Photovoltaics is an ideal power source for distributed electronics such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) nodes and wearable devices. However, these systems typically operate under spectrally distinct indoor lighting and low photon flux, where incomplete trap filling renders even defect-tolerant perovskites susceptible to trap-assisted recombination, leading to pronounced open-circuit voltage ( Voc ) losses. To address the compromised phase purity and elevated trap density commonly observed in wide-bandgap perovskites tailored for indoor lighting, we employ an ionic-liquid-based additive engineering strategy that suppresses residual lead iodide and passivates defects at grain boundaries and buried interfaces. As a result, the optimized indoor perovskite photovoltaics deliver an improved power conversion efficiency from 38.62% to 41.41% together with a high Voc of 1.08 V. These findings establish a practical route for defect modulation in wide-bandgap perovskites and further advance indoor photovoltaic technology toward sustainable powering of IoT devices. (c) 2026 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.

With the rising frequency of small-scale fires in complex, semienclosed environments such as kitchens and vehicles, traditional fire blankets─though effective at physically isolating flames─suffer from low extinguishing efficiency and poor environmental adaptability. To overcome these limitations, we developed a flexible fire blanket integrated with seawater-based capsules to enhance suppression performance in confined spaces. Using precise microfluidic technology, seawater capsules with uniform size, robust shells, and controlled composition were fabricated and homogeneously dispersed in the blanket matrix. Seawater was selected as the extinguishing medium for its abundance, strong cooling capacity, environmental safety, and low cost, avoiding toxic residues common with chemical agents. The optimized capsule shell exhibited excellent thermal responsiveness and structural integrity, rupturing within 2 ms under heat and rapidly releasing the extinguishing medium. This enabled efficient flame suppression through dual mechanisms of localized evaporative cooling and steam-induced oxygen displacement. The resulting composite blanket demonstrated superior response speed, extinguishing efficiency, and environmental adaptability, offering a sustainable solution for fire control in semienclosed scenarios and strong potential for practical engineering applications.

The development of adsorbents capable of simultaneous adsorption of methyl iodide (CH3I) and iodine (I2) is meaningful but remains challenging. In this work, a novel Bi/Bi2O2SiO3 composite was prepared by one step method and employed for the simultaneous adsorption of gaseous CH3I and I2. In the single CH3I or I2 system, the Bi/Bi2O2SiO3 composite exhibited excellent adsorption capacities, reaching capacities of 1293 mg/g (CH3I) and 452 mg/g (I2). In the CH3I + I2 coexistent system, the total adsorption capacity was up to 1336 mg/g, which can be attributed to a synergistic effect between Bi and Bi2O2SiO3. The results indicated that the adsorption of both CH3I and I2 was chemical, and the adsorption product was BiI3. Furthermore, the adsorption mechanism of CH3I by Bi2O2SiO3 was catalytic cleavage reaction. Owing to its outstanding performance for simultaneous adsorption of CH3I and I2, the Bi/Bi2O2SiO3 composite could be considered as a promising candidate for the practical decontamination of radioactive iodine species in off-gas streams.

