scholarly journals Chemical Imaging of Single Anisotropic Polystyrene/Poly (Methacrylate) Microspheres with Complex Hierarchical Architecture

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1438
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wagner ◽  
Stefanie Wagner ◽  
Jan-Erik Bredfeldt ◽  
Julia C. Steinbach ◽  
Ashutosh Mukherjee ◽  
...  

Monodisperse polystyrene spheres are functional materials with interesting properties, such as high cohesion strength, strong adsorptivity, and surface reactivity. They have shown a high application value in biomedicine, information engineering, chromatographic fillers, supercapacitor electrode materials, and other fields. To fully understand and tailor particle synthesis, the methods for characterization of their complex 3D morphological features need to be further explored. Here we present a chemical imaging study based on three-dimensional confocal Raman microscopy (3D-CRM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB), diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for individual porous swollen polystyrene/poly (glycidyl methacrylate-co-ethylene di-methacrylate) particles. Polystyrene particles were synthesized with different co-existing chemical entities, which could be identified and assigned to distinct regions of the same particle. The porosity was studied by a combination of SEM and FIB. Images of milled particles indicated a comparable porosity on the surface and in the bulk. The combination of standard analytical techniques such as DRIFT and NMR spectroscopies yielded new insights into the inner structure and chemical composition of these particles. This knowledge supports the further development of particle synthesis and the design of new strategies to prepare particles with complex hierarchical architectures.

Author(s):  
Rui Ma ◽  
Zetong Chen ◽  
Danna Zhao ◽  
Xujing Zhang ◽  
Jingting Zhuo ◽  
...  

To promote the development of supercapacitors and their applications in modern electronics, it is crucial to explore novel supercapacitor electrode materials. As a representative member of the rising 2D MXenes,...


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Yapeng Wang ◽  
Yanxiang Wang ◽  
Chengjuan Wang ◽  
Yongbo Wang

As one of the most outstanding high-efficiency and environmentally friendly energy storage devices, the supercapacitor has received extensive attention across the world. As a member of transition metal oxides widely used in electrode materials, manganese dioxide (MnO2) has a huge development potential due to its excellent theoretical capacitance value and large electrochemical window. In this paper, MnO2 was prepared at different temperatures by a liquid phase precipitation method, and polyaniline/manganese dioxide (PANI/MnO2) composite materials were further prepared in a MnO2 suspension. MnO2 and PANI/MnO2 synthesized at a temperature of 40 °C exhibit the best electrochemical performance. The specific capacitance of the sample MnO2-40 is 254.9 F/g at a scanning speed of 5 mV/s and the specific capacitance is 241.6 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g. The specific capacitance value of the sample PANI/MnO2-40 is 323.7 F/g at a scanning speed of 5 mV/s, and the specific capacitance is 291.7 F/g at a current density of 1 A/g, and both of them are higher than the specific capacitance value of MnO2. This is because the δ-MnO2 synthesized at 40 °C has a layered structure, which has a large specific surface area and can accommodate enough electrolyte ions to participate the electrochemical reaction, thus providing sufficient specific capacitance.


Microscopy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuo Yamamoto ◽  
Satoshi Anada ◽  
Takeshi Sato ◽  
Noriyuki Yoshimoto ◽  
Tsukasa Hirayama

Abstract Phase-shifting electron holography (PS-EH) is an interference transmission electron microscopy technique that accurately visualizes potential distributions in functional materials, such as semiconductors. In this paper, we briefly introduce the features of the PS-EH that overcome some of the issues facing the conventional EH based on Fourier transformation. Then, we present a high-precision PS-EH technique with multiple electron biprisms and a sample preparation technique using a cryo-focused-ion-beam, which are important techniques for the accurate phase measurement of semiconductors. We present several applications of PS-EH to demonstrate the potential in organic and inorganic semiconductors and then discuss the differences by comparing them with previous reports on the conventional EH. We show that in situ biasing PS-EH was able to observe not only electric potential distribution but also electric field and charge density at a GaAs p-n junction and clarify how local band structures, depletion layer widths, and space charges changed depending on the biasing conditions. Moreover, the PS-EH clearly visualized the local potential distributions of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) layers formed at AlGaN/GaN interfaces with different Al compositions. We also report the results of our PS-EH application for organic electroluminescence (OEL) multilayers and point out the significant potential changes in the layers. The proposed PS-EH enables more precise phase measurement compared to the conventional EH, and our findings introduced in this paper will contribute to the future research and development of high-performance semiconductor materials and devices.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Ching-Hsiu Chen ◽  
Assamen Ayalew Ejigu ◽  
Liang-Chiun Chao

Cu2O has been deposited on quartz substrates by reactive ion beam sputter deposition. Experimental results show that by controlling argon/oxygen flow rates, both n-type and p-type Cu2O samples can be achieved. The bandgap of n-type and p-type Cu2O were found to be 2.3 and 2.5 eV, respectively. The variable temperature photoluminescence study shows that the n-type conductivity is due to the presence of oxygen vacancy defects. Both samples show stable photocurrent response that photocurrent change of both samples after 1,000 seconds of operation is less than 5%. Carrier densities were found to be 1.90 × 1018 and 2.24 × 1016 cm−3 for n-type and p-type Cu2O, respectively. Fermi energies have been calculated, and simplified band structures are constructed. Our results show that Cu2O is a plausible candidate for both photoanodic and photocathodic electrode materials in photoelectrochemical application.


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