Numerical experiments with the NASA finite-volume general circulation model show that heating of the atmosphere by dust and black carbon can lead to widespread enhanced warming over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and accelerated snow melt in the western TP and Himalayas. During the boreal spring, a thick aerosol layer, composed mainly of dust transported from adjacent deserts and black carbon from local emissions, builds up over the Indo-Gangetic Plain, against the foothills of the Himalaya and the TP. The aerosol layer, which extends from the surface to high elevation (∼5 km), heats the mid-troposphere by absorbing solar radiation. The heating produces an atmospheric dynamical feedback-the so-called elevated-heat-pump (EHP) effect, which increases moisture, cloudiness, and deep convection over northern India, as well as enhancing the rate of snow melt in the Himalayas and TP. The accelerated melting of snow is mostly confined to the western TP, first slowly in early April and then rapidly from early to mid-May. The snow cover remains reduced from mid-May through early June. The accelerated snow melt is accompanied by similar phases of enhanced warming of the atmosphere-land system of the TP, with the atmospheric warming leading the surface warming by several days. Surface energy balance analysis shows that the short-wave and long-wave surface radiative fluxes strongly offset each other, and are largely regulated by the changes in cloudiness and moisture over the TP. The slow melting phase in April is initiated by an effective transfer of sensible heat from a warmer atmosphere to land. The rapid melting phase in May is due to an evaporation-snow-land feedback coupled to an increase in atmospheric moisture over the TP induced by the EHP effect.

This study investigates the interannual variation of heat wave frequency (HWF) in South Korea during the past 42 years and examines its connection with large-scale atmospheric circulation changes. Korean heat waves tend to develop most frequently in late summer during July and August. The leading Empirical Orthogonal Function accounting for 50% of the total variance shows a mono-signed pattern over South Korea, suggesting that the dominant mechanisms responsible for the heat wave are linked in a spatial scale much larger than the nation. It also exhibits a regional variation with more occurrences in the southeastern inland area. The regression of the leading principal component (PC) time series of HWF with large-scale atmospheric circulation identifies a north-south dipole pattern between the South China Sea and Northeast Asia. When this large-scale circulation mode facilitates deep convection in South China Sea, it tends to weaken moisture transport from the South China Sea to Northeast Asia. Enhanced deep convection in the South China Sea triggers a source of Rossby wave train along southerly wind that generates positive geopotential height anomalies around Korea. The anomalous high pressure pattern is accompanied by large-scale subsidence in Korea, thereby providing a favourable condition for extreme hot and dry days in Korea. This study highlights that there is a decadal change of the relationship between Korean heat waves and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. The tropical forcing tends to be weakened in the recent decade, with more influences from the Arctic variability from the mid-1990s.

While perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have emerged as promising low-cost solar power generators, most reported high-performance PSCs employ electron transport layers (ETLs, mainly TiO2) treated at high temperatures (≥450 °C), which may eventually hinder the development of flexible PSCs. Meanwhile, the development of low-temperature processed PSCs (L-PSCs) possessing performance levels comparable to those of high-temperature processed PSCs has actively been reported. In this study, L-PSCs with improved long-term stability and negligible hysteresis were developed through the effective passivation of shallow and deep traps in organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite (OIHP) crystals and at the ETL/OIHP interface. L-PSCs with alkaline chloride modification achieved state-of-the-art performance among reported L-PSCs (power conversion efficiency (PCE) = 22.6%) with a long-term shelf life. The origin of long-term stability and the efficient passivation of deep traps was revealed by monitoring the trap-state distribution. Moreover, the high PCE of a large-area device (21.3%, 1.12 cm2) was also demonstrated, confirming the uniformity of the modification.

All-solution processing of large-area organic electronics requires multiple steps of patterning and stacking of various device components. Here, we report the fabrication of highly integrated arrays of polymer thin-film transistors and logic gates entirely through a series of solution processes. The fabrication is done using a three-dimensional crosslinker in tetrahedral geometry containing four photocrosslinkable azide moieties, referred to as 4Bx. 4Bx can be mixed with a variety of solution-processable electronic materials (polymer semiconductors, polymer insulators, and metal nanoparticles) and generate crosslinked network under exposure to UV. Fully crosslinked network film can be formed even at an unprecedentedly small loading, which enables preserving the inherent electrical and structural characteristics of host material. Because the crosslinked electronic component layers are strongly resistant to chemical solvents, micropatterning the layers at high resolution as well as stacking the layers on top of each other by series of solution processing steps is possible.

IntroductionColloidal quantum dot (CQD) based photovoltaic devices (CQDPVs) have emerged as promising next-generation solar cells owing to low-cost solution processibility at low temperature, easy bandgap tunability into the near infrared (NIR, λ > 800 nm) regime, and multiple exciton generation. [1,2] The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of CQDPVs has improved High-efficiency solid-state-ligand-exchange (SSE) step-free colloidal quantum dot photovoltaic (CQDPV) devices are developed by employing CQD ink based active layers and organic (Polythieno[3,4-b]-thiophene-co-benzodithiophene (PTB7) and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)) based hole transport layers (HTLs). The device using PTB7 as an HTL exhibits superior performance to that using the current leading organic HTL, P3HT, because of favorable energy levels, higher hole mobility, and facilitated interfacial charge transfer. The PTB7 based device achieves power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.60%, which is the highest among reported CQDPVs using organic HTLs. This result is also comparable to the PCE of an optimized device based on a thiol-exchanged p-type CQD, the current-state-of-the-art HTL. From the viewpoint of device processing, the fabrication of CQDPVs is achieved by direct single-coating of CQD active layers and organic HTLs at low temperature without SSE steps. The experimental results and device simulation results in this work suggest that further engineering of organic HTL materials can open new doors to improve the performance and processing of CQDPVs.