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The typical layered transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) material, MoS2, is considered a promising candidate for the next-generation electronic device due to its exceptional physical and chemical properties. In chemical vapor deposition synthesis, the sulfurization of MoO3 powders is an essential reaction step in which the MoO3 reactants are converted into MoS2 products. Recent studies have suggested using an H2S/H2 mixture to reduce MoO3 powders in an effective way. However, reaction mechanisms associated with the sulfurization of MoO3 by the H2S/H2 mixture are yet to be fully understood. Here, we perform quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations to investigate the sulfurization of MoO3 flakes using two different gaseous environments: pure H2S precursors and a H2S/H2 mixture. Our QMD results reveal that the H2S/H2 mixture could effectively reduce and sulfurize the MoO3 reactants through additional reactions of H2 and MoO3, thereby providing valuable input for experimental synthesis of higher-quality TMDC materials.

Stanene has revealed a new horizon in the field of quantum condensed matter and energy conversion devices but its significantly lower tensile strength limits its further applications and effective operation in these nanodevices. Van der Waals heterostructures have given substantial flexibility to integrate different two-dimensional (2D) layered materials over the past few years and have proven highly functional with exceptional features, appealing applications, and innovative physics. Considerable efforts have been made for the preparation, thorough understanding, and applications of van der Waals heterostructures in the fields of electronics and optoelectronics. In this paper, we have executed Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations to predict the tensile strength of van der Waals heterostructures of stanene (Sn) adsorbed on graphene (Gr), hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), and silicon carbide (SiC) (Sn/Gr, Sn/hBN, and Sn/SiC, respectively) subjected to both armchair and zigzag directional loading at different strain rates for the first time, which has enticing applications in electronic, optoelectronic, energy storage and bio-engineered devices. Among all the van der Waals heterostructures, the Sn/SiC heterostructure exhibits the lowest tensile strength and tensile strain. Furthermore, it has been found that zigzag directional loading could endure more tensile strain before fracture. Besides, it has been disclosed that though the rule of mixtures may accurately reproduce the Young's modulus of these heterostructures, it has limitations to predict the tensile strength. Fracture analysis suggests that for the Sn/hBN heterostructure the fracture initiates from the stanene layer while for the Sn/Gr and Sn/SiC heterostructures the fracture initiates from the Gr and SiC layer, respectively, for both armchair and zigzag directional loading. Overall, this study would aid in the design and efficient operation of Sn/Gr, Sn/hBN, and Sn/SiC heterostructures when subjected to mechanical force.

A thorough understanding of native oxides is essential for designing semiconductor devices. Here we report a study of the rate and mechanisms of spontaneous oxidation of bulk single crystals of ZrS$_x$Se$_{2-x}$ alloys and MoS$_2$. ZrS$_x$Se$_{2-x}$ alloys oxidize rapidly, and the oxidation rate increases with Se content. Oxidation of basal surfaces is initiated by favorable O$_2$ adsorption and proceeds by a mechanism of Zr-O bond switching, that collapses the van der Waals gaps, and is facilitated by progressive redox transitions of the chalcogen. The rate-limiting process is the formation and out-diffusion of SO$_2$. In contrast, MoS$_2$ basal surfaces are stable due to unfavorable oxygen adsorption. Our results provide insight and quantitative guidance for designing and processing semiconductor devices based on ZrS$_x$Se$_{2-x}$ and MoS$_2$, and identify the atomistic-scale mechanisms of bonding and phase transformations in layered materials with competing anions.

Solid energetic nanocomposites, consisting of reactive metal particles and oxidizers, find broad applications ranging from pyrotechnics to solid rocket propellants and solid ramjet fuels. In particular, nano-aluminum (n-Al) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are attractive fuel and oxidizer materials, due to the high energy density of n-Al, and the high oxidizing potential and excellent mechanical properties of PVDF. PVDF is a semi-crystalline polymer and has three common crystalline phases, alpha (α), gamma (γ), and beta (β) phases. Many research works have focused on the chemical reactions between Al and PVDF, yet the effect of PVDF crystallinity on the Al/PVDF reaction is unknown. Here, we experimentally and computationally demonstrate that increasing the mass fraction of β-phase PVDF from 2.5 to 25% in Al/PVDF composites substantially improves peak pressure by 90% (from ~34 to ~64 psi) and pressure rise rates by 300% (from 2.5 psi/ms to 10 psi/ms). This stems from the alignment of F atoms along one side of the β-PVDF polymer chain, making it structurally conducive to reacting with Al particles to form strong Al-F interactions. This strong interaction leads to higher binding energy between, and hence higher reactivity in, β-PVDF and Al. Our research provides a new method for enhancing the reactive performance of Al/PVDF composites by increasing the content of β-PVDF.

