Silicon (Si) fertilization can produce beneficial effect on the Siaccumulator-wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grown on low available Si soils. For assessing Si availability in calcareous soils, four extractants were used to select a suitable method and a critical value for Si by correlating the extractable soil Si to the plant Si content and yield response to applied Si fertilizer of winter wheat grown on 17 field experiment plots. The quantities of Si extracted by the tests was, in descending order: 0.025 M citric acid ϾϾ buffering NaOAc-HOAc (pH 4) ϾϾ 0.19 M Na 2 CO 3 0.5 M NaHCO 3 (pH 8.5). Both the soil clay and CaCO 3 contents significantly affected the extractable Si amount. All the extractable soil Si by any 787 ORDER REPRINTS one of the four extractants was very significantly correlated with the Si contents in both the flag leaf and straw or with the total amount of Si uptake by wheat. The calibration test of relative wheat biomass yield response to Si fertilization showed that the NaOAc-HOAc extraction method was found to be the best for assessing Si availability for winter wheat in the calcareous soils. The critical value of available Si extracted by the classical method (NaOAc-HOAc) widely adopted for the acid and neutral soils was about 80 mg Si kg Ϫ1 (171 mg SiO 2 kg Ϫ1 ) in the calcareous soil.
This paper presents a two-stage method to synthesize the mono-dispersed ZnO spheres. The size and uniformity of ZnO spheres can be controlled in the submicrometer range. This makes the method applicable to the fabrication of photonic crystal structures. The effects of different reaction parameters such as reaction temperatures, reaction times, and water concentrations on the formation of ZnO spheres were investigated. On the basis of the experimental results, we discuss and propose a possible mechanism to elucidate the formation of ZnO submicron spheres. Furthermore, the room temperature photoluminescence (PL) measurements of the products were carried out to investigate their optical properties. The PL results showed that the ZnO submicron spheres exhibited a strong ultraviolet emission and a broadband green emission in the visible region.
The submicron array was fabricated onto a cyclo olefin copolymer (COC) film by a hot embossing method. An amorphous silicon p-i-n junction and transparent conductive layers were then deposited onto it through a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and magnetron sputtering. The efficiency of the fabricated COC-based solar cell was measured and the result demonstrated 18.6% increase of the solar cell efficiency when compared to the sample without array structure. The imprinted polymer solar cells with submicron array indeed increase their efficiency.
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