Maximizing triboelectric nanogenerators by physics-informed AI inverse design

The growing popularity of the Internet of Things has led to increases in the need for renewable energy and sensor systems. Therefore, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have garnered significant attention as a novel form of energy production due to their lightweight nature, cost-effectiveness, high output, and versatility in terms of materials, low cost, and device configurations. TENGs have been studied for several uses, including self-powered sensing, biomedical, biomotion, healthcare monitoring, and robotic applications. The performance of TENG is drastically pretentious by the material because charge density (σ) is an inherent characteristic of the material. Metal-organic framework (MOF) materials possess robust charge-trapping capabilities, multifunctional structures, adjustable properties, and exceptional stability. These materials can be utilized or integrated as self-powered sensors of different kinds to …

Advanced Materials Technologies

Although natural evaporation absorbs substantial thermal energy from the ambient environment, efficiently utilizing this high‐entropy energy remains challenging. Here, the first water evaporation‐induced triboelectric nanogenerator is proposed. It only uses tap water to harvest low‐grade heat energy from the surroundings to convert it into electricity. The natural evaporation of the liquid can generate unintermittent electricity with an open‐circuit voltage of 382 V, a peak power of 0.42 mW, and three orders of magnitude enhancement up to 59.7 mJ mL−1 after consuming the same amount of tap water compared with the droplet‐based electricity generators. After which, the excellent power output lights 2 W LED and drives wearable electronic devices. This device also inhibits carbon steel materials' corrosion in solutions through the evaporation effect of the salt water on the spot. The present study provides novel …

Nano Energy

Tactile perception systems as the medium between the ambient environment and robotics lie in the heart of modern artificial intelligence. By providing different electronic readouts under various circumstances, they can give easily captured information for post-processing. However, for applications of most reported tactile perception systems, external location assistances are still needed. Here, as inspired by the platypus’ sixth sense, we developed a new kind of tactile perception system based on triboelectric sensors with the additional function from quantum rods. This terminal can be used as a single-electrode mode triboelectric nanogenerator for both location detection and vertical force sensing with high sensitivity and fast response. Moreover, by adding CdSe/CdS quantum rods into an imprinted polydimethylsiloxane film, different lateral stretching levels can be perceived by a modified luminescence. Supported …

Energy & Environmental Science

Controlling the motion of charge carriers in semiconductor materials is a fundamental strategy for achieving many functional devices, which is typically achieved by applying an external voltage source. Herein, using the electrostatic potential generated by a triboelectric material taken as a sliding “gate”, a functional current is generated across a semiconductor channel when the gate is moving in parallel to the dielectric surface. Systematic studies verify that the motion of the electrified “gate” induces the regional and dynamical doping of the semiconductor channel, thereby driving the carrier transport without applying an external voltage. This sliding-gated generator achieves mechanoelectric energy conversion based on the coupled triboelectrification effect and electrostatic field effect and is therefore termed as a field effect nanogenerator (FENG). It can output electrical currents with a waveform that follows well with …

Advanced Materials Technologies

Wearable and implantable triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) convert mechanical energy to electricity in the daily movements of the human body. Self‐generated dynamic electric field or displacement current of TENGs can operate from micrometers to centimeters, which offers a key technology for TENG‐based therapy systems for precision medicine on both tissues and cells. TENGs have low‐current and high‐voltage properties, which reduce damage to normal tissues, and kill rapidly dividing cancer cells. In this work, the dynamic electric field from TENG directly inhibits the cellular proliferation behavior of cancer cells. The work paves a new way for the self‐generated electric field of TENG for cancer therapy.

Journal of Power Sources

High-frequency supercapacitors (HF–SCs) are promising electric energy storage devices and alternating current line filters. However, severe self-discharge of HF–SCs causes significant energy loss and limits their applications. Current self-discharge suppression methods for supercapacitors typically lead to decreased rate performance and hence cannot be applied to HF–SCs directly. In this work, barium titanate (BTO) nanoparticles are employed as an electrolyte additive for HF–SCs to reduce self-discharge. By adding BTO nanoparticles into the electrolyte, both leakage current and decay of open circuit voltage of the devices are reduced without sacrificing the specific capacitance and high-frequency response. At a charging voltage of 2 V, the leakage current is reduced by 49 % (3.91 vs. 1.98 μA), while the time for the voltage to drop from 2.0 to 1.0 V is extended by 4.5 times (2300 vs. 10240 sec). When the HF …

