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Mechanoluminescence (ML) with the unique mechanical‐to‐optical energy conversion attracts wide attention for stress sensing. However, the development of ML materials is primarily based on crystalline material due to the crystal structure can provide an appropriate crystal field environment for emission center, which limits the expansion of ML materials and affects the deeper understanding of ML mechanism. Herein, the tunable full‐color ML can be achieved in transparent amorphous glass system. The rare earth‐doped transparent amorphous glass can produce ML under stress stimulations when in direct contact with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or mixed with PDMS to prepare the ML elastomers. Based on the excellent ML performance of amorphous glass, an advanced device regarding the visualized detection of automotive brake tribo‐force has been developed. The findings provide profound insights into the triboelectric potential induced ML phenomenon, which offers the guiding significance in the mechanics‐related visualized detection and the design of multi‐color ML materials in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scalable synthesis of highly transparent and robust sub-monolayers of Co3O4 nano-islands, which efficiently catalyze water oxidation, is reported. Rapid aerosol deposition of Co3O4 nanoparticles and thermally induced self-organization lead to an ultra-fine nano-island morphology with more than 94% light transmission at a wavelength of 500 nm. These transparent sub-monolayers demonstrate a remarkable mass-weighted water oxidation activity of 2070-2350 A gCo3O4−1 and per-metal turnover frequency of 0.38-0.62 s−1 at an overpotential of 400 mV in 1 m NaOH aqueous solution. This mixed valent cobalt oxide structure exhibits excellent long-term electrochemical and mechanical stability preserving the initial catalytic activity over more than 12 h of constant current electrolysis and 1000 consecutive voltammetric cycles. The potential of the Co3O4 nano-islands for photoelectrochemical water splitting has been demonstrated by incorporation of co-catalysts in GaN nanowire photoanodes. The Co3O4-GaN photoanodes reveal significantly reduced onset overpotentials, improved photoresponse and photostability compared to the bare GaN ones. These findings provide a highly performing catalyst structure and a scalable synthesis method for the engineering of efficient photoanodes for integrated solar water-splitting cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To further increase the efficiency of multijunction thin-film silicon (TF-Si) solar cells, it is crucial for the front electrode to have a good transparency and conduction, to provide efficient light trapping for each subcell, and to ensure a suitable morphology for the growth of high-quality silicon layers. Here, we present the implementation of highly transparent modulated surface textured (MST) front electrodes as light-trapping structures in multijunction TF-Si solar cells. The MST substrates comprise a micro-textured glass, a thin layer of hydrogenated indium oxide (IOH), and a sub-micron nano-textured ZnO layer grown by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD ZnO). The bilayer IOH/LPCVD ZnO stack guarantees efficient light in-coupling and light trapping for the top amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cell while minimizing the parasitic absorption losses. The crater-shaped micro-textured glass provides both efficient light trapping in the red and infrared wavelength range and a suitable morphology for the growth of high-quality nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) layers. Thanks to the efficient light trapping for the individual subcells and suitable morphology for the growth of high-quality silicon layers, multijunction solar cells deposited on MST substrates have a higher efficiency than those on single-textured state-of-the-art LPCVD ZnO substrates. Efficiencies of 14.8% (initial) and 12.5% (stable) have been achieved for a-Si:H/nc-Si:H tandem solar cells with the MST front electrode, surpassing efficiencies obtained on state-of-the-art LPCVD ZnO, thereby highlighting the high potential of MST front electrodes for high-efficiency multijunction solar cells. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]