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In this paper, an ultra-high sensitivity MAPbBr3/NP GaN hybrid structure device was fabricated for the first time with a high current on/off ratio of about 5000 and fast response speeds of 0.21/0.44 s.

In recent years, ultrawide bandgap semiconductor materials represented by aluminum nitride (AlN) have attracted worldwide attention due to their excellent high-frequency power characteristics, stable high-temperature performance, low energy loss, and good ultraviolet (UV) transmittance. They have great application prospects in the fields of high-efficiency optoelectronic devices, high-power and high-frequency electronic devices, ultra-high voltage power electronic devices, deep UV warning and guidance, and deep UV-LED disinfection. The physical vapor transport (PVT) method has the advantages of a simple growth process, fast growth rate, and high crystal integrity, and has gradually become one of the most effective methods for growing bulk AlN crystals. This review systematically summarizes the latest research progress in AlN crystals grown by the PVT method in recent years, and introduces their applications in deep UV-LEDs, UV lasers and Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs). Finally, the challenges and application prospects of AlN crystals are discussed. As an important new type of direct bandgap ultrawide bandgap semiconductor material, AlN crystals have shown extremely important strategic application value. The output power of deep UV-LED devices meets practical requirements, and high-power electronic power devices are still in the verification stage. From the perspective of material superiority, they have considerable development potential.

The CsPbBr3 perovskite material has excellent optoelectronic properties such as large light absorption coefficient, high carrier mobility, long diffusion length, etc., and thus it shows good application prospects in solar cells, photodetectors, high-energy radiation detectors and other fields. Compared with polycrystalline thin films, a single crystal perovskite without grain boundaries has better photoelectric performance, showing photovoltaic potential with higher efficiency and stability. Therefore, the fabrication of CsPbBr3 perovskite single crystals is very important to further explore the potential of single crystal perovskites in various applications. This review systematically summarizes the latest research progress of perovskite CsPbBr3 crystal growth in recent years, and introduces its applications in photodetectors, high-energy radiation detectors, and solar cells. Finally, the challenges and perspectives of perovskite CsPbBr3 crystals are discussed.

A series of KDP crystals at different rotation speeds ranging from 9 to 120 rpm were grown by rapid growth method. The results fully demonstrate that rotation speed as a key kinetic parameter has a great influence on the whole crystallization process. Moreover, an important characteristic has been proved that the growth rates along X and Z-direction increase with the increase of rotation speed lower than 100 rpm, while the rates of X-direction are always greater than Z-direction. Combined with numerical simulation method, the correlations of solution stability with kinetic factors including rotation speed, crystal size and growth platform are explored in detail. During the crystallization process, the thickness of boundary layer decrease and a higher flow rate is caused with the increase of rotation speed below 100 rpm, and the generation of inclusions at lower speed may be associated with the slower flow rate of growth solution. The stability of solution gradually decreases as the rotation speed ranges from 100 to 120 rpm. Furthermore, the computed results of Re imply that reducing rotation speed as increasing of crystal size may be an effective method to obtain high-quality and large-scale KDP crystal by rapid growth technique. Comparing to the growing platform with four columns, the platform with two circular connecting columns play an active role in influencing the growth rate of KDP crystal, especially in axial direction.

Microfluidic technology has been highly useful in nanovolume sample preparation, separation, synthesis, purification, detection and assay, which are advantageous in drug development. This review highlights the recent developments and trends in microfluidic applications in two areas of drug development. First, we focus on how microfluidics has been developed as a facile tool for the fabrication of drug carriers including microparticles and nanoparticles. Second, we discuss how microfluidic chips could be used as an independent platform or integrated with other technologies in drug toxicity screening. Challenges and future perspectives of microfluidic applications in drug development have also been provided considering the present technological limitations.

