Based on the achievement of synthesis of ZnO nanowires in mass production, ZnO nanowires gas sensors were fabricated with microelectromechanical system technology and ethanol-sensing characteristics were investigated. The sensor exhibited high sensitivity and fast response to ethanol gas at a work temperature of 300 °C. Our results demonstrate the potential application of ZnO nanowires for fabricating highly sensitive gas sensors.

In a basic water-alcohol mixing solution without any other toxically organic solvents, the single crystalline SnO2 nanorods with diameters of 4–15 nm and lengths of 100–200 nm were synthesized using SnCl4 as a precursor. The sensors fabricated from the nanorods exhibited the sensitivity of 31.4 for 300 ppm of ethanol. Both the response and recovery time are short, around 1 s. Moreover, a linear dependence of the sensitivity on the ethanol concentration was observed. These behaviors were well explained by considering the high surface-to-volume ratio of the nanorods.

Gas sensors have been fabricated from multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) coated with a thin tin oxide layer, and have been used to detect oxidizing and reducing gases down to a ppm level. The barriers between the tin oxide nanocrystal grains on the MWNTs dominate the sensor resistance in different gases, and the conducting carriers in the MWNTs have a low resistance, which make the resistance of the sensors much lower than that of SnO2 nanobelt sensors. The resistance is 130kΩ in air, 230kΩ in 2ppm NO2, and 2.8MΩ in 50ppm NO2, so that impedance matching with amplifying circuits can be easily achieved.

We report on the microwave response properties of the ZnO nanowire-polyester composites fabricated into a planar plate with the area of 180×180 mm2 and the thickness of about 1 mm. Strong microwave absorption has been observed in X band and the maximum absorption is enhanced as the concentration of the nanowires increases in the composites. Both the low complex permittivity and the low dissipation of the pure nanowires demonstrate the pure nanowires are low-loss materials for microwave absorption in X band. The strong absorption is related to interfacial multipoles at the interface between the polyester and the ZnO nanowires, a high surface-to-volume ratio and a similar shape of the nanowires to antenna.

We report on field emission from SnO2 nanobelt arrays with the length of about 90 μm grown on silicon substrates. The turn-on field of the nanobelt arrays at the current density of 1μA∕cm2, is 4.5, 3.0, 2.4, and 2.3V∕μm as the distance between anode and cathode (d) is 0.1, 0.2, 0.35, and 0.5 mm, respectively. The current density rapidly reaches 2.1mA∕cm2 at the electrical field of 4.4V∕μm at d=0.35mm. The current density is higher than or comparable to those of the carbon nanotubes and other one-dimensional nanostructured materials. We also discuss the mechanism of high current densities and estimate the enhancement factor according to both the Fowler–Nordheim law and the reported model on micrometer-long of carbon nanotubes.

In this paper, we describe the design, fabrication and gas-sensing tests of nano-coaxial p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 heterojunction. Specifically, uniform TiO2 nanotubular arrays have been assembled by anodization and used as templates for generation of the Co3O4 one-dimensional nanorods. The structure morphology and composition of as-prepared products have been characterized by SEM, XRD, TEM, and XPS. A possible growth mechanism governing the formation of such nano-coaxial heterojunctions is proposed. The TiO2 nanotube sensor shows a normal n-type response to reducing ethanol gas, whereas TiO2-Co3O4 exhibits p-type response with excellent sensing performances. This conversion of sensing behavior can be explained by the formation of p-n heterojunction structures. A possible sensing mechanism is also illustrated, which can provide theoretical guidance for the further development of advanced gas-sensitive materials with p-n heterojunction.

A filterscope diagnostic system has been mounted to observe the line emission and visible bremsstrahlung emission from plasma on the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak during the 2014 campaign. By this diagnostic system, multiple wavelengths including D (656.1 nm), D (433.9 nm), He ii (468.5 nm), Li i (670.8 nm), Li ii (548.3 nm), C iii (465.0 nm), O ii (441.5 nm), Mo i (386.4 nm), W i (400.9 nm), and visible bremsstrahlung radiation (538.0 nm) are monitored with corresponding wavelength filters. All these multi-channel signals are digitized at up to 200 kHz simultaneously. This diagnostic plays a crucial role in studying edge localized modes and H-mode plasmas, due to the high temporal resolution and spatial resolution that have been designed into it.

Correlations between the edge fluctuations and the pedestal evolution during the relatively large edge localized mode (ELM) cycles at high pedestal normalized electron collisionality (νe,ped* > 1) on the EAST tokamak are investigated. Not only the edge electrostatic coherent mode (ECM, ∼50 kHz) and the low frequency magnetic coherent mode (MCM, ∼32 kHz) but also a high frequency electromagnetic mode (HFM, >150 kHz) are observed to be coexisting between ELMs. After the ELM crash, the pedestal electron temperature recovered faster than the pedestal electron density. It is found that the saturation of the ECM coincides more with the saturation of the pedestal electron density, while the saturation of the HFM and MCM coincides more with the saturation of the pedestal electron temperature. In addition, the characteristics of the electromagnetic fluctuations (the HFM and MCM) are studied in detail: the HFM propagates in the electron diamagnetic drift direction in the laboratory frame with an average poloidal wave number of k¯θHFM≈0.17 cm−1, while the MCM propagates in the ion diamagnetic drift direction in the laboratory frame with k¯θMCM ≈ 0.12 cm−1 and the toroidal mode number of n = 1. Furthermore, both the HFM and MCM have inward average radial wave numbers of k¯RHFM≈0.13 cm−1 and k¯RMCM≈4.64 cm−1. The bispectral analysis shows that the HFM and MCM have strong nonlinear interactions. The HFM is clearly observed on both low and high field side Mirnov coils, which might suggest a feature beyond a ballooning type instability, e.g., the kinetic ballooning mode. These studies may contribute to a better understanding of the pedestal evolution.