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Solid-state lithium metal batteries (LMBs) have been extensively investigated owing to their safer and higher energy density. In this work, we prepared a novel elastic solid-state polymer electrolyte based on an in situ-formed elastomer polymer matrix with ion-conductive plasticizer crystal embedded with Li6.5La3Zr1.5Ta0.5O12 (LLZTO) nanoparticles, denoted as LZT/SN-SPE. The unique structure of LZT/SN-SPE shows excellent elasticity and flexibility, good electrochemical oxidation tolerance, high ionic conductivity, and high Li+ transference number. The role of LLZTO filler in suppressing the side reactions between succinonitrile (SN) and the lithium metal anode and propelling the Li+ diffusion kinetics can be affirmed. The Li symmetric cells with LZT/SN-SPE cycled stably over 1100 h under a current density of 5 mA cm−2, and Li||LiFePO4 cells realized an excellent rate (92.40 mAh g−1 at 5 C) and long-term cycling performance (98.6% retention after 420 cycles at 1 C). Hence, it can provide a promising strategy for achieving high energy density solid-state LMBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of high-performance solid-polymer electrolytes (SPEs) is a key to the practical application of lithium metal batteries (LMBs). The use of two-dimensional (2D) inorganic nanofiller is an efficient way to build poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)-based SPEs with high ionic conductivity and stability. Herein, a series of 2D oxygen vacancy-rich Co3O4-y−x (x = 1, 2 and 3) with well-defined 2D nanostructures, a high surface area and controllable oxygen vacancy contents (Co3O4-y) was synthesized via a facile self-assembly method and NaBH4 reduction. When the 2D Co3O4-y−x (x = 1, 2 and 3) nanosheets are introduced as nanofillers in PEO-based SPEs, they can interact with the PEO to form a three-dimensional (3D) PEO/Co3O4-y film with uniform Li+ distribution and vertical diffusion channels, as well as strong adsorption of NO3− from LiNO3 electrolyte salt at the defective sites. As a result, the PEO/Co3O4-y−2 film reached a high ionic conductivity of 4.9 × 10−5 S cm−1, high Li+ a transference number of 0.51 and a wide electrochemical window over 4.6 V at 80 °C. The PEO/Co3O4-y−2 film enables the Li||PEO/Co3O4-y−2||LiFePO4 cell to deliver a high reversible capacity of 117.7 mAh g−1 at 2 C and to maintain 126.7 mAh g−1 at 1 C after 250 cycles with an initial capacity retention of 87.9%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of tackling insufficient security in the chaotic encryption algorithm for digital images in the Optical Access Network, a color image encryption scheme combining non-degenerate discrete hyperchaotic system and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) dynamic encoding is proposed. First, a new non-degenerate hyperchaotic system is constructed with all positive Lyapunov and more complex dynamic characteristics. Furthermore, the key sequence based on non-degenerate hyperchaotic system is generated using plaintext correlation to achieve the effect of a dynamic secret key. Next, a binary bit-planes permutation is performed on the image using one of the key sequences. Then, the chaotic key sequence is used to sequentially perform DNA encoding, obfuscation, and decoding. Finally, a binary bit-planes obfuscation is performed to obtain the final ciphertext. The research results show that the non-degenerate chaotic sequence can pass the NIST 800-22 test, and the corresponding encryption algorithm can resist various common attacks and has a strong anti-interference ability. In addition, the algorithm is verified on ARM-Embedded, which proves that the encryption system proposed in this paper is a feasible secure communication technology scheme. Therefore, the scheme proposed in this paper is helpful to provide new ideas for the design and application of high-security cryptosystem in optical access network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TaS2 as transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) two-dimensional (2D) material has sufficient unstructured bonds and large inter-layer spacing, which highly supports transporting and absorbing mercury ions. The structural characterizations and simulation data show that an SPR sensor with high sensitivity can be obtained with a TaS2 material-modified sensitive layer. In this paper, the role of TaS2 nanoparticles in an SPR sensor was explored by simulation and experiment, and the TaS2 layer in an SPR sensor was characterized by SEM, elemental mapping, XPS, and other methods. The application range of structured TaS2 nanoparticles is explored, these TaS2 based sensors were applied to detect Hg2+ ions at a detection limit approaching 1 pM, and an innovative idea for designing highly sensitive detection techniques is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors, with germanium sulfide (GeS) as a sensitive medium and Al/Ag/Au as the metal layers, are reported as we aim to improve the sensitivities of the biosensors. The sensitivities in conventional SPR biosensors, consisting of only metal Al, Ag, and Au layers, are 111°/RIU, 117°/RIU, 139°/RIU, respectively. Additionally, these sensitivities of the SPR biosensors based on the GeS-Al, GeS-Ag, and GeS-Au layers have an obvious improvement, resultant of 320°/RIU, 295°/RIU, and 260°/RIU, respectively. We also discuss the changing sensing medium GeS thickness using layer number to describe the scenario which brought about the diversification on the figure of merit (FOM) and optical absorption (OA) performance of the biosensors. These biosensors show obvious improvement of sensitivity and have strong SPR excitation to analytes; we believe that these kind biosensors could find potential applications in biological detection, chemical examination, and medical diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current network and big data environment, the secure transmission of digital images is facing huge challenges. The use of some methodologies in artificial intelligence to enhance its security is extremely cutting-edge and also a development trend. To this end, this paper proposes a security-enhanced image communication scheme based on cellular neural network (CNN) under cryptanalysis. First, the complex characteristics of CNN are used to create pseudorandom sequences for image encryption. Then, a plain image is sequentially confused, permuted and diffused to get the cipher image by these CNN-based sequences. Based on cryptanalysis theory, a security-enhanced algorithm structure and relevant steps are detailed. Theoretical analysis and experimental results both demonstrate its safety performance. Moreover, the structure of image cipher can effectively resist various common attacks in cryptography. Therefore, the image communication scheme based on CNN proposed in this paper is a competitive security technology method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]