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Recently, the efficiency of CdTe thin film solar cell has been improved by using new type of window layer Mg x Zn1−x O (MZO). However, it is hard to achieve such a high efficiency as expected. In this report a comparative study is carried out between the MZO/CdTe and CdS/CdTe solar cells to investigate the factors affecting the device performance of MZO/CdTe solar cells. The efficiency loss quantified by voltage-dependent photocurrent collection efficiency (η C(V′)) is 3.89% for MZO/CdTe and 1.53% for CdS/CdTe solar cells. The higher efficiency loss for the MZO/CdTe solar cell is induced by more severe carrier recombination at the MZO/CdTe p–n junction interface and in CdTe bulk region than that for the CdS/CdTe solar cell. Activation energy (E a) of the reverse saturation current of the MZO/CdTe and CdS/CdTe solar cells are found to be 1.08 eV and 1.36 eV, respectively. These values indicate that for the CdS/CdTe solar cell the carrier recombination is dominated by bulk Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) recombination and for the MZO/CdTe solar cell the carrier recombination is dominated by the p–n junction interface recombination. It is found that the tunneling-enhanced interface recombination is also involved in carrier recombination in the MZO/CdTe solar cell. This work demonstrates the poor device performance of the MZO/CdTe solar cell is induced by more severe interface and bulk recombination than that of the CdS/CdTe solar cell.

We study dynamical behaviors of a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) containing a dark soliton reflected from potential wells and potential barriers, respectively. The orientation angle of the dark soliton and the width of the potential change play key roles on the reflection probability R s. Variation of the reflection probability with respect to the orientation angle θ of the dark soliton can be well described by a cosine function R s ∼ cos [λ(θ – π/2)], where λ is a parameter determined by the width of the potential change. There are two characteristic lengths which determine the reflection properties. The dependence of the reflection probability on the width of the potential change shows distinct characters for potential wells and potential barriers. The length of the dark soliton determines the sensitiv width of potential wells, whereas for potential barriers, the decay length of the matter wave in the region of the barrier qualifies the sensitive width of the barrier. The time evolution of the density profiles of the system during the reflection process is studied to disclose the different behaviors of matter waves in the region of the potential variation.

The Stokes polarimeter based on liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVRs) is envisaged as a promising novel technique for polarization measurement in space applications due to the inherent advantage of eliminating the need for conventional rotating polarizing optics and increasing the measuring speed. However, the intrinsic multi-beam interference in LCVRs limits its polarization accuracy by several percent. How to eliminate the influence of the interference effect becomes an urgent issue for the liquid-crystal-based Stokes polarimeter. The present study introduces a simplified but effective interference model based on the thin-film optics and polarized light theory to simulate the relationship between the interference effect of the LCVRs-based Stokes polarimeter and the polarization accuracy. The simulation results show that the transmittance variation of LCVR with the derived voltage is caused by multi beam interference between the indium tin oxide (ITO) film and the liquid crystal within LCVR, which produces a few percent of instrumental polarization. The instrumental polarization is about 0.01 and different for different wavelengths. An optimization method was proposed to reduce the instrumental polarization to 0.002, effectively improving the polarization sensitivity of the Stokes polarimeter limited by the interference. In addition, an experimental setup was built up to measure and analyze the influence of the interference effect of the LCVRs-based Stokes polarimeter on the polarization accuracy before and after the optimization. The experiment results are in good agreement with the simulation.

The Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) is a mission proposed by the Chinese Solar Physics Community. As one of the three payloads of ASO-S, the Full-disc Magneto-Graph (FMG) will measure the photospheric magnetic fields of the entire solar disk with high spatial and temporal resolution, and high magnetic sensitivity, where liquid crystal variable retarder (LCVR) is the key to whether FMG can achieve its scientific goal. So far, there is no space flight experience for LCVR. Therefore, irradiation study for LCVRs becomes more important and urgent in order to make sure their safety and reliability in space application. In this paper, λ irradiation, proton irradiation, and ultra-violet (UV) irradiation are tested for LCVRs respectively. The optical and chemical properties during irradiation tests are measured and analyzed. For optical properties, there is no significant change in those parameters FMG payload concerned except the retardation. Although there is no drastic degradation in the retardation versus voltage during irradiations, the amount of retardation variation is much higher than the instrument requirements. Thus, an in-flight retardation versus voltage should be added in FMG payload, reducing or even avoiding the impact of retardation change. For chemical properties, the clearing point and birefringence of the LC materials almost have no change; the ion density dose not change below 60 krad[Si], but begin to increase dramatically above 60 krad[Si].