The decomposition of methylcyclohexane (MCH) containing suspended functionalized graphene sheets (FGS) was studied using a high-pressure flow reactor, under supercritical conditions over the temperature range of 780 – 825 K at a constant pressure of 4.72 MPa. Experiments showed both fuel conversion rates and C1-C2 product yields were increased by 43.3% and 62.1%, respectively, with the addition of 50 ppmw of FGS at 820 K. The reaction mechanisms between hydrocarbon and FGS were computationally investigated using reactive molecular dynamics (MD) with ReaxFF force fields at the temperatures of 1700, 1800, and 1900 K. The MD simulations revealed that oxygen-containing functional groups attached to the FGS plays an important role in catalyzing the decomposition of the fuel. Heterogeneous dehydrogenation of MCH into a C7H13 radical intermediate led to formation of secondary and tertiary radicals, such as H, CH3, and C2H5, during early extents of reaction promoting additional fuel-consuming steps, including H-abstraction and hydrogenation.

Most infrared satellite remote sensors have a higher spatial resolution than microwave satellite sensors. Microwave satellite remote sensing has proven successful for the retrieval of soil moisture (SM) information. In this study, we propose a SM retrieval algorithm based on temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI), a function of land surface temperature (LST), and the normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) provided by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. We implemented the LST correction with elevation effect. Conversion relationships between TVDI and SM content for a variety of land types were obtained from spatial and temporal collocation of TVDI and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) SM content for 2014. From the comparison with the GLDAS SM for 2015, the proposed TVDI-based SM algorithm showed good performance with CC = 0.609, bias = −0.035 m3/m3, and root-mean-square-error (RMSE) = 0.047 m3/m3, while the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) SMs present CC = 0.637 and 0.741, bias = 0.042 and 0.010 m3/m3, and RMSE = 0.152 and 0.103 m3/m3, respectively. For the in situ SM measurements of the Korea Rural Development Administration (RDA), the proposed TVDI-based SM algorithm yielded CC = 0.556, bias = −0.039 m3/m3, and RMSE = 0.051 m3/m3 excluding the winter season. Consequently, the proposed SM algorithm could contribute to complementing the low spatial resolutions of microwave satellite SM products and low temporal resolutions of GLDAS SM products.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) has developed many product algorithms including that for soil moisture (SM) retrieval for the geostationary satellite Geo-Kompsat-2A (GK-2A) launched in December 2018. This was developed through a five-year research project owing to the significance of SM information for hydrological and meteorological applications. However, GK-2A’s visible and infrared sensors lack direct SM sensitivity. Therefore, in this study, we developed an SM algorithm based on the conversion relationships between SM and the temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) estimated for various land types in the full disk area using two of GK-2A’s level 2 products, land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) SM data for calibration. Methodologically, various coefficients were obtained between TVDI and SM and used to estimate the GK-2A-based SM. The GK-2A SM algorithm was validated with GLDAS SM data during different periods. Our GK-2A SM product showed seasonal and spatial agreement with GLDAS SM data, indicating a dry-wet pattern variation. Quantitatively, the GK-2A SM showed annual validation results with a correlation coefficient (CC) >0.75, bias TVDI-based SMs often occurred in dry Australian regions during dry seasons due to the high LST sensitivity of GK-2A TVDI. We determined that relationships between TVDI and SM had positive or negative slopes depending on land cover types, which differs from the traditional negative slope observed between TVDI and SM. The KMA is currently operating this GK-2A SM algorithm.

