Developing low cost, long life, and high capacity rechargeable batteries is a critical factor towards developing next‐generation energy storage devices for practical applications. Therefore, a simple method to prepare graphene‐coated FeS2 embedded in carbon nanofibers is employed; the double protection from graphene coating and carbon fibers ensures high reversibility of FeS2 during sodiation/desodiation and improved conductivity, resulting in high rate capacity and long‐term life for Na+ (305.5 mAh g−1 at 3 A g−1 after 2450 cycles) and K+ (120 mAh g−1 at 1 A g−1 after 680 cycles) storage at room temperature. Benefitting from the enhanced conductivity and protection on graphene‐encapsulated FeS2 nanoparticles, the composites exhibit excellent electrochemical performance under low temperature (0 and −20 °C), and temperature tolerance with stable capacity as sodium‐ion half‐cells. The Na‐ion full‐cells based on the above composites and Na3V2(PO4)3 can afford reversible capacity of 95 mAh g−1 at room temperature. Furthermore, the full‐cells deliver promising discharge capacity (50 mAh g−1 at 0 °C, 43 mAh g−1 at −20 °C) and high energy density at low temperatures. Density functional theory calculations imply that graphene coating can effectively decrease the Na+ diffusion barrier between FeS2 and graphene heterointerface and promote the reversibility of Na+ storage in FeS2, resulting in advanced Na+ storage properties.

The enhanced photocatalytic performance of various MoS2-based nanomaterials has recently been observed, but the role of monolayer MoS2 is still not well elucidated at the electronic level. Herein, focusing on a model system, hybrid MoS2/SnO2 nanocomposite, we first present a theoretical elucidation of the dual role of monolayer MoS2 as a sensitizer and a co-catalyst by performing density functional theory calculations. It is demonstrated that a type-II, staggered, band alignment of ∼0.49 eV exists between monolayer MoS2 and SnO2 with the latter possessing the higher electron affinity, or work function, leading to the robust separation of photoexcited charge carriers between the two constituents. Under irradiation, the electrons are excited from Mo 4d orbitals to SnO2, thus enhancing the reduction activity of latter, indicating that the monolayer MoS2 is an effective sensitizer. Moreover, the Mo atoms, which are catalytically inert in isolated monolayer MoS2, turn into catalytic active sites, making the monolayer MoS2 to be a highly active co-catalyst in the composite. The dual role of monolayer MoS2 is expected to arise in other MoS2-semiconductor nanocomposites. The calculated absorption spectra can be rationalized by available experimental results. These findings provide theoretical evidence supporting the experimental reports and pave the way for developing highly efficient MoS2-based photocatalysts.

A single, free-running, dual-wavelength mode-locked, erbium-doped fibre laser was exploited to measure the absolute frequency of continuous-wave terahertz (CW-THz) radiation in real time using dual THz combs of photo-carriers (dual PC-THz combs). Two independent mode-locked laser beams with different wavelengths and different repetition frequencies were generated from this laser and were used to generate dual PC-THz combs having different frequency spacings in photoconductive antennae. Based on the dual PC-THz combs, the absolute frequency of CW-THz radiation was determined with a relative precision of 1.2 × 10−9 and a relative accuracy of 1.4 × 10−9 at a sampling rate of 100 Hz. Real-time determination of the absolute frequency of CW-THz radiation varying over a few tens of GHz was also demonstrated. Use of a single dual-wavelength mode-locked fibre laser, in place of dual mode-locked lasers, greatly reduced the size, complexity, and cost of the measurement system while maintaining the real-time capability and high measurement precision.

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Virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control technique is widely used for the grid-friendly integration of renewable energy. However, when VSG is attached to a weak grid, it is prone to voltage and frequency instability, which aggravates the voltage quality and frequency quality at the point of common coupling (PCC), and in turn, pollutes the supplying quality for the loads. On the one hand, focusing on voltage stability, this paper proposes the impedance modeling for VSG in the synchronously inertial reference coordinates (SIRC) to measure the voltage stability of grid-tied VSG and identify the interaction between VSG and the weak power grid. Studies show that weak grid strength can lead to a wide-band oscillation of VSG. On the other hand, focusing on frequency instability, the motion equation has been put forward to illustrate the oscillation and dynamic deviation of frequency. The relationship between synchronizing ability of VSG and grid stiffness is discussed. Besides, this paper proposes an inertia-damping-strengthened control method to improve frequency stability. Finally, the theoretical analysis is compared with simulations and experiments.

van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures have attracted immense interest recently due to their unusual properties and new phenomena.

Voltage of DC microgrid is prone to oscillation, originated from three factors: 1) negative damping performance of the DC converter; 2) interaction between the power converter and DC network; and 3) positive feedback of DC voltage control loop. Analogous to the relation between the force and velocity of motion, it derives the function relationship between DC current and DC voltage. Motion of DC voltage can be illustrated by the derived vectors since transfer functions between DC current and DC voltage has corresponding phase and gain at a specific frequency. It is found that it forms a positive feedback when the damping of DC converter is negative, which can destabilize DC-side voltage at the oscillated frequency. However, a negative feedback can stabilize the system and makes DC voltage attenuated. A virtual inertia (VI) control strategy is proposed for enhancement of damping performance and forming a negative feedback for the system. The proposed theoretical analysis is demonstrated by Star-Sim hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experiments.

The enhanced photocatalytic activity of SrTiO 3 (STO), a promising photocatalyst for decomposing organic compounds and overall water splitting for H 2 /O 2 evolution, has been experimentally demonstrated by coupling the graphene(GR) sheet. Here, we reveal the mechanism of the enhanced photocatalytic activity of STO/GR composites using ab initio calculations.Due to C 2p states forming the bottom of conduction band or the top of valence band, the band gap is reduced to about 0.6 eV, resulting into a strong absorption in the visible region. The composites of STO coupled with reduced graphene oxide(RGO) and graphane(GRH) are also explored to investigate their potential photocatalytic activity. We demonstrate that the surface termination layer of STO(100) surface plays an important role in determining the formation energy, interfacial distance, band gap and optical absorption of these composites. Moreover, the GR sheet is a sensitizer for STO with termination layer TiO 2 , on the contrary, it is to be an electron shuttle to carry excited electrons from the STO with termination layer SrO.Interestingly, a type-II, staggered band alignment is formed in the interface, thus improving photoexcited charge separation. The negatively charged O atoms in the RGO are considered to be active sites in photocatalytic reactions, leading to the enhanced photocatalytic activity.The calculated results can rationalize the available experimental reports and provide design principles for optimizing the photocatalytic performance of the STO-based composites.