Altered protein synthesis in rat kidney cells exposed to semiconductor materials

It is thought that the extensive industrial use of arsenic, gallium and indium, which have applications as the materials for III–V semiconductors, will increase human exposure to these compounds in the near future. We have undertaken the development of new biological indicators for assessing exposure to these elements. Element-specific alterations in protein synthesis patterns were expected to occur following exposure to arsenic compounds. We examined alterations in protein synthesis in primary cultures of rat kidney proximal tubule epithelial cells by sodium arsenite, gallium chloride and indium chloride, utilizing two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. After incubation with the chemicals for 20 h, newly synthesized proteins were labeled with [³⁵S]methionine. A protein with a molecular weight (M_r) of 30 000 was markedly induced on exposure to 10 μM arsenite or 300 μM gallium chloride, and synthesis of proteins with M_r values of 85 000, 71 000, 65 000, 51 000, 38 000 and 28 000 were also increased by exposure to arsenite and gallium chloride. No significant changes were observed upon exposure to indium. Some of these increased proteins could be heat-shock proteins.     

Transference Numbers and Activity Coefficients of Some Alkali Metal Halide Solutions in Ethylene Glycol,Using Concentration Cells

Abstract

The reliability of the concentration cell method for determining cation transference numbers has been tested using solutions of LiCl, NaCl, KCl, NaBr and LiBr in ethylene glycol at 25°C. Concentrations in the range 0.0005 to 0.5 mol dm^?3 were used. Our transference numbers have been compared with those deduced from previous data on moving boundary and conductivity experiments. Good agreement between both sets of values has been found in most of the solutions, but significant discrepancies appear in the cases of NaBr and LiCl. The mean activity coefficients have been calculated from the EMF data and the transference numbers.     

Optimization of the CIGS based thin film solar cells: Numerical simulation and analysis

Chalcopyrite Cu(In,Ga)Se (CIGS) is a very promising material for thin film photovoltaics and offers a number of interesting advantages compared to the bulk silicon devices. CIGS absorbers today have a typical thickness of about 1–2 μm. However, on the way toward mass production, it will be necessary to reduce the thickness even further. This paper indicates a numerical study to optimization of CIGS based thin film solar cells. An optimum value of the thickness of this structure has been calculated and it is shown that by optimizing the thickness of the cell efficiency has been increases and cost of production can be reduces. Numerical optimizations have been done by adjusting parameters such as the combination of band gap and mismatch as well as the specific structure of the cell. It is shown that by optimization of the considered structure, open circuit voltage increases and an improvement of conversion efficiency has been observed in comparison to the conventional CIGS system. Capacitance–voltage characteristics and depletion region width versus applied voltage for optimized cell and typical cell has been calculated which simulation results predict that by reducing cell layers in the optimized cell structure, there is no drastically changes in depletion layer profile versus applied voltage. From the simulation results it was found that by optimization of the considered structure, optimized value of CIGS and transparent conductive oxide thickness are 0.3 μm and 20 nm and also an improvement of conversion efficiency has been observed in comparison to the conventional CIGS which cell efficiency increases from 17.65 % to 20.34%, respectively.     

Crystallization and surface segregation in CuIn0.7Ga0.3Se2 thin films on Cu foils grown by pulsed laser deposition

This work reports unexpected crystallization and segregation behavior of CuIn_0.7Ga_0.3Se₂ (CIGS) thin films deposited on flexible Cu foils by pulsed laser deposition. A composite-type microstructure containing nanometer-scaled CIGS crystallites embedded in amorphous Cu-rich matrix is observed even at the high temperature of 500 °C. The findings are attributed to very fast condensation of the ablated species and random nucleation induced from the amorphous matrix. Cu-rich particulates tend to precipitate on the film surface, and their average size, shape, number density and composition exhibit a strong dependence on the substrate temperature up to 500 °C. The similar crystallization properties of the films on Cu foils and glass substrates are noticeable to the use of Cu foils for flexible solar cells.     