Small

Shelter forests (or shelter‐belts), while crucial for climate regulation, lack monitoring systems, e.g., Internet of Things (IoT) devices, but their abundant wind energy can potentially power these devices using the trees as mounting points. To harness wind energy, an omnidirectional fluid‐induced vibration triboelectric nanogenerator (OFIV‐TENG) has been developed. The device is installed on shelter forest trees to harvest wind energy from all directions, employing a fluid‐induced vibration (FIV) mechanism (fluid‐responding structure) that can capture and use wind energy, ranging from low wind speeds (vortex vibration) to high wind speeds (galloping). The rolling‐bead triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) can efficiently harvest energy while minimizing wear and tear. Additionally, the usage of double electrodes results in an effective surface charge density of 21.4 µC m−2, which is the highest among all reported …

Advanced Materials

Recently, perovskite photodetectors (PDs) have been risen to prominence due to substantial research interest. Beyond merely tweaking the composition of materials, a cutting‐edge advancement lies in leveraging the innate piezoelectric polarization properties of perovskites themselves. Here, the investigation shows utilizing Ti3C2Tx, a typical MXene, as an intermediate layer for significantly boosting the piezoelectric property of MAPbI3 thin films. This improvement is primarily attributed to the enhanced polarization of the methylammonium (MA+) groups within MAPbI3, induced by the OH groups present in Ti3C2Tx. A flexible PD based on the MAPbI3/MXene heterostructure was then fabricated. The new device is sensitive to a wide range of wavelengths, displays greatly enhanced performances owing to the piezo‐phototronic coupling. Moreover, the device is endowed with a greatly reduced response time, down …

Energy & Environmental Science

Establishing maintenance-free wireless sensor networks for online monitoring of power transmission lines is crucial for realizing smart grids, exhibiting necessitating energy harvesters with compact volume, excellent robustness, and efficient, well-regulated output. This study introduces a hybrid magnetic energy harvester (HMEH), seamlessly integrating a magneto-mechanical energy conversion module, a non-contact rotational triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) module, and an electro-magnetic generator (EMG) module for magnetic energy harvesting and self-powered sensing in power transmission lines. The HMEH converts magnetic energy into synchronized mechanical rotation using the magnetic phase difference principle and smoothly transforms it into a regulated electrical energy output. With a compact size of 5 cm × 5 cm × 3 cm and a light weight of 56 g, the HMEH showcases unprecedented volume and …

Small

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a promising solution to harvest the low‐frequency, low‐actuation‐force, and high‐entropy droplet energy. Conventional attempts mainly focus on maximizing electrostatic energy harvest on the liquid‐solid surface, but enormous kinetic energy of droplet hitting the substrate is directly dissipated, limiting the output performance. Here, a dual‐mode TENG (DM‐TENG) is proposed to efficiently harvest both electrostatic energy at liquid‐solid surface from a droplet TENG (D‐TENG) and elastic potential energy of the vibrated cantilever from a contact‐separation TENG (CS‐TENG). Triggered by small droplets, the flexible cantilever beam, rather than conventional stiff ones, can easily vibrate multiple times with large amplitude, enabling frequency multiplication of CS‐TENG and producing amplified output charges. Combining with the top electrode design to sufficiently utilize charges at …

Advanced Science

In article number 2303674, Tobias Kraus, Pengcheng Jiao, and co-workers report the ultra-stretchable kirigami piezo-metamaterial (KPM) sensors for coupled large deformations caused by in-and out-of-plane strains. The KPM sensors can monitor the deformations with the stretching ratio up to 200% strains, which are integrated in wireless sensing systems for the detections of vehicle tire bulge and human posture. The KPM sensors open an exciting venue for the control and manipulation of mechanically functional metamaterials for active sensing under complex deformation scenarios in many applications.

