Cross-species transmission of a novel bisegmented orfanplasmovirus in the phytopathogenic fungus Exserohilum rostratum.

Mycoviruses have been found in various fungal species across different taxonomic groups, while no viruses have been reported yet in the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. In this study, a novel orfanplasmovirus, namely Exserohilum rostratum orfanplasmovirus 1 (ErOrfV1), was identified in the Exserohilum rostratum strain JZ1 from maize leaf. The complete genome of ErOrfV1 consists of two positive single-stranded RNA segments, encoding an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and a hypothetical protein with unknown function, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that ErOrfV1 clusters with other orfanplasmoviruses, forming a distinct phyletic clade. A new family, Orfanplasmoviridae, is proposed to encompass this newly discovered ErOrfV1 and its associated orfanplasmoviruses. ErOrfV1 exhibits effective vertical transmission through conidia, as evidenced by its 100% presence in over 200 single conidium isolates. Moreover, it can be horizontally transmitted to Exserohilum turcicum. Additionally, the infection of ErOrfV1 is cryptic in E. turcicum because there were no significant differences in mycelial growth rate and colony morphology between ErOrfV1-infected and ErOrfV1-free strains. This study represents the inaugural report of a mycovirus in E. rostratum, as well as the first documentation of the biological and transmission characteristics of orfanplasmovirus. These discoveries significantly contribute to our understanding of orfanplasmovirus.

Controlling Hot Charge Carrier Transfer in Monolithic AlSiAl Heterostructures for Plasmonic On-Chip Energy Harvesting.

The generation of hot carriers by Landau damping or chemical interface damping of plasmons is of particular interest to the fundamental aspects of extreme light-matter interactions. Hot charge carriers can be transferred to an attached acceptor for photochemical or photovoltaic energy conversion. However, these lose their excess energy and relax to thermal equilibrium within picoseconds and it is difficult to extract useful work thereof with thermodynamic efficiencies that are of interest for practical devices. Without a detailed understanding of the underlying plasmon decay processes and transfer mechanisms, proper material matching and design considerations for novel plasmonic devices are extremely challenging. Here, a multifunctional AlSiAl heterostructure device with tunable Schottky barriers is presented to control plasmon-induced hot carrier injection at an abrupt metal-semiconductor interface. Light absorption, surface plasmon generation, and separation of hot carriers arising from the non-radiative decay of surface plasmons are realized in a monolithic Schottky barrier field effect transistor. Aside from barrier modulation, a virtual p-n junction can be emulated in the semiconductor channel with the distinct merit that carrier concentration and polarity are tunable by electrostatic gating. The investigations are carried out with a view to possible use for CMOS-compatible plasmonic photovoltaics, with versatile implementations for autonomous nanosystems.

Plasmon-assisted polarization-sensitive photodetection with tunable polarity for integrated silicon photonic communication systems.

To establish high-bandwidth chip-to-chip interconnects in optoelectronic integrated circuits, requires high-performance photon emitters and signal receiving components. Regarding the photodetector, fast device concepts like Schottky junction devices, large carrier mobility materials and shrinking the channel length will enable higher operation speed. However, integrating photodetectors in highly scaled ICs technologies is challenging due to the efficiency-speed trade-off. Here, we report a scalable and CMOS-compatible approach for an ultra-scaled germanium (Ge) based photodetector with tunable polarity. The photodetector is composed of a Ge Schottky barrier field effect transistor with monolithic aluminum (Al) source/drain contacts, offering plasmon assisted and polarization-resolved photodetection. The ultra-scaled Ge photodetector with a channel length of only 200 nm shows high responsivity of aboutR = 424 A W-1and a maximum polarization sensitivity ratio of TM/TE = 11.

Monolithic Metal-Semiconductor-Metal Heterostructures Enabling Next-Generation Germanium Nanodevices.

Low-dimensional Ge is perceived as a promising building block for emerging optoelectronic devices. Here, we present a wafer-scale platform technology enabling monolithic Al-Ge-Al nanostructures fabricated by a thermally induced Al-Ge exchange reaction. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed the purity and crystallinity of the formed Al segments with an abrupt interface to the remaining Ge segment. In good agreement with the theoretical value of bulk Al-Ge Schottky junctions, a barrier height of 200 ± 20 meV was determined. Photoluminescence and µ-Raman measurements proved the optical quality of the Ge channel embedded in the monolithic Al-Ge-Al heterostructure. Together with the wafer-scale accessibility, the proposed fabrication scheme may give rise to the development of key components of a broad spectrum of emerging Ge-based devices requiring monolithic metal-semiconductor-metal heterostructures with high-quality interfaces.

High-rate transition metal-based cathode materials for battery-supercapacitor hybrid devices.

With the rapid development of portable electronic devices, electric vehicles and large-scale grid energy storage devices, there is a need to enhance the specific energy density and specific power density of related electrochemical devices to meet the fast-growing requirements of energy storage. Battery-supercapacitor hybrid devices (BSHDs), combining the high-energy-density feature of batteries and the high-power-density properties of supercapacitors, have attracted mass attention in terms of energy storage. However, the electrochemical performances of cathode materials for BSHDs are severely limited by poor electrical conductivity and ion transport kinetics. As the rich redox reactions induced by transition metal compounds are able to offer high specific capacity, they are an ideal choice of cathode materials. Therefore, this paper reviews the currently advanced progress of transition metal compound-based cathodes with high-rate performance in BSHDs. We discuss some efficient strategies of enhancing the rate performance of transition metal compounds, including developing intrinsic electrode materials with high conductivity and fast ion transport; modifying materials, such as inserting defects and doping; building composite structures and 3D nano-array structures; interfacial engineering and catalytic effects. Finally, some suggestions are proposed for the potential development of cathodes for BSHDs, which may provide a reference for significant progress in the future.