Surface profile optimization of antireflection gratings for solar cells

The solar cell efficiency can be improved by antireflection gratings. In this paper, the antireflection gratings with different symmetrical surface profiles are investigated by numerical simulations based on the Rigorous Coupled-Wave Analysis. Simulated results show that the antireflection performance of sharp profile such as quadratic profile has a significant improvement compared with triangular and parabolic profiles, while the top cutoff in the grating tip will severely influence the antireflection performance. Meanwhile, proper length of flat region between grating features in the nonclose-packed triangular antireflection grating can have better antireflection performance than the close-packed counterpart for the same grating period and height. Such antireflection gratings with different surface profiles may offer attractive solutions to current commercial silicon solar cell, as well as organic and other semiconductor material based solar cells.     

Production and Storage of Energy with One-Dimensional Semiconductor Nanostructures

This article outlines state-of-the-art energy technologies, including production and storage, available to us through semiconductor nanomaterials. The nanostructure growth processes have been illustrated in detail, with emphasis on the latest developments in hierarchical and radial-composition modulated nanostructures. On the energy efficiency and generation part, light-emitting diodes, photovoltaics, photoelectrochemistry, thermoelectric, and fuel cells have been discussed. In the energy storage part, supercapacitors and lithium batteries have been discussed.     

Unsupervised cell identification on multidimensional X‐ray fluorescence datasets

A novel approach to locate, identify and refine positions and whole areas of cell structures based on elemental contents measured by X‐ray fluorescence microscopy is introduced. It is shown that, by initializing with only a handful of prototypical cell regions, this approach can obtain consistent identification of whole cells, even when cells are overlapping, without training by explicit annotation. It is robust both to different measurements on the same sample and to different initializations. This effort provides a versatile framework to identify targeted cellular structures from datasets too complex for manual analysis, like most X‐ray fluorescence microscopy data. Possible future extensions are also discussed.     

Spectral downshifting from blue to near infer red region in Ce3+-Nd3+ co-doped YAG phosphor

The YAG phosphors co-doped with Ce³⁺-Nd³⁺ ions by varying concentration of Nd³⁺ ion from 1 mol% to 15 mol% were successfully synthesized by conventional solid state reaction method. The phosphors were characterized by powder X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and surface morphology was studied by scanning electronic microscope (SEM). The photoluminescence (PL) properties were studied in near infra red (NIR) and ultra violet visible (UV–VIS) region. The synthesized phosphors can convert a blue region photon (453 nm) into photons of NIR region (1063 nm). The energy transfer (ET) process was studied by time decay curve and PL spectra. The theoretical value of energy transfer efficiency (ETE) was calculated from time decay luminescence measurement and the maximum efficiency approached up to 82.23%. Hence this phosphor could be prime candidate as a downshifting (DS) luminescent convertor (phosphor) in front of crystalline silicon solar cell (c-Si) panels to reduce thermalization loss in the solar cells.     

Degradation of flexible thin-film solar cells due to a mechanical strain

Many variants of thin film technology are nowadays part of the photovoltaic market. The most popular are amorphous silicon, CIS (Copper Indium Selenide)/CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide)/CIGSS (Copper Indium Gallium Sulphur Selenide), and CdS/CdTe (Cadmium Sulphide/Cadmium-Telluride) cells. All mentioned types allow potentially for a flexible cell structure. Most emitter contacts are currently based on TCOs (Transparent Conductive Oxides), however, wider approach with alternative carbon nanoforms, silver nanolayers and polymer materials, called TCLs (Transparent Conductive Layers) are also in use. Authors decided to investigate influence of mechanical stresses on physical and electrical behaviour of these layers. Consequently, the aim of work is to determine the level and possible mechanisms of flexible a-Si cell parameters degradation due to a deterioration of transparent contact properties.