Octahedral and cubic NiS2 nanocrystals enclosed by {111} and {100} planes were separately used as counter electrodes (CEs) incorporated into Pt-free dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The DSSC assembled by NiS2 octahedrons exhibited a conversion efficiency of 5.98%, better than that by NiS2 cubes (5.43%). DFT calculations indicate that the better catalytic effect could be ascribed to higher su...

Laser-materials interaction is the fascinating nexus where laser physics, optical physics, and materials science intersect. Applications include microdeposition via laser-induced forward transfer of thin films, clean materials processing with femtosecond beams, creating color filters with nanoparticles, generating very high density storage sites on subpicosecond time scales, structuring solar c...

In this study, thermodynamic and economic analysis of a photovoltaic electricity generation system (PVEGS) with and without self-cleaning panels is reported. In the first part, thermodynamic analyses are used to characterize the performance of the system. In the second part, the economic comparison of photovoltaic electricity generation with and without self-cleaning panels is carried out for a...

The optimum design of solar energy systems strongly depends on the accuracy of  solar radiation data. However, the availability of accurate solar radiation data is undermined by the high cost of measuring equipment or non-functional ones. This study developed a feed-forward backpropagation artificial neural network model for prediction of global solar radiation in Makurdi, Nigeria (7.7322  N lo...

Estimation of solar radiation is the most important parameter for various solar energy systems. Expensive devices are required to achieve the amount of solar radiation for a special region, therefore different models have been proposed by researchers to estimate the solar radiation that obviate using such devices. Nonlinear nature and excessive dependence on the meteorological parameters of the...

We describe an optical amplifier designed to amplify a spatially sampled component of an optical wavefront to kilowatt average power. The goal is means for implementing a strategy of spatially segmenting a large aperture wavefront, amplifying the individual segments, maintaining the phase coherence of the segments by active means, and imaging the resultant amplified coherent field. Applications...

The solar photovoltaic (PV) energy is one of the most promising sources of energy, which has attracted many interests. Itis potentially the largest source of energy in the world and is capable to mitigategreenhouse gas (GHG) emissions significantly in comparison with fossil fuels.Location optimization of solar plants can play a vital role to rise the efficiency and performance of the solar PV s...

Methods Lethal temperatures for M. californianus were determined using temperature-controlled chambers in which both the magnitude and duration of exposure were manipulated. Field surveys of the shore level and solar exposure of upper zonation limits of mussel beds were conducted at 15 sites. Measurements from the lethal temperature studies and field surveys were used with a biophysical model o...