A low cost, low-temperature processable, highly efficient nickel sulfide counter electrode is demonstrated. Using the tailored, preformed nickel sulfide nanoparticles and electrostatic self-assembly, a novel counter electrode was fabricated that exceeded the efficiency of a conventional Pt-based cell.

We construct an isospectral system in terms of a real and a complex potential to show that the underlying PT symmetric complex Hamiltonian possesses a real spectra which is shared by its real partner. ∗bbagchi @ cucs.ernet.in †raj @ www.isical.ac.in Complex potentials have found a wide usage [1] in the literature especially in connection with scattering problems. Recently it has been emphasized...

A 3D Pt/TiO2 architecture assembled from 1D nanowires has been designed and successfully prepared by an environmentally-friendly one-pot solvothermal process. The formation mechanism has been investigated and the unique architecture exhibits an excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production rate as high as 13.33 mmol h(-1) g(-1), the corresponding apparent quantum efficiency reaches 34%.

The CO-assisted thermal decomposition of a new, surfactant-ligated Pt precursor, [Pt(acac)(NHR)](n) (n = 2, 3; R = C(18)H(37)), gives structurally uniform five-fold twinned Pt nanorods. The Pt nanorods, mostly covered by {100} facets, exhibit much enhanced electrocatalytic activity over {100} faceted Pt nanocubes, indicating the superior catalytic performance due to the presence of the reactive...

A PT symmetric complexification of an exactly solvable potential in one dimension leads to a paradox. The set of its normalizable solutions proves larger than one would expect on the basis of its point canonical transformation analysis. March 13, 2008, file ces.tex

Dealloyed Pt bimetallic core-shell catalysts derived from low-Pt bimetallic alloy nanoparticles (e.g, PtNi3 ) have recently shown unprecedented activity and stability on the cathodic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) under realistic fuel cell conditions and become today's catalyst of choice for commercialization of automobile fuel cells. A critical step toward this breakthrough is to control thei...

The electric-field (E-field) controlled exchange bias (EB) in a Co90Fe10/BiFeO3 (BFO)/SrRuO3/PMN-PT heterostructure has been investigated under different tensile strain states. The in-plane tensile strain of the BFO film is changed from +0.52% to +0.43% as a result of external E-field applied to the PMN-PT substrate. An obvious change of EB by the control of non-volatile strain has been observe...

The photovoltaic performance of a quantum dot (QD)-sensitized solar cell consisting of CdS/CdSe/ZnS QDs loaded onto the surface of the three-dimensional (3D) flower-like TiO2 structure grown on an array (1D) of TiO2 nanorods (FTiR) is studied. The flower-like structure on the rod-shaped titania was synthesized using a double-step hydrothermal process. The FTiR array exhibited a 3D/1D composite ...

We investigate complex PT and non-PT-symmetric forms of the generalized WoodsSaxon potential. We also look for exact solutions of the Schrödinger equation for the PT and/or non-PT-symmetric potentials of the kind mentioned above. Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used to obtain their energy eigenvalues and associated eigenfunctions. PACS:03.65.Fd, 03.65.Ge, 02.30.Gp

We discuss eigenvalue problems of the form −w+Pw = λw with complex polynomial potential P (z) = tzd+. . ., where t is a parameter, with zero boundary conditions at infinity on two rays in the complex plane. In the first part of the paper we give sufficient conditions for continuity of the spectrum at t = 0. In the second part we apply these results to the study of topology and geometry of the r...