Recent applications in flexible electronics require that thin metal films grown on elastomer substrates be deformable. However, how such laminates deform is poorly understood. While a freestanding metal film subject to tension will rupture at a small strain by undergoing a necking instability, we anticipate that a substrate will retard this instability to an extent that depends on the relative ...

The use of monolithic carbons with structural hierarchy and varying amounts of nitrogen and oxygen functionalities as sulfur host materials in high-loading lithium-sulfur cells is reported. The primary focus is on the strength of the polysulfide/carbon interaction with the goal of assessing the effect of (surface) dopant concentration on cathode performance. The adsorption capacity - which is a...

Pull-in instability often occurs when a film of a dielectric elastomer is subjected to an electric field. In this work, we concoct a set of simple, experimentally implementable, conditions that render the dielectric elastomer film impervious to pull-in instability for all practical loading conditions. We show that a uniaxially pre-stretched film has a significantly large actuation stretch in th...

Recently cadmium selenide (CdSe) photoelectrodes attract­ ed interest concerning solar energy conversion because of their good stability and high efficiency. Investigations were per­ formed with CdSe single crystals [1, 2], sintered pellets [3], pastes [4, 5] as well as thin films, obtained by different meth­ ods, e.g. electrochemical deposition [6-8], spray pyrolysis [9], vacuum deposition [10...

We report a simple and efficient approach for fabrication of novel graphene-polysulfide (GPS) anode materials, which consists of conducting graphene network and homogeneously distributed polysulfide in between and chemically bonded with graphene sheets. Such unique architecture not only possesses fast electron transport channels, shortens the Li-ion diffusion length but also provides very effic...

Nickel nitride electrodes were prepared by reactive sputtering of nickel under a N2 atmosphere at room temperature for application in mesoscopic dye- or quantum dot- sensitized solar cells. This facile and reliable method led to the formation of a Ni2N film with a cauliflower-like nanostructure and tetrahedral crystal lattice. The prepared nickel nitride electrodes exhibited an excellent chemic...

*Correspondence: Sheng S. Zhang, Electrochemistry Branch, RDRL-SED-C, Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD 20783-1197, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Liquid electrolyte lithium/sulfur (Li/S) batteries cannot come into practical applications because of many problems such as low energy efficiency, short cycle life, and...

Polymer solid state electrolytes are actively sought for their potential application in energy storage devices, particularly lithium metal rechargeable batteries. Herein, we report a polymer with high concentration salts as a quasi-solid state electrolyte used for lithium-sulfur cells, which shows an ionic conductivity of 1.6 mS cm(-1) at room temperature. The cycling performance of Li-S batter...