact have been pointed out as factors that reduce the solar cell efficiency [4,5]. Strong research efforts have been made in the study of different CZTS synthesis routes [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10], CZTS structural and optical properties [2,[6][7][8], as well as in the development of CZTS solar cells [3-5, 9, 10]. However, very little is known about the electrical transport and photoconductivity properties of CZTS thin films and further studies are required.The study of the temperature dependence of electrical transport in semiconductor materials is very important for the knowledge of material parameters, the understanding of the transport and microscopic mechanisms of charge transfer, as well as for the optimization and design of solar cells. Very recently, we have shown that the radiative and non-radiative recombination mechanisms in CZTS thin films are strongly

The temperature dependence of the electrical transport of an individual tin oxide nanobelt was measured in darkness from 400 to 5 K. We found four intrinsic electrical transport mechanisms through the nanobelt. It starts with thermally activated conduction between 400 K and 314 K, followed by nearest‐neighbor hopping conduction between 268 K and 115 K and variable range hopping conduction below 58 K, with a crossover from the 3D Mott to the 3D Efros–Shklovskii regime at 16 K. We claim that this sequence reveals the three‐dimensional nature of the electrical transport in the SnO2 nanobelts, even though they are expected to behave as one‐dimensional systems. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

A high-resolution codimension-two parameter space showing the abundance of complex periodic structures of an experimental chaotic circuit is reported. Such resolution was propitiated by the use of a 0.5 mV step dc voltage source as one of the control parameters. Those complex periodic structures organize themselves in a period-adding bifurcation cascade that accumulates in a chaotic region. Numerical investigations on the dynamical model were also carried out to corroborate several new features observed in the experimental high-resolution parameter space.