A crosslinked polymer as dopant-free hole-transport material for efficient n-i-p type perovskite solar cells

A new crosslinked polymer,called P65,with appropriate photo-electrochemical,opto-electronic,and thermal properties,has been designed and synthesized as an efficient,dopant-free,hole-transport material(HTM)for n-i-p type planar perovskite solar cells(PSCs).P65 is obtained from a low-cost and easily synthesized spiro[fluorene-9,90-xanthene]-30,60-diol(SFX-OH)-based monomer X65 through a freeradical polymerization reaction.The combination of a three-dimensional(3 D)SFX core unit,holetransport methoxydiphenylamine group,and crosslinked polyvinyl network provides P65 with good solubility and excellent film-forming properties.By employing P65 as a dopant-free hole-transport layer in conventional n-i-p type PSCs,a power conversion efficiency(PCE)of up to 17.7%is achieved.To the best of our knowledge,this is the first time a 3 D,crosslinked,polymeric dopant-free HTM has been reported for use in conventional n-i-p type PSCs.This study provides a new strategy for the future development of a 3 D crosslinked polymeric dopant-free HTM with a simple synthetic route and low-cost for commercial,large-scale applications in future PSCs.     

Design of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors Using Artificial Intelligence and Molecular Dynamic Simulations

Drug design is a time-consuming and cumbersome process due to the vast search space of drug-like molecules and the difficulty of investigating atomic and electronic interactions. The present paper proposes a computational drug design workflow that combines artificial intelligence (AI) methods, i.e., an evolutionary algorithm and artificial neural network model, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to design and evaluate potential drug candidates. For the purpose of illustration, the proposed workflow was applied to design drug candidates against the main protease of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. From the ∼140,000 molecules designed using AI methods, MD analysis identified two molecules as potential drug candidates.     

Electro-optic switch based on near-field-coupled quantum dots

The propagation of exciton polaritons in near-field-coupled quantum-dot (QD) chains is modeled by a density-matrix formalism. It is shown that at least for low-temperature operation it is possible using electronically controlled switching by the quantum-confined Stark effect in such QD chains to rival and outperform room-temperature CMOS electronics in footprint and switch energy, though not in speed.