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

The global annual vegetable and fruit waste accounts for more than one-fifth of food waste, mainly due to deterioration. In addition, agricultural product spoilage can produce foodborne illnesses and threaten public health. Eco-friendly preservation technologies for extending the shelf life of agricultural products are of great significance to socio-economic development. Here, we report a dual-functional TENG (DF-TENG) that can simultaneously prolong the storage period of vegetables and realize wireless storage condition monitoring by harvesting the rotational energy. Under the illumination of the self-powered high-voltage electric field, the deterioration of vegetables can be effectively slowed down. It can not only decrease the respiration rate and weight loss of pakchoi but also increase the chlorophyll levels (∼33.1%) and superoxide dismutase activity (∼11.1%) after preservation for 4 days. Meanwhile, by …

Nature Communications

Harvesting biomechanical energy from cardiac motion is an attractive power source for implantable bioelectronic devices. Here, we report a battery-free, transcatheter, self-powered intracardiac pacemaker based on the coupled effect of triboelectrification and electrostatic induction for the treatment of arrhythmia in large animal models. We show that the capsule-shaped device (1.75 g, 1.52 cc) can be integrated with a delivery catheter for implanting in the right ventricle of a swine through the intravenous route, which effectively converts cardiac motion energy to electricity and maintains endocardial pacing function during the three-week follow-up period. We measure in vivo open circuit voltage and short circuit current of the self-powered intracardiac pacemaker of about 6.0 V and 0.2 μA, respectively. This approach exhibits up-to-date progress in self-powered medical devices and it may overcome the inherent …

Soft Robotics

Biomimetic soft robots are typically made of soft materials with bioinspired configurations. However, their locomotion is activated and manipulated by externally controlled soft actuators. In this study, piezo-wormbots were developed by automatically triggering the mechanical metamaterial-inspired soft actuator to mimic the continuous crawling of inchworms without manipulation, where crawling was controlled by the deformation of the piezo-wormbots themselves. We designed the flexible piezo-wormbots with an actuator to generate bending deformation under continuous inflation, piezoelectric rubber to automatically create internal excitation voltage to trigger deflation, as well as true legs and prolegs to convert the bending–recovering sequence into continuous crawling. We tailored the actuator to enhance the crawling performance and found that the response was critically affected by the leg pattern, inflation-to …

Advanced Materials

Although dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are promising artificial muscles for use as visual prostheses in patients with oculomotor nerve palsy (ONP), high driving voltage coupled with vulnerable compliant electrodes limits their safe long‐term service. Herein, a self‐healable polydimethylsiloxane compliant electrode based on reversible imine bonds and hydrogen bonds is prepared and coated on an acrylic ester film to develop a self‐healable DEA (SDEA), followed by actuation with a high‐output triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to construct a self‐powered DEA (TENG‐SDEA). Under 135.9 kV mm−1, the SDEA exhibits an elevated actuated strain of 50.6%, comparable to the actuation under DC power. Moreover, the mechanically damaged TENG‐SDEA displays a self‐healing efficiency of over 90% for 10 cycles. The TENG ensures the safe using of TENG‐SDEAs and an extraocular‐muscle‐like actuator …

Chemical Engineering Journal

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) and lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) play an important role in the field of clean energy as energy conversion and storage devices respectively. It is vital to fabricate efficient transport between TENGs and LIBs for promoting the development in combined energy systems. This work constructs an efficient energy transport system between the contact-energy contact-separation TENG (CCS-TENG) and the LIB by introducing power management based on a short-circuit contact in-situ. Such synergy system satisfies the needs of improving the efficient connection between TENGs and LIBs, durability and miniaturization of energy unit. The short-circuit contact in-situ guarantees the maximum energy output of CSS-TENG in every contact-separation cycle and the energy density is as high as 131.1 mJ m−2 cycle−1, although the electrode of CCS-TENG is only 10 cm2. Moreover, the TENG cycle …

Advanced Functional Materials

The utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is on the rise across various industries. In such a scenario, the issue of flight safety for these UAVs becomes increasingly paramount. Currently, UAVs exhibit shortcomings in flight attitude perception compared to more mature manned aircraft, especially concerning the position sensing of flight actuation, which poses significant safety risks. Mature position monitoring solutions for flight actuation used in manned aircraft cannot be directly integrated into systems of UAV due to compatibility issues. This necessitates the development of new position sensing technologies to address this challenge. Triboelectric nanogenerators, with their advantages of miniaturization, self‐powering capabilities, and the ability to generate voltage‐level electrical signals, are chosen to form a part of the position detection system for sensors in UAVs. In this study, a self‐powered …