The band gap tuning technology can contribute to improvement of power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of solar cells. In this study, the band gap of the Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin film, which was changed by residual strain, has been reported. When the thin film was deposited on soda-lime glasses, the substrate temperatures was fixed by an electric heater. Through the analysis of XRD patterns and Raman spectra, the presence of a second phase, of SnS2, ZnS, or Cu4Sn7S16, was confirmed. Using XRD patterns, the lattice constants and residual strains of the CZTS thin films were determined. The CZTS thin film which had the smallest lattice constant c was under the largest residual compressive stress. The residual strain made Raman peaks and band gaps of CZTS photoabsorbers change linearly. The line slopes in the plots of Raman peak position and band gap as function of residual strain were determined to be 572.7 cm−1 per unit strain and 93.51 eV per unit strain, respectively. This result indicates that the band gap of CZTS photoabsorbers can be tuned by controlling residual stress.

In this study, we focus on the residual stress and band gap change of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin films fabricated using a pre-sulfurized precursor, which contained sulfur compounds such as ZnS, SnS2, an...

The minimum brightness temperature (mBT) of seawater in the polar region is an important parameter in algorithms for determining sea ice concentration or snow depth. To estimate the mBT of seawater at 6.925 GHz for the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans and to find their physical characteristics, we collected brightness temperature and sea ice concentration data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) for eight years from 2012 to 2020. The estimated mBT shows constant annual values, but we found a significant difference in the seasonal variability between the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. We calculated the mBT with the radiative transfer model parameterized by sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface wind speed (SSW), and integrated water vapor (IWV) and compared them with our observations. The estimated mBT represents the modeled mBT emitted from seawater under conditions of 2–5 m/s SSW and SST below 0 °C, except in the Arctic summer. The exceptional summer mBT in the Arctic Ocean was related to unusually high SST. We found evidence of Arctic amplification in the seasonal variability of Arctic mBT.

The Advanced Dvorak Technique (ADT) uses geostationary satellite data to estimate tropical cyclone (TC) intensity owing to the difficulty in directly observing a TC&rsquo, s internal structure. This study presents a new relationship (Hong and Ryu scale) between the current intensity (CI) number and estimated maximum wind speed (MWS) of TCs over the northwestern Pacific region, the CI number is the TC intensity index retrieved from the ADT. The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) with the L-band (1.4 GHz) microwave radiometer, is used to calibrate and produce the new Hong and Ryu scale for the ADT algorithm. Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) best track MWS data, SMAP sea surface wind speed estimates, and ADT&rsquo, s TC intensity data between 2015&ndash, 2018 are spatiotemporally collocated for the calibration process. The CI number is derived from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) operational ADT which uses the Koba scale to convert to the MWS for validation against the MWS of the best track. The conversion relationships between CI number and SMAP MWS, and between SMAP MWS and MWS of the best track a derived, and the MWS of two ADTs with the Koba and Hong and Ryu scales are then estimated using the same CI numbers with TC intensity data between 2015&ndash, 2018. Finally, the MWS of the ADT with the Koba scale and the new ADT with the proposed Hong and Ryu scale are independently validated on best track data from 2013&ndash, 2014. The MWS root mean square error (RMSE) is 4.39 m/s for the new ADT using the Hong and Ryu scale, which is lower than 4.77 m/s RMSE of the ADT using the Koba scale. Hence, the ADT using the Hong and Ryu scale can modestly improve the accuracy of TC intensity analysis in the northwestern Pacific region.

Many previous studies have attempted to distinguish fog from clouds using low-orbit and geostationary satellite observations from visible (VIS) to longwave infrared (LWIR) bands. However, clouds and fog have often been misidentified because of their similar spectral features. Recently, advanced meteorological geostationary satellites with improved spectral, spatial, and temporal resolutions, including Himawari-8/9, GOES-16/17, and GeoKompsat-2A, have become operational. Accordingly, this study presents an improved algorithm for detecting daytime sea fog using one VIS and one near-infrared (NIR) band of the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) of the Himawari-8 satellite. We propose a regression-based relationship for sea fog detection using a combination of the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and reflectance at the green band of the AHI. Several case studies, including various foggy and cloudy weather conditions in the Yellow Sea for three years (2017–2019), have been performed. The results of our algorithm showed a successful detection of sea fog without any cloud mask information. The pixel-level comparison results with the sea fog detection based on the shortwave infrared (SWIR) band (3.9 μm) and the brightness temperature difference between SWIR and LWIR bands of the AHI showed high statistical scores for probability of detection (POD), post agreement (PAG), critical success index (CSI), and Heidke skill score (HSS). Consequently, the proposed algorithms for daytime sea fog detection can be effective in daytime, particularly twilight, conditions, for many satellites equipped with VIS and NIR bands.