Based on the actual hot zone structure of an AlN crystal growth resistance furnace, the global numerical simulation on the heat transfer process in the AlN crystal growth was performed. The influence of different heater structures on the growth of AlN crystals was investigated. It was found that the top heater can effectively reduce the axial temperature gradient, and the side heater 2 has a similar effect on the axial gradient, but the effect feedback is slightly weaker. The axial temperature gradient tends to increase when the bottom heater is added to the furnace, and the adjustable range of the axial temperature gradient of the side 1 heater + bottom heater mode is the largest. Our work will provide important reference values for AlN crystal growth by the resistance method.

Advances in tissue engineering (TE) have revealed that porosity architectures, such as pore shape, pore size and pore interconnectivity are the key morphological properties of scaffolds. Well-ordered porous polymer scaffolds, which have uniform pore size, regular geometric shape, high porosity and good pore interconnectivity, facilitate the loading and distribution of active biomolecules, as well as cell adhesion, proliferation and migration. However, these are difficult to prepare by traditional methods and the existing well-ordered porous scaffold preparation methods require expensive experimental equipment or cumbersome preparation steps. Generally, droplet-based microfluidics, which generates and manipulates discrete droplets through immiscible multiphase flows inside microchannels, has emerged as a versatile tool for generation of well-ordered porous materials. This short review details this novel method and the latest developments in well-ordered porous scaffold preparation via microfluidic technology. The pore structure and properties of microfluidic scaffolds are discussed in depth, laying the foundation for further research and application in TE. Furthermore, we outline the bottlenecks and future developments in this particular field, and a brief outlook on the future development of microfluidic technique for scaffold fabrication is presented.

Monodisperse polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) microspheres have been widely used for targeted drug delivery, embolization, and templates. However, the fast and facile fabrication of PVA microspheres with uniform size and internal structure and good sphericity remains a challenge. In this study, the PVA microspheres with uniformity in the size, shape, and internal structure were rapidly fabricated, using single-emulsion droplet templates by an on-chip approach. First, we designed a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chip integrated with three functional units, used for the droplet generation, mixing of reagents, and pre-curing of PVA microspheres, respectively. Then, we precisely controlled the generation of PVA aqueous droplets, mixing of reagents, and the gelation rate for the production of high-quality microspheres by adjusting the pH value, flow rate, and the channel structure. The prepared PVA microspheres are characterized with good sphericity, uniform internal structure, and narrow size distribution. The microspheres have good adsorption capacity and recyclability for small-molecule drugs, as demonstrated by the adsorption and desorption of methylene blue (MB). The adsorption behavior is well described by the pseudo-second-order model, and intraparticle diffusion is as fast as the external film diffusion.

The bouncing of droplets on super-repellent surfaces normally resembles specular reflection that obeys the law of reflection. Here, the nonspecular reflection of droplet impingement onto solid surfaces with a dimple for energy-efficient, omnidirectional droplet transport is reported. With the dimple of the radius being comparable to that of the droplet, all the symmetries in the law of reflection can be broken down so that the droplet is endowed with a translational velocity finely tunable in both its direction and magnitude simply by varying the radii of the droplet and the dimple, the impinging position, and droplet Weber number. Tailoring the initial and translational velocity of impinging droplets would steer their reflected trajectories at will, thus enabling versatile droplet manipulation including trapping, shedding, antigravity transport, targeted positioning, and on-demand coalescence of droplets.

Magnetic particles are widely used in medical diagnosis and treatment owing to their ever-increasing magnetic targeting ability and superparamagnetism. However, small particle size and low magnetic saturation (MS) are disadvantageous for targeted delivery of magnetic particles. In this study, Fe3O4@polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) microspheres were prepared by an on-chip droplet microfluidic technology on a polydimethylsiloxane microchip. The morphology and elemental analysis test results demonstrate that Fe3O4@PVA microspheres have a uniform particle size and even distribution of Fe3O4 nanoparticles on microspheres. The MS reaches 15.43 emu·g−1 when the concentration of Fe3O4 is 33.3%, which linearly increases with an increase in the content of Fe3O4 in the microspheres. The microscopic observation results of magnetic motion further prove that Fe3O4@PVA microspheres maintain good superparamagnetism and drivability. This preparation process is simple, fast, and accurate. Fe3O4@PVA microspheres show many potential applications in medical diagnosis and treatment.

