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International audience; Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) is a potential absorber material for environment-friendly and cost-efficient photovoltaics and has achieved considerable progress in recent years. However, the severe open-circuit voltage (Voc) deficit ascribed to the interface and/or bulk defect states has become the main obstacle for further efficiency improvement. In this work, Sb2Se3 absorber layer was prepared by an effective combination reaction involving sputtered and selenized Sb precursor thin films. The self-assembled growth of Sb2Se3 thin films with large crystal grains, benign preferential orientation, and accurate chemical composition were successfully fulfilled under an appropriate thickness of Sb precursor and an optimized selenization scenario. Substrate structured Sb2Se3 thin-film solar cells, a champion device with a power-conversion efficiency of 6.84%, were fabricated. This device is comparable to state-of-the-art ones and represents the highest efficiency of sputtered Sb2Se3 solar cells. Importantly, the high Voc of 504 mV is closely related to the reduced deep level defect density for the Sb2Se3 absorber layer, the passivated interfacial defects for Sb2Se3/CdS heterojunction interface, and the additional heterojunction heat treatment-induced Cd and S inter-diffusion. This significantly improved Voc demonstrates remarkable potential to broaden its scope of applications for Sb2Se3 solar cells. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) is regarded as one of the key alternative absorber materials for conventional thin film solar cells due to its excellent optical and electrical properties. Here, we proposed a Sb2Se3 thin film solar cell fabricated using a two-step process magnetron sputtering followed by a post-selenization treatment, which enabled us to optimize the best quality of both the Sb2Se3 thin film and the Sb2Se3/CdS heterojunction interface. By tuning the selenization parameters, a Sb2Se3 thin film solar cell with high efficiency of 6.06% was achieved, the highest reported power conversion efficiency of sputtered Sb2Se3 planar heterojunction solar cells. Moreover, our device presented an outstanding open circuit voltage (VOC) of 494 mV which is superior to those reported Sb2Se3 solar cells. State and density of defects showed that proper selenization temperature could effectively passivate deep defects for the films and thus improve the device performance.

The determination for asteroids’ spin parameters is very important for the physical study of asteroids and their evolution. Sometimes, the low amplitude of light curves and kinds of systematic errors in photometric data prevent the determination of the asteroids’ spin period. To solve such a problem, we introduced the de-correlation methods developed in searching for exoplanetary transit signal into the asteroid’s data reduction in this paper. By applying the principle of Collier Cameron (MNRAS 373:799–810, 2006) and Tamuz et al. (MNRAS 356:1466–1470, 2005)’s, we simulated the systematic effects in photometric data of asteroid, and removed those simulated errors from photometric data. Therefore the S/N of intrinsic signals of three selected asteroids are enhanced significantly. As results, we derived the new spin periods of 18.821 ± 0.011 h, 28.202 ± +0.071 h for (431) and (521) respectively, and refined the spin period of (524) as 14.172 ± 0.016 h.

The expression of heat-shock protein 60 (also known as chaperonin 60, Cpn60) in experimental acute pancreatitis (AP) is considered to play an active role in the prevention of abnormal enzyme accumulation and activation in pancreatic acinar cells. However, there are controversial results in the literature regarding the relationship between the abnormality of Cpn60 expression and AP onset and development. The purpose of this study was to investigate the alternations of Cpn60 expression and the relationship between the abnormal expression of Cpn60 and AP progression in rat severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) models. In this report, we induced SAP in Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats by reverse injection of sodium deoxycholate into the pancreatic duct, and examined the dynamic changes of Cpn60 expression in pancreatic tissues from different time points and at different levels with techniques of real-time PCR, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry. At 1 h after SAP induction, the expression of Cpn60 mRNA in the AP pancreatic tissues was higher than those in the sham-operation group and normal control group, but decreased sharply as the time period was extended, and there was a significant difference between 1 h and 10 h after SAP induction (p

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory process in which cytokines and chemokines are involved. After onset, extrapancreatic stimuli can induce the expression of cytokines in pancreatic acinar cells, thereby amplifying this inflammatory loop. To further determine the role and mechanism of irritating agents in the pathogenesis of AP, rat pancreatic tissues were stimulated with ascitic fluid (APa) and serum (APs) from rats with AP or with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In addition, the alteration of heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) expression was evaluated. Rat pancreas was removed and meticulously snipped to fragments. The snips were cultured for up to 48 h. During this period, the tissue viability as well as amylase and TNF-α levels in the supernatant and the HSP60 expression in the pancreatic tissue before and after stimulation by APa, APs, and LPS were assayed time-dependently. At different time-points during the culture, the viability and the amylase activity in the pancreatic tissue remained largely stable. After stimulation with APa, APs, or LPS for 1 h, the pancreatic tissues showed some damage, and this was followed by a sharp decrease in the viability accompanied by increased levels of amylase and TNF-α in the culture medium 2 or 4 h after stimulation (p

Background and Aim: To investigate the effects of serum and ascitic fluid from rats with acute pancreatitis (AP) on cellular free calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i) of isolated rat pancreatic acinar cells, and the intervention of pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC) and tetrandrine (Tet) to cellular calcium overload in AP. Methods: AP was induced in Sprague–Dawley rats with a retrograde pancreatic duct injection of 3% sodium deoxycholate, and confirmed by histopathological examination and amylase activity assay. The rat serum and ascitic fluid were collected at 1, 5 and 10 h after AP induction, and used as irritants on isolated rat pancreatic acinar cells. The effects on intracellular [Ca2+]i, and cell viability were examined. Then, the antagonistic effects of different concentrations of PDTC and Tet were assessed. Results: The irritation with AP serum and ascitic fluid reduced the survival rate of the isolated rat pancreatic acinar cells and increased the cellular [Ca2+]i significantly (P