Objective Resistance spot welding(RSW)is a widely used joining technique in modern manufacturing,particularly in industries such as automotive and aerospace.Among various quality indicators,the nugget diameter is a critical parameter for evaluating weld quality.However,traditional inspection methods largely rely on destructive testing or manual interpretation of thermal images,which are time-consuming,labor-intensive,and poorly suited to the demands of automated production.In reflective excitation modes,uneven heat absorption and complex heat diffusion at the weld surface further blur the thermal imaging signals,making it even more difficult to accurately identify the nugget boundary.Therefore,there is an urgent need for a non-contact detection method that offers physical interpretability,strong robustness in data processing,and adaptability to real-world production environments,enabling high-precision and efficient identification of RSW nugget regions. Methods This study proposes a non-contact detection scheme that combines laser thermal excitation with infrared thermography.A 1064 nm fiber laser is employed as the heat source,and its beam is homogenized using a beam-expanding system and a microlens array to uniformly cover the weld area,ensuring consistent excitation.During excitation,an infrared thermal camera synchronously captures a sequence of surface infrared images,acquiring thermal diffusion data with high temporal resolution.The acquired thermographic sequence is processed using locally estimated scatterplot smoothing(LOESS)filtering to eliminate high-frequency noise without altering the signal peaks,followed by piecewise polynomial fitting to smooth the curves.Subsequently,the time series is normalized to transform radiation variations at different points into relative values,thereby eliminating amplitude-related effects.In the cooling phase,a time window is selected while avoiding regions of thermal response reversal,and the normalized difference within this window is calculated for each pixel.Based on simulation results,a threshold segmentation is applied to the resulting difference map,yielding a clearly defined nugget region. Results and Discussions Simulation analysis revealed a phenomenon of temporal reversal in the surface temperature evolution between nugget and non-nugget regions after the heat source is removed-that is,while the nugget cools more rapidly in the initial stage,it slows down around 0.3 s,eventually cooling more slowly than the surrounding area(Fig.3).This reversal serves as a critical basis for identifying the nugget boundary.A time window is selected by avoiding the reversal phase to retain the genuine thermal diffusion differences between regions as much as possible,ensuring that the subsequent difference features possess stable physical interpretability and image sensitivity(Fig.4).In addition,this study introduces normalization and a difference calculation strategy independent of absolute temperature values,thereby enhancing the algorithm's robustness under varying excitation energies and material absorption rate.Experimental results demonstrate that the extracted nugget region exhibits well-defined edges(Fig.9)and closely matches the true nugget shape in spatial profile,with an average relative error of 7.5％,a root mean square error of 8.03％,and a standard deviation of 3.28％(Table 3).This level of accuracy meets the industrial requirements for nugget size evaluation,indicating strong engineering feasibility and practical value. Conclusions This study addresses the challenges in directly obtaining internal structural information of RSW welds and the limitations of conventional inspection methods that rely on strong prior assumptions.A novel method is proposed for nugget identification based on difference feature extraction from normalized infrared radiation intensity time series.The laser excitation approach enables precise and effective thermal stimulation of the weld area,offering high energy input and superior excitation uniformity.The image processing pipeline avoids reliance on absolute temperature inversion.Instead,background subtraction is followed by LOESS filtering,piecewise polynomial fitting,and normalization,achieving a robust balance between physical consistency and signal stability.The resulting difference maps,centered on radiation intensity changes within a selected time window,effectively capture local variations in thermal diffusion capacity across the weld region.This allows for reliable discrimination between the nugget and base material,and accurate identification of weak or defective welds.Experimental validation demonstrates the method's strong stability and adaptability.The generated difference images consistently reveal clear nugget contours across multiple weld samples and respond sensitively to regions of abnormal thermal conductivity.This research not only provides an efficient and reliable pathway for detecting RSW nugget regions but also deepens the application of thermal diffusion behavior in structural identification from a physical modeling perspective.It establishes a solid theoretical foundation and experimental framework for evaluating weld quality based on thermal response behavior,showing great promise for both industrial implementation and academic exploration.However,further optimization is still needed in aspects such as spatial resolution,defect type classification,and applicability to complex materials.

Tin-based materials are expected to be excellent iodine adsorbent, but the stability of the adsorption product (SnI4) poses challenge. Herein, a novel strategy based on the in-situ reconstruction of hydrophobic environment was presented for efficient iodine adsorption and storage. Stannous sulfide@mesoporous silica (SnS@SBA-15) was developed and employed for the adsorption of I2 gas. The optimal material, SnS@SBA-15-50wt%, exhibited an excellent iodine uptake of 2062 mg/g. The adsorption was attributed to a chemical reaction (SnS + 2I2 = SnI4 + S). Notably, the retention rate of SnI4 was as high as 76.5% after storage in air for 90 days due to the in-situ reconstructed hydrophobic environment. The obtained SnS@SBA-15 exhibited efficient iodine adsorption and excellent storage ability. This work presents a novel strategy to design iodine adsorbents, aimed at addressing the storage challenges of iodine adsorption products susceptible to hydrolysis.

The rapid advancement of offshore renewable energy has established direct seawater electrolysis as a highly valuable approach for green hydrogen production. However, developing efficient electrocatalysts that can withstand long-term seawater corrosion remains a significant challenge. Herein, we present a one-step fabrication method for Co/Fe2O3 heterostructure catalysts via plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The heterointerface facilitates substantial charge transfer, thereby optimizing reaction kinetics and boosting oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity. Moreover, the formation of Co–O–Fe bonds at the interface reinforces structural stability under operating conditions. As a result, the synthesized catalyst exhibits exceptional OER performance and durability in simulated seawater electrolyte, achieving a low overpotential of 291 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and maintaining stable operation for over 500 h at 100 mA cm−2. This study presents a novel strategy and material system for designing efficient and corrosion-resistant electrocatalysts for seawater splitting.

