Alkali metal doping is essential to achieve highly efficient energy conversion in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) solar cells. Doping is normally achieved through solid state reactions, but recent observations of gas-phase alkali transport in the kesterite sulfide (Cu2ZnSnS4) system (re)open the way to a novel gas-phase doping strategy. However, the current understanding of gas-phase alkali transport is v...

Phosphine is conformationally stable because of the high inversion energy barrier of the phosphorus atom, which allows the phosphorus atom to become a chiral center. Thus, enantiopure P-stereogenic 12-, 15-, 18-, and 21-membered aliphatic phosphines "diphosphacrowns" were synthesized from secondary P-stereogenic bisphosphine as a chiral building block. Their complexation behaviors with alkali m...

The binary intermetallic clathrates K8-xSi46 (x = 0.4; 1.2), Rb6.2Si46, Rb11.5Si136 and Cs7.8Si136 were prepared from M₄Si₄ (M = K, Rb, Cs) precursors by spark-plasma route (SPS) and structurally characterized by Rietveld refinement of PXRD data. The clathrate-II phase Rb11.5Si136 was synthesized for the first time. Partial crystallographic site occupancy of the alkali metals, particularly for ...

Dental alloys for direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) are available on the market today, but there is little scientific evidence reported on their characteristics. One of them is the release of ions, as an indicator of the corrosion characteristics of a dental alloy. Within this research, the difference in the elution of metals from DMLS and cast (CM) samples of Co-Cr-Mo dental alloy in saliva-...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the behavior of high-noble gold-platinum alloy samples (18 + 8 Rafinerija plemenitih kovina, Zagreb, Hrvatska), in a phosphate buffer pH 6.0. The aim of the study was to determine the type and amount of released metal ions from the alloy, and to evaluate how the time of exposure to the phosphate buffer pH 6.0 influences the release of metal ions from the al...

Can cyclen (1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane) bind alkali metal azides? This question is addressed by studying the geometric and electronic structures of the alkali metal azide-cyclen [M(cyclen)N3] complexes using density functional theory (DFT). The effects of adding a second cyclen ring to form the sandwich alkali metal azide-cyclen [M(cyclen)2N3] complexes are also investigated. N3(-) is found...

Black phosphorus (BP) exhibits thickness-dependent band gap and high electronic mobility. The chemical intercalation of BP with alkali metal has attracted attention recently due to the generation of universal superconductivity regardless of the type of alkali metals. However, both ultrathin BP, as well as alkali metal-intercalated BP, are highly unstable and corrode rapidly under ambient condit...

Porphyrins are a group of tetrapyrrole pigments. Physical and chemical properties of porphyrins are often related to their compositions and structures. We conducted 1H solution NMR and UV-visible spectral analysis to characterize the structural feature of a water-soluble, synthetic porphyrin i.e. tetrakis (p-sulfonatophenyl) porphyrin, TPPS4, and its interaction with different metal ions in aqu...

We describe an alkali-metal magnetometer for detection of weak magnetic fields in the radio-frequency (rf) range. High sensitivity is achieved by tuning the Zeeman resonance of alkali atoms to the rf frequency and partially suppressing spin-exchange collisions in the alkali-metal vapor. We demonstrate magnetic field sensitivity of 2 fT/Hz(1/2) at a frequency of 99 kHz with a resonance width of ...