Nd content was varied in Nd 13.2 − x Fe 80.8 + x B6 (x = 0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5) to optimize the magnetic properties of sintered Nd–Fe–B/Tb–Fe–B composite magnets, which were prepared by mixing 9 g of Nd–Fe–B with 1 g of Tb17Fe75B8 powder. In conventional magnets, by reducing Nd content, the coercivity of 10.4 kOe in Nd13.2Fe80.8B6 decreases to 7.2 kOe in Nd12.2Fe81.8B6; meanwhile, in Nd–Fe–B/Tb–Fe–B magnets the coercivity does not decrease when reducing Nd content. In the intergranular phase, the Tb content increases owing to the reducing Nd content of the Nd–Fe–B alloy in the sintered composite magnets. Therefore, the excess Tb in Tb17Fe75B8 enters the intergranular phase, and more Tb atoms can substitute for Nd at the grain boundary of the Nd–Fe–B phase, leading to a more significant increase in coercivity. The remanence increases with reducing Nd content, and the energy product of 39.1 MGOe with a high coercivity of 21.0 kOe is obtained in Nd12.2Fe81.8B6/Tb17Fe75B8 magnets. These investigations show that magnetic properties can be further improved by regulating the element distribution in sintered composite magnets.

The magnetic property in a material is induced by the unpaired electrons. This can occur due to defect states which can enhance the magnetic moment and the spin polarization. In this report, CdS and CdTe thin films are grown on FTO glass substrates by chemical bath deposition and close-spaced sublimation, respectively. The magnetic properties, which are introduced from oxygen states, are found in CdS and CdTe thin films. From the hysteresis loop of magnetic moment it is revealed that CdS and CdTe thin films have different kinds of magnetic moments at different temperatures. The M–H curves indicate that from 100 K to 350 K, CdS and CdTe thin films show paramagnetism and diamagnetism, respectively. A superparamagnetic or a weakly ferromagnetic response is found at 5 K. It is also observed from ZFC/FC curves that magnetic moments decrease with temperature increasing. Spin polarized density functional calculation for spin magnetic moment is also carried out.

Based on fractional-order Lyapunov stability theory, this paper provides a novel method to achieve robust modified projective synchronization of two uncertain fractional-order chaotic systems with external disturbance. Simulation of the fractional-order Lorenz chaotic system and fractional-order Chen's chaotic system with both parameters uncertainty and external disturbance show the applicability and the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

This paper provides a novel method to synchronize uncertain fractional-order chaotic systems with external disturbance via fractional terminal sliding mode control. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, a new fractional-order switching manifold is proposed, and in order to ensure the occurrence of sliding motion in finite time, a corresponding sliding mode control law is designed. The proposed control scheme is applied to synchronize the fractional-order Lorenz chaotic system and fractional-order Chen chaotic system with uncertainty and external disturbance parameters. The simulation results show the applicability and efficiency of the proposed scheme.

Hexagonal β-NaYF4 co-doped with Yb3+ and Er3+ is directly synthesized under mild conditions using a hydrothermal method. The variation of the ratio of Ln3+ to F− and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) causes the shape of the microcrystal to change from microplate to microcolumn. The NaYF4 powder is mixed with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to create an up-converter for thin film amorphous silicon solar cells so as to evaluate the effectiveness of the synthesized material as an up-converter. In order to overcome the difficulty in measuring the effectiveness of up-conversion material, a new method of using near infrared illumination to measure the short circuit current densities of solar cells both with and without up-converters is developed. An up-converter with pure hexagonal NaYF4:Yb3+/Er3+ microcrystal produces a high current output. Emission intensity data obtained by photoluminescence suggest that pure hexagonal NaYF4:Yb3+/Er3+ microcrystals are more efficient than nanocrystals when used as up-converting phosphors.

We theoretically study the statistics of photon emission of a single multi-level quantum system by employing the generating functions approach developed recently. The generalized decay constants are included in a single multi-level quantum system with quasi-degenerated levels in this work although they are normally neglected in the absence of (quasi-)degeneracies in a multi-level quantum system within the rotating wave approximation. The quantum beats, the line shapes and the Mandel's Q parameters, etc. are studied.