Deep ultraviolet photodetectors based on wide-bandgap semiconductor continually suffer from high dark current and slow response speed. Herein, a bottom-up diffusion doping method is proposed to address these limitations, and a high-performance deep ultraviolet Ga2O3 photodetector has been realized. Through the annealing process, Mg atoms from the MgO substrate are driven into the Ga2O3 film while maintaining high crystalline quality. This method maintains a high carrier collection efficiency, thereby achieving ultra-high responsivity (1.08 x 10(4 ) A/W) and specific detectivity (7.63 x 10(15) Jones). Meanwhile, Mg doping introduces acceptor energy levels while generating additional recombination centers, thus achieving ultra-low dark current, fast response speed, and enhanced tolerance to thermal degradation. Even at 300 degrees C, it maintains a photo-to-dark current ratio of 1.01 x 10(4) with a rise/decay time of 0.5/3.5 ms. This study provides alternative strategies for developing high-performance photodetector.

Tandem architectures have emerged as the prevailing strategy to overcome the fundamental trade-off between broadband photon absorption and efficient photon-energy utilization in photovoltaic devices. However, only the complex and implementation-demanding multi-terminal tandem configuration offers adaptability to diverse light sources. Here, we introduce an absorption-transport reconfigurable architecture implemented in a bifacial single-junction device, which harnesses the previously overlooked parasitic absorption of a 2D perovskite passivation layer to achieve spectral absorption separation between high-energy blue-violet and low-energy green-to-near-infrared photons. This design not only enables efficient bifacial operation with near-omnidirectional light harvesting but also supports broadly applicable photon-energy harvesting under both sunlight and artificial lighting. Notably, the Voc under blue-light illumination reaches 1.67 V, exceeding the Voc ceiling of a 1.55 eV single-junction absorber. In terms of applicability, a single device can deliver PCEs of 24.69% (AM 1.5G), 38.45% (warm-white LED), and 37.55% (cool-white TL84 fluorescent), alongside a record Voc of 1.081 V under weak illumination (1122 lux/346 µW cm-2). Owing to the robust interfacial anchoring design, the champion device retains >90% of its initial performance after 2000 h of continuous operation, thereby offering a viable pathway toward rapid, scenario-agnostic deployment.

Recombination layer engineering is a key enabler in monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells, where charge extraction and optical management must be simultaneously optimized. In this study, we introduce a composite Ti3C2Tx MXene/indium zinc oxide (IZO) interlayer as a tunable recombination layer to enhance both electrical and optical performance in two-terminal tandem architectures. The interlayers were fabricated by integrating few-layer Ti3C2Tx MXene flakes into an IZO matrix, forming a conductive yet transparent network. Systematic tuning of MXene content revealed that the sample with 10 vol% (MX-10) offered a low resistivity (similar to 1.69 m Omegacm), and high optical transmittance. EIS and TRPL analyses demonstrated improved charge recombination dynamics and enhanced carrier extraction. When implemented in monolithic tandems, the MX-10-based device achieved a PCE of 26.67%, outperforming the ITO-based control device (24.40%), with improved J(SC) and FF. Long-term stability testing over 1000 h under continuous illumination revealed only 9.5% degradation in MX-10 devices, confirming the material's promise for practical applications. Our findings highlight the synergistic role of MXene and IZO in constructing an efficient, transparent, and stable interfacial layer for next-generation tandem photovoltaics.

Ta-doped garnet Li7-xLa3Zr2-xTaxO12 (LLZTO) solid electrolytes are emerging as a premier oxide electrolyte, however, its practical application is hindered by surface Li2CO3 inert layers and poor electrode compatibility. Herein, we report a novel and efficient solid-source ammonium fluoride plasma method to modify the surface of LLZTO to address its interfacial challenges. The synergistic modification via NH4F plasma achieves one-step conversion of Li2CO3 into beneficial LiF/Li3N composite interphase layer on LLZTO in several minutes. The formation mechanism of dual-phase LiF/Li3N layer is due to coupling reactions between Li2CO3 and F-and Nx-radicals from NH4F plasma. This synergistic design not only eliminates the Li2CO3 inert layer, but also simultaneously optimizes interfacial wettability, minimizes impedance, and reinforces mechanical integrity, supported by theoretical calculations. The plasma modification also activates LLZTO lattices with increased room-temperature ionic conductivity from 6 & times; 10-4 to 7.6 & times; 10-4 S cm-1. Consequently, symmetric cells assembled with the modified LLZTO exhibit stable cycling life for 4000 h at 0.4 mA cm-2 and 0.4 mAh cm-2. Furthermore, full cells paired with LFP and NCM cathodes demonstrate enhanced rate performance and cycling stability. The developed plasma approach resolves the interfacial bottlenecks of LLZTO, offering mechanistic insights for oxide electrolyte optimization for advanced solid-state batteries.

