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In this work, we have fabricated hybrid heterojunction solar cells with structure ITO/ZnO/P3HT:PCBM:CTSe NCs (optimized weight percentage 10 wt%)/MoO3/Ag (device SM10). A thin layer of molybdenum oxide MoO3 prepared by peroxomolybdic acid organosol as the precursor was used as hole transport layers (HTLs). The performance of the device was compared with ITO/ZnO/P3HT:PCBM:CTSe NCs/Ag(device S10). The important parameters such as global charge carrier mobility (µ), effective charge carriers lifetime (τn) and charge diffusion time (τd) have been extracted from electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) performed at the bias of 0.1 V in the dark. The Nyquist plot obtained from EIS has demonstrated effective carriers lifetime, global mobility and charge diffusion time for a device SM10 as 6.46 ms, 12.6 × 10−4 cm2 V−1 S−1 and 5.2 µs and for device S10 as 5.65 ms, 9.58 × 10−4 cm2 V−1 S−1 and 6.8 µs, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective of this study was to fabricate the microwave absorbing structures (MAS) with structural properties in X and Ku bands. Glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) epoxy composites have excellent specific stiffness and strength to weight ratio. Milled carbon fibres (MCF) have been added as filler to bring functionality in GFRP composites, which causes dielectric loss. MAS were fabricated with variable wt% (2.5–7.5%) of MCF in glass epoxy composite system. The electromagnetic properties were measured in X and Ku bands using free space measurement system. Mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength and interlaminar shear strength of fabricated composites have been evaluated as per the relevant ASTM standards. The results show that the matching frequency of the microwave absorber shifts towards lower side of frequency band by increasing thickness, and reflection loss decreases with increase in MCF wt%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of new instrumentation techniques provides the breakthrough for Raman spectroscopy to establish as powerful non-invasive method for material characterization. In recent years, carbon-based materials and particularly nanomaterials emerged as the subject of enormous scientific and technological attention due to their outstanding mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. We present a brief account on the unprecedented opportunity of Raman spectroscopy for insight into the behaviour of electrons and phonons in carbon nanomaterials. Raman scattering techniques have been highlighted which can be exclusively used to understand the critical dependence of the ratio of sp2 (graphite-like) to sp3 (diamond-like) bonds with the physical properties of honeycomb carbon lattice. The different case studies carried out in our laboratory were included to underline the fact that the Raman is the backbone of non-destructive, fast and high-resolution characterization tool to provide the maximum structural features, lattice dynamics and electronic information in carbon materials at various length scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]