Thin oxide interlayers are commonly added to the back reflector of thin-film silicon solar cells to increase their current. To gain more insight in the enhancement mechanism, we tested different back reflector designs consisting of aluminium-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) and/or hydrogenated silicon oxide (SiOx:H) interlayers with different metals (silver, aluminium, and chromium) in standard p-i-n ...

Nanoparticles hosted in conductive matrices are ubiquitous in electrochemical energy storage, catalysis and energetic devices. However, agglomeration and surface oxidation remain as two major challenges towards their ultimate utility, especially for highly reactive materials. Here we report uniformly distributed nanoparticles with diameters around 10 nm can be self-assembled within a reduced gr...

The growth of Cobalt oxides by reactive thermal evaporation of metallic Cobalt in an oxygen atmosphere on a series of oxide substrates, namely SiO2, Al2O3 and MgO, has been chemically and morphologically studied by means of XPS and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The XPS results reveal that cobalt oxide grows as CoO (Co) for coverages up to some tens of equivalent monolayers on all substrates. F...

We report on the fabrication and characterization of a distributed feedback channel waveguide laser in erbium-doped aluminium oxide on a standard thermally oxidized silicon substrate. Holographically-written surface-relief Bragg gratings have been integrated with the aluminium oxide waveguides via reactive ion etching of a silicon dioxide overlay film. The laser operates at a wavelength of 1545...

A study has been made to investigate the detection sensitivity of Borate Glass for the heavily ionizing fission fragment tracks. The latent damage tracks produced by fission fragments in Borate Glass, with and without Aluminium Oxide as an additive, have been studied under a high resolution scanning electron microscope. Tracks have been found and studied only in the Borate Glass samples with no...

The extent of aluminium internalization during the recovery from aluminium stress in living roots of Arabidopsis thaliana was studied by non-invasive in vivo microscopy in real time. Aluminium exposure caused rapid depolarization of the plasma membrane. The extent of depolarization depends on the developmental state of the root cells; it was much more extensive in cells of the distal than in th...

the no removal over oxide sorbents (k2o/al2o3 , cao/al2o3 and bao/al2o3) at a loading of up to 25 wt.% was investigated using a synthetic diesel exhaust gas containing  1,000 ppm no, 1000 ppm iso-butane (i-c4h10), 8% o2 and n2 balance. the reactor was operated  at 250 oc to 450 oc for the activity study. no was effectively stored (removal efficiencies between 30-60 %) as nitrate under experimen...

The cytotoxicity of 13 and 22 nm aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles was investigated in cultured human bronchoalveolar carcinoma-derived cells (A549) and compared with 20 nm CeO2 and 40 nm TiO2 nanoparticles as positive and negative control, respectively. Exposure to both Al2O3 nanoparticles for 24 h at 10 and 25mgmL 1 doses significantly decreased cell viability compared with control. Howeve...

Most of calcium silicate hydrate or calcium aluminosilicate hydrate, CS(A)H, and related phases are relevant to Cement industry and have potential as geothermal well sealants as well as autoclaved construction materials. The CS(A)H system is highly complex and is comprised of crystalline to amorphous phases with variable composition that build up a wide family of phases, which are interesting f...