As one of the few self-powered instruments and devices, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been developed for more than 10 years since its invention in 2012. With wide material selections and diverse design structures, and without having to use an external power supply, TENG has been applied in many key technologies. By the end of 2022, more than 16,000 researchers from 83 countries and regions around the world have authored scientific papers in TENG. In this review, we start from the theoretical principles and working mechanisms of TENG, and discuss its 5 major fields of application, namely, as self-powered sensors, high-voltage energy devices, blue energy devices, micro/nano-energy devices, and solid–liquid interface probes. Next, we review the breakthrough progress made using TENG as commercial products in the following fields: medical health, intelligent security, and marine energy …

Nano Energy

While triboelectric nanogenerated knitted fabrics are regarded as a state-of-the-art and reliable energy source for wearable electronics, there are two bottlenecks in their widespread applications: few mass-manufacturing strategies and low power output. Here, by mature weft-knitted technologies, a 3D single-faced jacquard pile fabric TENG (SJPF-TENG) with the merits of high surface pile density, excellent comfort and breathability, good thermal insulation property, and superior durability, is mass-produced. Based on the high-density pile structure (about 16128 piles per cm2), the surface area of pile fabrics is 42.2 times that of the plain structure, which endows the SJPF-TENG with higher electrical outputs and good detection precision. With a peak power density of 1.4 W m−2 (dozens of times that of conventional textile-based TENGs), the SJPF-TENG is capable of lighting up 1392 light-emitting diodes, powering …

Advanced Materials

In organic light‐emitting diode (OLED), achieving high efficiency requires effective triplet exciton confinement by carrier‐transporting materials, which typically have higher triplet energy (ET) than the emitter, leading to poor stability. Here, an electron‐transporting material (ETM), whose ET is 0.32 eV lower than that of the emitter is reported. In devices, it surprisingly exhibits strong confinement effect and generates excellent efficiency. Additionally, the device operational lifetime is 4.9 times longer than the device with a standard ETM, 1,3,5‐tri(1‐phenyl‐1H‐benzo[d]imidazol‐2‐yl) phenyl (whose ET 0.36 eV is higher than the emitter). This anomalous finding is ascribed to the exceptionally long triplet state lifetime (≈0.2 s) of the ETM. It is named as long‐lifetime triplet exciton reservoir effect. The systematic analysis reveals that the long triplet lifetime of ETM can compensate the requirement for high ET with the help of …

Advanced Materials

The buried interface of the perovskite layer has a profound influence on its film morphology, defect formation, and aging resistance from the outset, therefore, significantly affects the film quality and device performance of derived perovskite solar cells. Especially for FAPbI3, although it has excellent optoelectronic properties, the spontaneous transition from the black perovskite phase to nonperovskite phase tends to start from the buried interface at the early stage of film formation then further propagate to degrade the whole perovskite. In this work, by introducing ─NH3+ rich proline hydrochloride (PF) with a conjugated rigid structure as a versatile medium for buried interface, it not only provides a solid α‐phase FAPbI3 template, but also prevents the phase transition induced degradation. PF also acts as an effective interfacial stress reliever to enhance both efficiency and stability of flexible solar cells. Consequently, a …

Advanced Materials

Carbon‐based superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimetic nanozymes have recently been employed as promising antioxidant nanotherapeutics due to their distinct properties. The structural features responsible for the efficacy of these nanomaterials as antioxidants are, however, poorly understood. Here, the process–structure–property–performance properties of coconut‐derived oxidized activated charcoal (cOAC) nano‐SOD mimetics are studied by analyzing how modifications to the nanomaterial's synthesis impact the size, as well as the elemental and electrochemical properties of the particles. These properties are then correlated to the in vitro antioxidant bioactivity of poly(ethylene glycol)‐functionalized cOACs (PEG‐cOAC). Chemical oxidative treatment methods that afford smaller, more homogeneous cOAC nanoparticles with higher levels of quinone functionalization show enhanced protection against oxidative …

Advanced Materials

In article number 2308993, Xumin Ding, Shah Nawaz Burokur, Guangwei Hu, and co-workers report an optical quantum logic operator with high fidelity. The device is driven by an all-optical diffractive neural network, while combining polarization-and spatial-multiplexing strategies to achieve four classical quantum gates. This work substantially improves the integration and flexibility of quantum computing systems.

