Binary compound antimony sulfide (Sb2S3) with its nontoxic and earth‐abundant constituents, is a promising light‐harvesting material for stable and high efficiency thin film photovoltaics. The intrinsic quasi‐1D (Q1D) crystal structure of Sb2S3 is known to transfer photogenerated carriers rapidly along the [hk1] orientation. However, producing Sb2S3 devices with precise control of [hk1] orientation is challenging and unfavorable crystal orientations of Sb2S3 result in severe interface and bulk recombination losses. Herein, in situ vertical growth of Sb2S3 on top of ultrathin TiO2/CdS as the electron transport layer (ETL) by a solution method is demonstrated. The planar heterojunction solar cell using [hk1]‐oriented Sb2S3 achieves a power conversion efficiency of 6.4%, performing at almost 20% higher than devices based on a [hk0]‐oriented absorber. This work opens up new prospects for pursuing high‐performance Sb2S3 thin film solar cells by tailoring the crystal orientation.

Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) has become a widely used tool for insight into biomedical challenges due to its rapid, long-term, and super-resolution (SR) imaging. However, artifacts that often appear in SIM images have long brought into question its fidelity, and might cause misinterpretation of biological structures. We present HiFi-SIM, a high-fidelity SIM reconstruction algorithm, by engineering the effective point spread function (PSF) into an ideal form. HiFi-SIM can effectively reduce commonly seen artifacts without loss of fine structures and improve the axial sectioning for samples with strong background. In particular, HiFi-SIM is not sensitive to the commonly used PSF and reconstruction parameters; hence, it lowers the requirements for dedicated PSF calibration and complicated parameter adjustment, thus promoting SIM as a daily imaging tool.

No abstract

Antimony sulfoselenide (Sb2(S,Se)3) is a promising photoabsorber for stable and high efficiency thin film photovoltaics (PV). The unique quasi‐1D (Q1D) crystal structure gives Sb2(S,Se)3 intriguing anisotropic optoelectronic properties, which intrinsically require the optimization of crystal growth orientation, especially for electronic devices with vertical charge transport such as solar cells. Although the efficiency of Sb2(S,Se)3 solar cells has been improved greatly through optimizing the material quality, the fundamental issue of crystal orientation control in polycrystalline films remains unsolved, resulting in charge carrier recombination losses in the device. Herein, the epitaxial growth of vertically‐oriented Sb2(S,Se)3 film on hexagonal CdS is successfully realized via a solution‐based synergistic crystal growth process. The crystallographic orientation relationship between Sb2(S,Se)3 light absorber and the CdS substrate has been rigorously investigated. The best performing Sb2(S,Se)3 solar cell shows a high power conversion efficiency of 9.2% owing to the faster charge transport in the bulk and the efficient charge extraction across the heterojunction. This study points to a new direction to control the crystal growth of mixed‐anion Sb2(S,Se)3, which is crucial to achieve high efficiency solar cells based on antimony chalcogenides with low dimensionality.

No abstract

No abstract

Two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures are mainly confined to being obtained from intrinsically layered crystals via an exfoliation approach or epitaxial growth method, thereby greatly limiting the choice of 2D crystals available for high-performance optoelectronic devices. Here, we introduce an efficient PDMS printing strategy to simultaneously realize the controllable preparation and subsequent transfer of a large-area non-layered 2D Ga2O3 amorphous layer on the basis of ultrathin oxide skin of liquid Ga. More importantly, a template-confined reaction of the 2D Ga2O3 amorphous layer is further proposed to achieve other 2D Ga-group crystals including 2D GaN, GaS, and GaP thin layers. The corresponding crystallization and transformation process under the 2D geometrical space is investigated and demonstrated to be polycrystalline nucleation and growth, which still follows the traditional thermodynamic nucleation rule of critical radius. Furthermore, 2D Ga-group semiconductors could easily stack with themselves or other layered 2D crystals such as MoS2 to construct diverse van der Waals heterostructures for the fabrication of high-performance and multifunctional electronics. We believe that the unique and simple synthetic strategy proposed in this work will promote the preparation and transfer of diverse non-layered 2D crystals for the discovery of new phenomena and functional nanodevices.

The development of efficient and low-cost hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalysts has been regarded as a promising approach to produce sustainable and clean fuels to solve the energy crisis and environmental problems. Herein, 3D hybrid Cu3P–Ni2P hexagonal nanosheet arrays are successfully prepared on nickel foam (Cu3P–Ni2P/NF). Benefiting from synergistic effects and strong chemical coupling existing at the interface, the Cu3P–Ni2P/NF electrode exhibits a low overpotential of 103 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm–2, which is 47 and 100 mV less than that for Ni2P/NF and Cu3P/NF, respectively. It also shows excellent electrochemical durability for long-term reaction in alkaline medium. The excellent electrocatalytic activity makes the Cu3P–Ni2P/NF as a promising cathode toward efficient hydrogen evolution via electrochemical water splitting.