Welding Perovskite Nanowires for Stable, Sensitive, Flexible Photodetectors.

Compared with a single nanowire (NW) or NW array, the simpler preparation process of an NW network (NWN) enables it to be fabricated in large-scale, flexible, and wearable applications of photodetectors (PDs). However, the NWN behaves many microinterfaces (MIs) between NWs, seriously limiting the device performance and stability. Here, we demonstrate a welding strategy for an MAPbI3 NWN, which enhances the crystallinity of the NWN and enhances the radial transmission of photogenerated carriers, leading to a better device performance with ultrahigh stability. Our NWN PDs fabricated by using the welding strategy showed ultrahigh performance with an on/off ratio and detectivity of 2.8 × 104 and 4.16 × 1012 Jones, respectively, which are the best performance for reported metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) perovskite NWN PDs and are comparable to those of single-NW or NW array PDs. More importantly, our unpackaged NWN PDs show ultrahigh storage stability in air with a humidity of 55-65%, and the flexible NWN PDs can enable 250 bending cycles at different bending radii and 1000 bending cycles at fixed bending radii with no performance degradation being observed. These results indicate our welding strategy is very powerful for improving the performance of the NW device with applications in the wearable field.

Space-Confined Growth of Individual Wide Bandgap Single Crystal CsPbCl3 Microplatelet for Near-Ultraviolet Photodetection.

Perovskite photodetectors (PDs) with tunable detection wavelength have attracted extensive attention due to the potential application in the field of imaging, machine vision, and artificial intelligence. Most of the perovskite PDs focus on I- or Br-based materials due to their easy preparation techniques. However, their main photodetection capacity is situated in the visible region because of their narrower bandgap. Cl-based wide bandgap perovskites, such as CsPbCl3 , are scarcely reported because of the bad film quality of the spin-coated Cl-based perovskite, due to the poor solubility of the precursor. Therefore, ultraviolet detection using high-quality full inorganic perovskite films, especially with high thermal stability of materials and devices, is still a big challenge. In this work, high-quality single crystal CsPbCl3 microplatelets (MPs) synthesized by a simple space-confined growth method at low temperature for near-ultraviolet (NUV) PDs are reported. The single CsPbCl3 MP PDs demonstrate a decent response to NUV light with a high on/off ratio of 5.6 × 103 and a responsivity of 0.45 A W-1 at 5 V. In addition, the dark current is as low as pA level, leading to detectivity up to 1011 Jones. Moreover, PDs possess good stability and repeatability.

Low-reflection, (110)-orientation-preferred CsPbBr3 nanonet films for application in high-performance perovskite photodetectors.

All-inorganic metal halide perovskites have attracted great interest in recent years due to their good device performance with higher thermal stability than that of their organic-inorganic perovskite counterparts. However, the all-inorganic perovskite polycrystalline films prepared by the conventional spin-coating method possess many pinholes, nonuniform surface with many small crystals, and irregular agglomerates, limiting their device performance. Herein, we introduced a monolayer nano-polystyrene (PS) sphere confined growth method for obtaining CsPbBr3 nanonet films (NFs) with ordered nanostructures grown in the preferred (110) orientation, which is beneficial for the charge carrier transport and the light-harvesting efficiency. The (110) peak intensity of CsPbBr3 NFs increased with the increase of the diameter of the monolayer sphere, while the (001) peak intensity was suppressed greatly, indicating the more preferred (110) oriented growth. The PDs based on (110)-orientation-preferred CsPbBr3 NFs prepared by using 850 nm PS spheres showed the best performance. The best performing device displayed the biggest linear dynamic range of up to 120 dB. In addition, a responsivity of 2.84 A W-1 and a detectivity of 5.47 × 1012 Jones were also achieved.

Self-Powered All-Inorganic Perovskite Microcrystal Photodetectors with High Detectivity.

Organic-inorganic lead halide perovskite microcrystal (MC) films are attractive candidates for fabricating high-performance large-area self-powered photodetectors (PDs) because of their lower trap state density and higher carrier mobility than their polycrystalline counterparts and more suitability of synthesizing large lateral area films than their single-crystal counterparts. Here, we report on the fabrication of self-powered all-inorganic CsPbBr3 perovskite MC PDs with high detectivity, using a modified solution synthesis method. The MCs are up to about 10 µm in size, and the MC layer is also about 11 µm in thickness. Under 473 nm laser (100 mW) illumination, the CsPbBr3 MC PDs show responsivity values of up to 0.172 A W-1, detectivity values of up to 4.8 × 1012 Jones, on/off ratios of up to 1.3 × 105, and linear dynamic ranges of up to 113 dB. These performances are significantly better than those of PDs based on polycrystalline perovskite thin films and comparable with those of PDs based on perovskite single crystals.

Selective-area van der Waals epitaxy of topological insulator grid nanostructures for broadband transparent flexible electrodes.

Broadband transparent electrodes based on a two-dimensional grid of topological insulator Bi2Se3 are synthesized by a facile selective-area van der Waals epitaxy method. These two-dimensional grid electrodes exhibit high uniformity over large area, outstanding mechanical durability, and excellent chemical resistance to environmental perturbations. Remarkably, the topological grid electrode has high transmittance of more than 85% from the visible to the near-infrared region.

Photoinduced methylation of graphene.

Covalent grafting of methyl groups onto the basal plane of graphene is achieved through a photochemical reaction between graphene and di-tert-butyl peroxide. The methylation of graphene is found to be reversible. The edge of single-layer graphene shows the largest methylation reactivity, which provides a route to tailor the edge state of graphene.