Solar-blind deep-ultraviolet (DUV) photodetectors based on intrinsic Ga2O3 typically suffer from a trade-off between low responsivity and high dark current due to poor carrier transport and high defect densities. To overcome these bottlenecks, this work utilizes mist chemical vapor deposition (Mist-CVD) to fabricate Ge-doped Ga2O3 films, successfully constructing a high-quality beta/epsilon heterophase homojunction. Ge incorporation effectively relaxes lattice strain, suppresses cation vacancies, and restores the Ga/O stoichiometry to a near-ideal ratio. Crucially, the induced beta/epsilon interface naturally forms a Type-II staggered band alignment with a strong built-in electric field. This architecture suppresses dark current via a high potential barrier while enabling a giant photoconductive gain through a hole-trapping-induced photogating effect under illumination. Consequently, the Ge-doped MSM photodetector exhibits superior performance, maintaining a low dark current of 10-10 A (@ 50 V). Notably, it achieves a peak responsivity of 160 A W-1 (@ 40 V), a specific detectivity of 4.81 & times; 1014 Jones, and a PDCR of 2.3 & times; 105, representing a significant four-order-of-magnitude enhancement compared to the undoped counterpart. These results validate Ge-induced phase engineering as a promising strategy for developing high-sensitivity, low-noise DUV sensing applications.

Step heating thermography (SHT) has emerged as a promising technique for non-destructive evaluation for its simplicity and operational efficiency, however, its application for coating thickness measurement has yet to be fully explored. This paper introduces a time-offset thermal response method for coating thickness measurement using SHT. By applying a selected time offset in the normalized surface temperature response formular, a distinct peak shows up on the originally monotonically rising curve. The peak time exhibits a strong linear correlation with the coating thickness. A comprehensive analysis is derived for the relationship of the time offset and the peak. Validating experiments on anti-corrosion and anti-icing coatings confirm the highly linear correlations (R2 > 0.998). Comparison with conventional thermographic signal reconstruction (TSR) method demonstrates that the proposed method is computationally more efficient, better immune from the noise, and inherently reference-free. Moreover, its ability to determine the thickness at earlier stage enables thinner coating detections. Therefore, the new method is more promising for real-world deployment.

Abstract Crystal and oxygen-related defects are present at the buried interface between the tin oxide (SnO2) electron transport layer (ETL) and perovskite layer during the solution preparation in regular perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which poses a negative effect on their photovoltaic performance. Herein, sodium oleate (NaOA) is explored as a functional interlayer to modulate the interfacial defects in PSCs. The carboxylate group (COO-) of NaOA is coordinated with Sn4+ on the surface of the SnO2 film to generate the Sn–OOC– bond. As a result, an ordered interfacial dipole layer is formed to modulate the local electronic environment on the surface of the SnO2 layer, thereby improving the energy level alignment and modifying these oxygen-related defects. Finally, the PSCs incorporated with the NaOA interlayer exhibit an improved power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.31%, compared with 16.53% for pristine PSCs. This study offers an interfacial dipole engineering strategy using NaOA for high-performance PSCs.

The development of cost-effective and reusable adsorbents for radioactive iodine capture remains an interesting challenge. Herein, a cuprous oxide-silica composite (Cu2O@SiO2) was obtained by a simple reduction method, and the influence of temperature, contact time and iodine concentration on the adsorption performance of Cu2O@SiO2 material were systematically evaluated. The results demonstrated that the Cu2O@SiO2 material exhibited excellent adsorption capacity (897 mg/g) within a short period of time (60 min), and the final product of the adsorption process eventually existed in the stable form of CuI (Cu2O+I2-*2CuI+1/2O2). Moreover, the adsorbed material (I2-Cu2O@SiO2) could be effectively regenerated through a simple reduction process. The regenerated material exhibited outstanding reusability, maintaining over 91% of its initial capacity across ten consecutive cycles. These findings demonstrated that the Cu2O@SiO2 material exhibited significant potential for the safe management of radioactive iodine, offering a promising solution for environmental protection.