Optical ignition of solid energetic materials, which can rapidly release heat, gas, and thrust, is still challenging due to the limited light absorption and high ignition energy of typical energetic materials (e.g., aluminum, Al). Here, we demonstrated that the optical ignition and combustion properties of micron-sized Al particles were greatly enhanced by adding only 20 wt % of graphene oxide (GO). These enhancements are attributed to the optically activated disproportionation and oxidation reactions of GO, which release heat to initiate the oxidization of Al by air and generate gaseous products to reduce the agglomeration of the composites and promote the pressure rise during combustion. More importantly, compared to conventional additives such as metal oxides nanoparticles (e.g., WO3 and Bi2O3), GO has much lower density and therefore could improve energetic properties without sacrificing Al content. The results from Xe flash ignition and laser-based excitation experiments demonstrate that GO is an eff...

Layered transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) materials have received great attention because of their remarkable electronic, optical, and chemical properties. Among typical TMDC family members, monolayer MoS2 has been considered a next-generation semiconducting material, primarily due to a higher carrier mobility and larger band gap. The key enabler to bring such a promising MoS2 layer into mass production is chemical vapor deposition (CVD). During CVD synthesis, gas-phase sulfidation of MoO3 is a key elementary reaction, forming MoS2 layers on a target substrate. Recent studies have proposed the use of gas-phase H2S precursors instead of condensed-phase sulfur for the synthesis of higher-quality MoS2 crystals. However, reaction mechanisms, including atomic-level reaction pathways, are unknown for MoO3 sulfidation by H2S. Here, we report first-principles quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations to investigate gas-phase sulfidation of MoO3 flake using a H2S precursor. Our QMD results reveal that gas-...

We propose a novel method to create vacancy defects on MoS2 structures. The method is similar to a potato stamp process, which involves creating vacancy defects on a graphene layer and stamping to the MoS2 surface. On the basis of nudged elastic band and density functional theory calculations, we predict that sulfur atoms on the surface will diffuse into the vacancy sites of the graphene layer. Separation of the graphene layer will carry away diffused sulfur atoms, leaving the MoS2 surface with sulfur vacancy defects. We carried out molecular dynamics simulations with the ReaxFF reactive force field to test the potato stamp concept and then functionalized the MoS2 surface defects with epoxy molecules. We observed dissociation of epoxy molecules at the vacancy site, in which the exposed metal atoms had catalytic activity.

Atomically thin MoS2 layer, a promising transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) material, has great potential for application in next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is the most effective technique for the synthesis of high-quality MoS2 layers. During CVD synthesis, monolayered MoS2 is generally synthesized by sulfidation of MoO3. Although qualitative reaction mechanisms for the sulfidation of MoO3 have been investigated by previous studies, the detailed reaction processes, including atomic-scale reaction pathways and growth kinetics, have yet to be fully understood. Here, we present quantum-mechanically informed and validated reactive molecular dynamics simulations of the direct sulfidation of MoO3 surfaces using S2 gas precursors. Our work clarifies the reaction mechanisms and kinetics of the sulfidation of MoO3 surfaces as follows: the reduction and sulfidation of MoO3 surfaces occur primarily at O-termination sites, followed by unsaturated Mo sites; the...

In this study, the residual strain in Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) photoabsorber for solar cell application was analyzed by X-ray line broadening. Metal precursor of CZTS was deposited on a glass substrate usi...

Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin films were fabricated using a precursor solution with controlled amounts of thiourea (CH4N2S) by adjusting the molar ratios of sulfur to Cu, Zn and Sn to 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, a...