Advanced Materials

Aqueous zinc‐ion batteries are attractive post‐lithium battery technologies for grid‐scale energy storage because of their inherent safety, low cost and high theoretical capacity. However, their practical implementation in wide‐temperature surroundings persistently confronts irregular zinc electrodeposits and parasitic side reactions on metal anode, which leads to poor rechargeability, low Coulombic efficiency and short lifespan. Here, this work reports lamellar nanoporous Cu/Al2Cu heterostructure electrode as a promising anode host material to regulate high‐efficiency and dendrite‐free zinc electrodeposition and stripping for wide‐temperatures aqueous zinc‐ion batteries. In this unique electrode, the interconnective Cu/Al2Cu heterostructure ligaments not only facilitate fast electron transfer but work as highly zincophilic sites for zinc nucleation and deposition by virtue of local galvanic couples while the …

Advanced Materials

Despite the vital importance of monitoring the progression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its progressive form, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), an efficient imaging modality that is readily available at hospitals is currently lacking. Here, a new magnetic‐resonance‐imaging (MRI)‐based imaging modality is presented that allows for efficient and longitudinal monitoring of NAFLD and NASH progression. The imaging modality uses manganese‐ion (Mn2+)‐chelated bilirubin nanoparticles (Mn@BRNPs) as a reactive‐oxygen‐species (ROS)‐responsive MRI imaging probe. Longitudinal T1‐weighted MR imaging of NASH model mice is performed after injecting Mn@BRNPs intravenously. The MR signal enhancement in the liver relative to muscle gradually increases up to 8 weeks of NASH progression, but decreases significantly as NASH progresses to the cirrhosis‐like stage at weeks 10 and 12. A …

Advanced Materials

Developing commercially viable electrocatalyst lies at the research hotspot of rechargeable Zn‐air batteries, but it is still challenging to meet the requirements of energy efficiency and durability in realistic applications. Strategic material design is critical to addressing its drawbacks in terms of sluggish kinetics of oxygen reactions and limited battery lifespan. Herein, a “raisin‐bread” architecture is designed for a hybrid catalyst constituting cobalt nitride as the core nanoparticle with thin oxidized coverings, which is further deposited within porous carbon aerogel. Based on synchrotron‐based characterizations, this hybrid provides oxygen vacancies and Co‐Nx‐C sites as the active sites, resulting from a strong coupling between CoOxNy nanoparticles and 3D conductive carbon scaffolds. Compared to the oxide reference, it performs enhanced stability in harsh electrocatalytic environments, highlighting the benefits of the …

Advanced Materials

In article number 2305415, Xiangyang Zhang, Walid A. Daoud, and co-workers report a surface-to-pore catalytic interface structured electrode that is designed and implemented in vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), therein lies the concept of decoupling the activation and transport processes. This study addresses a critical challenge in conventional catalyst designs, aiming to substantially upgrade VRFB performance while sustaining remarkable durability for encouraging widespread adoption.

Advanced Materials

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a rapidly growing class of materials that offer great promise in various applications. However, the synthesis remains challenging: for example, a range of crystal structures can often be accessed from the same building blocks, which complicates the phase selectivity. Likewise, the high sensitivity to slight changes in synthesis conditions may cause reproducibility issues. This is crucial, as it hampers the research and commercialization of affected MOFs. Here, it presents the first‐ever interlaboratory study of the synthetic reproducibility of two Zr–porphyrin MOFs, PCN‐222 and PCN‐224, to investigate the scope of this problem. For PCN‐222, only one sample out of ten was phase pure and of the correct symmetry, while for PCN‐224, three are phase pure, although none of these show the spatial linker order characteristic of PCN‐224. Instead, these samples resemble dPCN‐224 …

Advanced Materials

Multi‐dimensional multiplexed metasurface holography extends holographic information capacity, promises revolutionary advancements for vivid imaging, information storage and encryption. However, achieving multifunctional metasurface holography by forward design method is still difficult since it relies heavily on Jones matrix engineering, which places high demands on physical knowledge and processing technology. To break these limitations and simplify the design process, here we propose an end‐to‐end inverse design framework. By directly linking the metasurface to the reconstructed images and employing a loss function to guide the update of metasurface, the calculation of hologram can be omitted, thus greatly simplifying the design process. In addition, the requirements on the completeness of meta‐library can also be significantly reduced, allowing multi‐channel hologram to be achieved using meta …