Droplet-based micromixers are essential units in many microfluidic devices for widespread applications, such as diagnostics and synthesis. The mixers can be either passive or active. When compared to active methods, the passive mixer is widely used because it does not require extra energy input apart from the pump drive. In recent years, several passive droplet-based mixers were developed, where mixing was characterized by both experiments and simulation. A unified physical understanding of both experimental processes and simulation models is beneficial for effectively developing new and efficient mixing techniques. This review covers the state-of-the-art passive droplet-based micromixers in microfluidics, which mainly focuses on three aspects: (1) Mixing parameters and analysis method; (2) Typical mixing element designs and the mixing characters in experiments; and, (3) Comprehensive introduction of numerical models used in microfluidic flow and diffusion.

Monodisperse resorcinol formaldehyde resin (RF) microspheres are an important polymeric material because of their rich surface functional group and uniform structural characteristics and have been increasingly applied as an electrode material, catalyst support, absorbent, and carbon microsphere precursor. The polymerization conditions, such as the gelation/solidification temperature and the residence time, can largely influence the physical properties and the formation of the 3D polymeric network of the RF microspheres as well as the carbon microspheres. However, few studies have reported on the complexity of the gelation and solidification processes of resol. In this work, we developed a new RF microsphere preparation device that contains three units: a droplet generation unit, a curing unit, and a collection unit. In this system, we controlled the gelation and solidification processes of the resol and observed its curing behavior, which helped us to uncover the curing mechanism of resol. Finally, we obtained the optimized polymerization parameters, obtaining uniform RF microspheres with a variation coefficient of 4.94%. The prepared porous RF microspheres presented a high absorption ability, reaching ~90% at 10 min. Thus, our method demonstrated the practicality of on-chip monodisperse microspheres synthesis. The product was useful in drug delivery and adsorbing large poisonous molecules.

Vascular stenosis is always associated with hemodynamic changes, especially shear stress alterations. Herein, bi-conical shaped microvessels were developed through flexibly and precisely controlled templated methods for hydrogel blood-vessel-like microchip. The blood-vessel-like microvessels demonstrated tunable dimensions, perfusable ability, and good cytocompatibility. The microchips showed blood-vessel-like lumens through fine embeddedness of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) on the interior surface of hydrogel microchannels, which closely reproduced the morphology and functions of human blood vessels. In the gradual narrowing region of bi-conical shape, fluid flow generated wall shear stress, which caused cell morphology variations. Wall shear rates at the gradual narrowing region were simulated by FLUENT software. The results showed that our microchannels qualified for performance as a vascular stenosis-like model in evaluating blood hydrodynamics. In general, our blood-vessel-on-a-chip could offer potential applications in the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of arterial thrombosis.

Theoretical and experimental analysis of a new refrigerant mixture BY-3 was conducted based on a singlestage vapor compression refrigeration system. The water-water heat pump system used BY-3 to produce hot water when the low temperature was 20 °C. The following results were obtained: the highest temperature at the condenser outlet reached about 85 °C; when the difference between the water temperatures at the condenser outlet and the evaporator inlet was less than 40 °C, the coefficient of performance (COP) was larger than 4; when the difference reached 55 °C, the COP still kept 3; the discharge temperature of BY-3 was lower than 100 °C, and the refrigerant vapor pressure kept lower than 1.8 MPa. When the water temperature at the condenser outlet reached over 85 °C, nearly a 5 °C superheating temperature was maintained.

This paper gives a brief introduction of Groundwater Direct Cooling (GWDC) and the advantages of its application in rural areas. Taking the outdoor meteorological parameters, the temperature of groundwater and the performance of cooling coil into consideration, the region suitability of the application of groundwater direct cooling in rural areas is given after the analysis of the principles of cooling coil dealing with air. It is the most applicable in the north and mid of China and secondary applicable in central south China. The suitability is relatively low in the west, northeast and southwest of China and it is not applicable in south of China.