Triethylene glycol (TREG)-coated nickel-zinc (Ni-Zn) ferrite nanoparticles were synthesized via the hydrothermal method and characterized for application to magnetic hyperthermia. Ni-Zn ferrite particles of Ni 1−x Zn x Fe 2 O 4 with three different zinc contents of x = 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 were formulated to investigate the structural and magnetic properties according to the zinc content. Transmission electron microscopy images revealed that the particles were spherical in shape and that the average diameters of the particles were 10.67, 13.02, and 18.73 nm for zinc contents of 0.6, 0.4, and 0.2, respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed that the TREG was firmly coated on the surface of the particles. The saturation magnetization decreased with the increasing zinc content in the particles, which affected the heating ability of the particles in the alternating magnetic field. The heating ability of the Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 and Ni 0.6 Zn 0.4 Fe 2 O 4 particles facilitated the aqueous solution of these particles to reach the target temperature of 42 °C for magnetic hyperthermia, while an aqueous solution of Ni 0.2 Zn 0.8 Fe 2 O 4 particles with a high particle concentration did not reach the target temperature. The high specific absorption rates of the Ni 0.8 Zn 0.2 Fe 2 O 4 and Ni 0.6 Zn 0.4 Fe 2 O 4 particles indicate that these particles are applicable to magnetic hyperthermia.

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers like MoS2 are promising materials for future electronic applications. Large-area monolayer MoS2 samples for these applications are typically synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using MoO3 reactants and gas-phase sulfur precursors. Recent experimental studies have greatly improved our understanding of reaction pathways in the CVD growth process. However, atomic mechanisms of sulfidation process remain to be fully elucidated. In this work, we present quantum-mechanically informed and validated reactive molecular dynamics (RMD) simulations for CVD synthesis of MoS2 layers using S2 precursors. Our RMD simulations clarify atomic-level reaction pathways for the sulfidation of MoO3 surfaces by S2, which is a critical reaction step for CVD synthesis of MoS2 layers. These results provide a better understanding of the sulfidation process for the scalable synthesis of defect-free MoS2 and other TMDC materials.

Two-dimensional Silicon Carbide (SiC) has opened the route to a cornucopia of advanced functionalities in the realm of quantum condensed matter. It holds great promise for highly efficient nanoelectronic, optoelectronic, renewable energy, and spintronic applications thanks to the confluence of a wide spectrum of mesmerizing physical properties like a wide direct bandgap with high exciton binding energy, robust spin–orbit-coupling, excellent photoluminescence, suitable mechanical strength, and thermodynamic stability. Nonetheless, it is still a daunting challenge to incorporate SiC in functional systems since extensive analyses of the mechanical properties, and fracture mechanism of nanocrystalline (NC)-SiC is still obscure. In this light, this work is an attempt to report detailed information concerning the room-temperature tensile mechanical properties and fracture phenomena of NC-SiC executing Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. In particular, effects of grain size on the stress–strain profile, fracture strength, fracture strain, and Young’s modulus of the NC-SiC have been thoroughly investigated. It has been found that the strength as a function of grain size can be characterized by the inverse pseudo Hall-Petch relation. Increasing grain size brings about more elasticity in the structure, albeit at the price of fracture strain. The NC-SiC encounters a substantial degradation in mechanical properties relative to its single-crystal counterpart. Afterward, we performed an exhaustive fracture analysis on two NC-SiC samples of different grain sizes. The single-crystal SiC can endure more tensile strain before rupture compared to that of the NC-SiC. At last, the nanosheet exhibits more immunity to fracture with decreasing grain size. This study would lay the groundwork for NC-SiC to be successfully realized in functional systems as well as serving as a solid roadmap for engineering the mechanical properties of nanocrystalline materials.