Advanced Materials

Near‐infrared (NIR) spectral information is important for detecting and analyzing material compositions. However, snapshot NIR spectral imaging systems still pose significant challenges owing to the lack of high‐performance NIR filters and bulky setups, preventing effective encoding and integration with mobile devices. In this study, we introduce a snapshot spectral imaging system that employs a compact NIR metasurface featuring 25 distinct C4 symmetry structures. Benefitting from the sufficient spectral variety and low correlation coefficient among these structures, center‐wavelength accuracy of 0.05 nm and full width at half maximum (FWHM) accuracy of 0.13 nm are realized. The system maintains good performance within an incident angle of 1°. A novel meta‐attention network prior iterative denoising reconstruction (MAN‐IDR) algorithm guided by both meta‐attention and spatial‐spectral attention is …

Advanced Materials

Interpenetrated metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) with non‐aromatic ligands provide a unique platform for adsorption, catalysis, and sensing applications. However, non‐emission and the lack of optical property tailoring make it challenging to fabricate smart responsive devices with non‐aromatic interpenetrated MOFs based on ligand‐centered emission. In this paper, we introduce the pressure‐induced aggregation effect in non‐aromatic interpenetrated Zn4O(ADC)4(Et3N)6 (IRMOF‐0) nanocrystals (NCs), where carbonyl groups aggregation results in O‐O distances smaller than the sum of the van der Waals radii (3.04 Å), triggering the photoluminescence turn‐on behavior. It is noteworthy that the IRMOF‐0 NCs display an ultra‐broad emission tunability of 130 nm from deep blue (440 nm) to yellow (570 nm) upon release to ambient conditions at different pressures. The eventual retention of through‐space n‐π …

Advanced Materials

Chiral B/N embedded multi‐resonance (MR) emitters open a new paradigm of circularly polarized (CP) organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) owing to their unique narrowband spectra. However, pure‐red CP‐MR emitters and devices remain exclusive in literature. Herein, by introducing a B‐N covalent bond to lower the electron‐withdrawing ability of the para‐positioned B‐π‐B motif, the first pair of pure‐red double hetero‐[n]helicenes (n = 6 and 7) CP‐MR emitter peaking 617 nm with a small full‐width at half‐maximum of 38 nm and a high photoluminescence quantum yield of ≈100% in toluene is developed. The intense mirror‐image CP light produced by the enantiomers is characterized by high photoluminescence dissymmetry factors (gPL) of +1.40/−1.41 × 10−3 from their stable helicenes configuration. The corresponding devices using these enantiomers afford impressive CP electroluminescence …

Advanced Materials

Colour‐tunable organic light‐emitting diodes (CT‐OLEDs) have a large colour‐tuning range, high efficiency and operational stability at practical luminance, making them ideal for human‐machine interactive terminals of wearable biomedical devices. However, the device operational lifetime of CT‐OLEDs is currently far from reaching practical requirements. To address this problem, we designed a tetradentate Pt(II) complex named tetra‐Pt‐dbf, which can emit efficiently in both monomer and aggregation states. This emitter has a high Td of 508°C and a large intermolecular bonding energy of ‐52.0 kcal/mol, which improve its thermal/chemical stability. Our unique single‐emitter CT‐OLED essentially avoids the “colour‐ageing issue” and achieves a large colour‐tuning span (red to yellowish green) and a high EQE of ∼30% at 1000 cd m−2 as well as an EQE of above 25% at 10000 cd m−2. We estimated a superior …

Advanced Materials

The development of organic‐based optoelectronic technologies for the indoor Internet of Things market, which relies on ambient energy sources, has increased, with organic photovoltaics (OPVs) and photodetectors (OPDs) considered promising candidates for sustainable indoor electronic devices. However, the manufacturing processes of standalone OPVs and OPDs can be complex and costly, resulting in high production costs and limited scalability, thus limiting their use in a wide range of indoor applications. This study uses a multi‐component photoactive structure to develop a self‐powering dual‐functional sensory device with effective energy harvesting and sensing capabilities. The optimized device demonstrates improved free‐charge generation yield by quantifying charge carrier dynamics, with a high output power density of over 81 and 76 µW cm−2 for rigid and flexible OPVs under indoor conditions (LED …