It is a great challenge for conventional approaches to prepare high-quality carbon coating on oxide cathodes to overcome unfavorable phase transition, lattice oxygen release and interfacial strain. Traditional high-temperature carbonization processes exacerbate the loss of lattice oxygen and reduction of highvalence metal, while low-energy routes result in nonconformal coating with low conductivity. Herein, we resolve this dilemma by developing a novel solid-source plasma technology to realize a breakthrough in high-quality N-doped carbon (NC) coating for ternary cathodes at low temperature. Typically, 2,2' bipyridyl plasma enables controllable uniform encapsulation of NC on LiNi0.8 Co0.1 Mn0.1 O2 (NCM811) at lower than 300 degrees C. The electrochemically adaptive NC layer establishes efficient conductive pathways while demonstrating exceptional mechanical flexibility. This compliant architecture likely alleviates strain coupling between Faradaic reactions and lattice stress evolution, suppressing microcrack initiation at primary particle boundaries. Additionally, synchrotron technology reveals that lattice oxygen release and phase transition can be effectively suppressed by the NC. Consequently, the modified cathode achieves a capacity retention of 92.7% after 100 cycles at 1 C and demonstrates remarkable ambient stability so that samples exposed to air for one month retain 83.7% capacity after 200 cycles at 1 C, much better than bare NCM811 (29.9%). This work establishes a new interfacial paradigm for advanced cathodes. (c) 2026 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.

Correction for ‘Ge-doping-induced phase engineering of β/ε-Ga 2 O 3 for high-performance ultraviolet detectors’ by Jiahui Xie et al. , J. Mater. Chem. C , 2026, https://doi.org/10.1039/D6TC00506C.

Interfaces between the perovskite absorber and charge-transport layers play a critical role in determining the performance of planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, the lack of non-destructive techniques capable of directly probing the microstructure of buried interfaces beneath perovskite films has significantly hindered a comprehensive understanding of their interfacial properties. Here, we employ flexible substrates to enable synchrotron-based grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) measurements from the backside of the substrate, allowing direct investigation of buried interfaces. By combining back- and surface-incidence GIXRD, we construct a depth-resolved phase diagram spanning from the film surface to the buried interface in one-step deposited MAPbI3 films. The film surface is dominated by a thin tetragonal perovskite layer, whereas a cubic phase gradually emerges with increasing depth, leading to phase coexistence within the film interior. Closer to the buried interface, the cubic phase progressively dominates, with the tetragonal phase completely disappearing at the interface. Meanwhile, high-resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction measurements of MAPbI3 powders at variable temperatures reveal that cubic and tetragonal phases can coexist, with their relative fractions strongly dependent on thermal history, despite the thermodynamic preference for the tetragonal phase at room temperature. The observed depth-dependent phase distribution in MAPbI3 films is therefore attributed to an incomplete cubic-to-tetragonal phase transition during cooling after annealing, which becomes increasingly suppressed with depth due to substrate confinement. These findings provide new insights into the structure – performance relationship of one-step deposited MAPbI3-based PSCs and demonstrate that back-incidence GIXRD is a powerful and broadly applicable tool for probing buried interfaces in thin-film systems.

Atomically dispersed noble metal single-atoms (SAs) catalysts offer near-100% atom utilization and exceptional catalytic activity, yet achieving high loading and controlled synthesis remains challenging. Herein, we present a novel and rapid plasma technique for the simultaneous synthesis of Ru SAs anchored on cobalt nitride (Ru CoN). The uniform dispersion of Ru atoms modulates the electronic structure of CoN, promoting in situ surface reconstruction and leading to exceptional oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance with an overpotential of only 226 mV at 10 mA cm-2 . In an alkaline anionexchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMWE), Ru-CoN achieves 0.5 A cm-2 at 1.86 V, operating stably for over 100 hat 60 degrees C. Experimental and theoretical analyses show that Ru incorporation downshifts the Co 3d band center, upshifts the O 2p band, and enhances metal-oxygen covalency, thereby activating the lattice oxygen mechanism (LOM) and surpassing the conventional OER pathway. This work offers an efficient strategy for atomically doped, high-performance OER catalysts toward sustainable energy applications. (c) 2026 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.