Two-dimensional and layered MoS2 is a promising candidate for next-generation electric devices due to its unique electronic, optical, and chemical properties. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is the most effective way to synthesize MoS2 monolayer on a target substrate. During CVD synthesis, sulfidation of MoO3 surface is a critical reaction step, which converts MoO3 to MoS2. However, initial reaction steps for the sulfidation of MoO3 remain to be fully understood. Here, we report first-principles quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations for the initiation dynamics of sulfidation of MoO3 (010) surface using S2 and S8 molecules. We found that S2 molecule is much more reactive on the MoO3 surface than S8 molecule. Furthermore, our QMD simulations revealed that a surface O-vacancy on the MoO3 surface makes the sulfidation process preferable kinetically and thermodynamically. Our work clarifies an essential role of surface defects to initiate and accelerate the reaction of MoO3 and gas-phase sulfur precurso...

Heavy summer rainfall is a primary natural disaster affecting lives and properties in the Korean Peninsula. This study presents a satellite-based rainfall rate retrieval algorithm for the South Korea combining polarization-corrected temperature (PCT) and scattering index (SI) data from the 36.5 and 89.0 GHz channels of the Advanced microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR-2) onboard the Global Change Observation Mission (GCOM)-W1 satellite. The coefficients for the algorithm were obtained from spatial and temporal collocation data from the AMSR-2 and groundbased automatic weather station rain gauges from 1 July - 30 August during the years, 2012-2015. There were time delays of about 25 minutes between the AMSR-2 observations and the ground raingauge measurements. A new linearly-combined rainfall retrieval algorithm focused on heavy rain for the PCT and SI was validated using ground-based rainfall observations for the South Korea from 1 July - 30 August, 2016. The validation presented PCT and SI methods showed slightly improved results for rainfall > 5 mm h-1 compared to the current ASMR-2 level 2 data. The best bias and root mean square error (RMSE) for the PCT method at AMSR-2 36.5 GHz were 2.09 mm h-1 and 7.29 mm h-1, respectively, while the current official AMSR-2 rainfall rates show a larger bias and RMSE (4.80 mm h-1 and 9.35 mm h-1, respectively). This study provides a scatteringbased over-land rainfall retrieval algorithm for South Korea affected by stationary front rain and typhoons with the advantages of the previous PCT and SI methods to be applied to a variety of spaceborne passive microwave radiometers.

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC) like MoS2 are promising candidates for next-generation electric and optoelectronic devices. These TMDC monolayers are typically synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). However, despite significant amount of empirical work on this CVD growth of monolayered crystals, neither experiment nor theory has been able to decipher mechanisms of selection rules for different growth scenarios, or make predictions of optimized environmental parameters and growth factors. Here, we present an atomic-scale mechanistic analysis of the initial sulfidation process on MoO3 surfaces using first-principles-informed ReaxFF reactive molecular dynamics (RMD) simulations. We identify a three-step reaction process associated with synthesis of the MoS2 samples from MoO3 and S2 precursors: O2 evolution and self-reduction of the MoO3 surface; SO/SO2 formation and S2-assisted reduction; and sulfidation of the reduced surface and Mo–S bond formation. These atomic processes occurring during ...

Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin films were manufactured using spray pyrolysis technique and annealed in air. The characteristics of these films manufactured at annealing temperatures of 350–550°C in increments of 50°C for annealing durations of 1, 2, and 3 min were studied using X-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), ultraviolet-visible near-infrared (UV-Vis-NIR) spectrometer, and Hall effect measurements. Experimental results showed that the best CZTS film is a film annealed at 500°C for 1 min, which had moderate properties for manufacturing a solar cell device; its band gap energy, volume carrier concentration, mobility, and resistivity were 1.46 eV, 1.22 × 1019 cm− 3, 1.963 cm−2/Vs, and 0.283 Ωcm, respectively.

Poly(ethyleneglycol)-coated Ni-Zn ferrite (Ni0.65Zn0.35Fe2O4) nanoparticles were synthesized in powder form by using the high-temperature polyol method. As shown by X-ray diffraction, the particles exhibited the inverse spinel crystal structure. Transmission electron microscopy analysis revealed that the particles had spherical shapes, with an average diameter of 8.5 nm. The optimum concentration of the nanoparticles in aqueous solution was found to be 0.40 mg/mL. The saturation temperature of this dispersion at a field strength of 4.4 kA/m and a frequency of 260 kHz was 42 °C, which is the desired temperature for application of the nanoparticles to magnetic hyperthermia. The specific absorption rate (SAR) of the particles, measured in aqueous solution with a particle concentration of 0.40 mg/mL, was 33.47 W/g, indicating their suitable use in magnetic hyperthermia applications. A dependence of the SAR on the square of the magnetic field intensity was also observed.

