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Current lithium-ion batteries degrade under high rates and low temperatures due to the use of carbonate electrolytes with restricted Li+conduction and sluggish Li+desolvation. Herein, a strong solvent with dual lithium salts surmounts the thermodynamic limitations by regulating interactions among Li+ions, anions, and solvents at the molecular level. Highly dissociated lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) in dimethyl sulfite (DMS) solvent with a favorable dielectric constant and melting point ensures rapid Li+conduction while the high affinity between difluoro(oxalato)borate anions (DFOB–) and Li+ions guarantees smooth Li+desolvation within a wide temperature range. In the meantime, the ultrathin self-limited electrode/electrolyte interface and the electric double layer induced by DFOB–result in enhanced electrode compatibility. The as-formulated electrolyte enables stable cycles at high currents (41.3 mA cm–2) and a wide temperature range from −78 to 60 °C. The 1 Ah graphite||LiCoO2(2 mAh cm–2) pouch cell achieves 80% reversible capacity at 2 C rate under −20 °C and 86% reversible capacity at 0.1 C rate under −50 °C. This work sheds new light on the electrolyte design with strong solvent and dual lithium salts and further facilitates the development of high-performance lithium-ion batteries operating under extreme conditions.

The level of hardware or information security can be increased by applying physical unclonable functions (PUFs), which have a high complexity and unique nonreplicability and are based on random physical patterns generated by nature, to anticounterfeiting and encryption technologies. The preparation of PUFs should be as simple and convenient as possible, while maintaining the high complexity and stability of PUFs to ensure high reliability in use. In this study, an all-inorganic perovskite single-crystal array with a controllable morphology and a random size was prepared by a one-step recrystallization method in a solvent atmosphere to generate all-photonic cryptographic primitives. The nondeterministic size of the perovskite nanorods mainly arises from crystal growth in an indeterminate direction, producing a high entropy for the system. The cavity-size-dependent lasing emission behavior of perovskite single crystals was investigated as a preliminary exploration of the generation of all-photonic cryptographic primitives. The lasing-mode number was positively correlated with the length of the perovskite nanorods. Therefore, the prepared perovskite nanorod array with random sizes can be transformed into a quaternary cryptographic key array following encoding rules based on the lasing-mode number. Superior lasing stability was observed for the all-inorganic perovskite under continuous excitation, demonstrating the high reliability of this system.

Amomi Fructus (Sharen, AF) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) from three source species (or varieties), including Wurfbainia villosavar. villosa(WVV), W. villosavar. xanthioides(WVX), or W. longiligularis(WL). Among them, WVV has been transplanted from its top-geoherb region, Guangdong, to its current main production area, Yunnan, for >50 years in China. However, the genetic and transcriptomic differentiation among multiple AF source species (or varieties) and between the origin and transplanted populations of WVV is unknown. In our study, the observed overall higher expression of terpenoid biosynthesis genes in WVV than in WVX provided possible evidence for the better pharmacological effect of WVV. We also screened six candidate borneol dehydrogenases (BDHs) that potentially catalyzed borneol into camphor in WVV and functionally verified them. Highly expressed genes at the P2 stage of WVV, Wv05G1424and Wv05G1438, were capable of catalyzing the formation of camphor from (+)-borneol, (−)-borneol and DL-isoborneol. Moreover, the BDHgenes may experience independent evolution after acquiring the ancestral copies, and the following tandem duplications might account for the abundant camphor content in WVV. Furthermore, four populations of WVV, WVX, and WL are genetically differentiated, and the gene flow from WVX to WVV in Yunnan contributed to the greater genetic diversity in the introduced population (WVV-JH) than in its top-geoherb region (WVV-YC), which showed the lowest genetic diversity and might undergo genetic degradation. In addition, terpene synthesis(TPS) and BDHgenes were selected among populations of multiple AF source species (or varieties) and between the top- and non-top-geoherb regions, which might explain the difference in metabolites between these populations. Our findings provide important guidance for the conservation, genetic improvement, and industrial development of the three source species (or varieties) and for identifying top-geoherbalism with molecular markers, and proper clinical application of AF.

By the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method, the electronic structures and magnetic properties of a C-doped honeycomb CdS monolayer (HC-CdS) have been investigated. We find that a C-doped HC-CdS shows a half-metallic character and a 100% spin polarization at the Fermi level with a total magnetic moment of 2.0 uB per unit cell. When two carbon atoms substitute for S atoms in HC-CdS, the interaction between two carbon atoms is antiferromagnetic, but it can turn into ferromagnetic coupling provided that an electron is doped into HC-CdS. The Curie temperature of 354 K is predicted through Monte Carlo simulation. The ferromagnetism of two C-doped HC-CdS monolayer can be explained by the electron-mediated p-p interaction and p-d exchange hybridization. These results provide a new perspective for the potential application of C-doped HC-CdS in spintronics.