Advanced Materials

Quasi‐solid‐state potassium‐ion batteries (SSPIBs) are of great potential for commercial use due to the abundant reserves and cost‐effectiveness of resources, as well as high safety. Gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) with high ionic conductivity and fast interfacial charge transport are necessary for SSPIBs. Here, the weak electrostatic force between K+ and electronegative functional groups in the ethoxylated trimethylolpropane triacrylate (ETPTA) polymer chains, which can promote fast migration of free K+, is revealed. To further enhance the interfacial reaction kinetics, a multilayered GPE by in situ growth of poly(vinylidenefluoride‐co‐hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF‐HFP) on ETPTA (PVDF‐HFP|ETPTA|PVDF‐HFP) is constructed to improve the interface contact and provide sufficient K+ concentration in PVDF‐HFP. A high ion transference number (0.92) and a superior ionic conductivity (5.15 × 10−3 S cm−1) are …

Advanced Materials

The conduction efficiency of ions in excitable tissues and of charged species in organic conjugated materials both benefit from having ordered domains and anisotropic pathways. In this study, a photocurrent‐generating cardiac biointerface is presented, particularly for investigating the sensitivity of cardiomyocytes to geometrically comply to biomacromolecular cues differentially assembled on a conductive nanogrooved substrate. Through a polymeric surface‐templated approach, photoconductive substrates with symmetric peptide‐quaterthiophene (4T)‐peptide units assembled as 1D nanostructures on nanoimprinted polyalkylthiophene (P3HT) surface are developed. The 4T‐based peptides studied here can form 1D nanostructures on prepatterned polyalkylthiophene substrates, as directed by hydrogen bonding, aromatic interactions between 4T and P3HT, and physical confinement on the nanogrooves. It is …

Advanced Materials

The pursuit of high‐performance and long‐lasting protonic ceramic electrochemical cells (PCECs) has been impeded by the lack of efficient and enduring proton conductors. Conventional research approaches, predominantly based on a trial‐and‐error methodology, have proven to be demanding of resources and time‐consuming. Here we report our findings in harnessing high‐throughput computational methods to expedite the discovery of optimal electrolytes for PCECs. We methodically computed the oxygen vacancy formation energy (EV), hydration energy (EH), and the adsorption energies of H2O and CO2 for a set of 932 oxide candidates. Notably, our findings highlight BaSnxCe0.8‐xYb0.2O3‐δ (BSCYb) as a prospective game‐changing contender, displaying superior proton conductivity and chemical resilience when compared to the well‐regarded BaZrxCe0.8‐xY0.1Yb0.1O3‐δ (BZCYYb) series …

Advanced Materials

As large molecular tertiary structures, some proteins can act as small robots that find, bind, and chaperone target protein clients, showing the potential to serve as smart building blocks in self‐assembly fields. Instead of using such intrinsic functions, most self‐assembly methodologies for proteins aim for de novo‐designed structures with accurate geometric assemblies, which could limit procedural flexibility. Here, we present a strategy enabling polymorphic clustering of quaternary proteins, exhibiting simplicity and flexibility of self‐assembling paths for proteins in forming monodisperse quaternary cage particles. We propose that the enzyme protomer DegQ, previously solved at low resolution, may potentially be usable as a threefold symmetric building block, which can form polyhedral cages incorporated by the chaperone action of DegQ in the presence of protein clients. To obtain highly monodisperse cage …

Advanced Materials

Polar dielectrics are key materials of interest for infrared (IR) nanophotonic applications due to their ability to host phonon‐polaritons that allow for low‐loss, subdiffractional control of light. The properties of phonon‐polaritons are limited by the characteristics of optical phonons, which are nominally fixed for most “bulk” materials. Superlattices composed of alternating atomically thin materials offer control over crystal anisotropy through changes in composition, optical phonon confinement, and the emergence of new modes. In particular, the modified optical phonons in superlattices offer the potential for so‐called crystalline hybrids whose IR properties cannot be described as a simple mixture of the bulk constituents. To date, however, studies have primarily focused on identifying the presence of new or modified optical phonon modes rather than assessing their impact on the IR response. This study focuses on …