Midwave infrared (MWIR) band of 3.75 μm is important in satellite remote sensing in many applications. This band observes daytime reflectance and nighttime radiance according to the Earth’s and the Sun’s effects. This study presents an algorithm to generate no-present nighttime reflectance and daytime radiance at MWIR band of satellite observation by adopting the conditional generative adversarial nets (CGAN) model. We used the daytime reflectance and nighttime radiance data in the MWIR band of the meteoritical imager (MI) onboard the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS), as well as in the longwave infrared (LWIR; 10.8 μm) band of the COMS/MI sensor, from 1 January to 31 December 2017. This model was trained in a size of 1024 × 1024 pixels in the digital number (DN) from 0 to 255 converted from reflectance and radiance with a dataset of 256 images, and validated with a dataset of 107 images. Our results show a high statistical accuracy (bias = 3.539, root-mean-square-error (RMSE) = 8.924, and correlation coefficient (CC) = 0.922 for daytime reflectance; bias = 0.006, RMSE = 5.842, and CC = 0.995 for nighttime radiance) between the COMS MWIR observation and artificial intelligence (AI)-generated MWIR outputs. Consequently, our findings from the real MWIR observations could be used for identification of fog/low cloud, fire/hot-spot, volcanic eruption/ash, snow and ice, low-level atmospheric vector winds, urban heat islands, and clouds.

Metal combustion reaction is highly exothermic and is used in energetic applications, such as propulsion, pyrotechnics, powering micro- and nano-devices, and nanomaterials synthesis. Aluminum (Al) is attracting great interest in those applications because of its high energy density, earth abundance, and low toxicity. Nevertheless, Al combustion is hard to initiate and progresses slowly and incompletely. On the other hand, ultrathin carbon nanomaterials, such as graphene, graphene oxide (GO), and graphene fluoride (GF), can also undergo exothermic reactions. Herein, we demonstrate that the mixture of GO and GF significantly improves the performance of Al combustion as interactions between GO and GF provide heat and radicals to accelerate Al oxidation. Our experiments and reactive molecular dynamics simulation reveal that GO and GF have strong chemical and thermal couplings through radical reactions and heat released from their oxidation reactions. GO facilitates the dissociation of GF, and GF accelerates the disproportionation and oxidation of GO. When the mixture of GO and GF is added to micron-sized Al particles, their synergistic couplings generate reactive oxidative species, such as CFx and CFxOy, and heat, which greatly accelerates Al combustion. This work demonstrates a new area of using synergistic couplings between ultrathin carbon nanomaterials to accelerate metal combustion and potentially oxidation reactions of other materials.

Satellite-based remote sensing techniques have been widely used to monitor droughts spanning large areas. Various agricultural drought indices have been developed to assess the intensity of agricultural drought and to detect damaged crop areas. However, to better understand the responses of agricultural drought to meteorological drought, agricultural management practices should be taken into consideration. This study aims to evaluate the responses to drought under different forms of agricultural management for the extreme drought that occurred on the Korean Peninsula in 2014 and 2015. The 3-month standardized precipitation index (SPI3) and the 3-month vegetation health index (VHI3) were selected as a meteorological drought index and an agricultural drought index, respectively. VHI3, which comprises the 3-month temperature condition index (TCI3) and the 3-month vegetation condition index (VCI3), differed significantly in the study area during the extreme drought. VCI3 had a different response to the lack of precipitation in South and North Korea because it was affected by irrigation. However, the time series of TCI3 were similar in South and North Korea. These results meant that each drought index has different characteristics and should be utilized with caution. Our results are expected to help comprehend the responses of the agricultural drought index on meteorological drought depending on agricultural management.

This paper compares different artificial intelligence (AI) models in order to develop the best crop yield prediction model for the Midwestern United States (US). Through experiments to examine the effects of phenology using three different periods, we selected the July&ndash, August (JA) database as the best months to predict corn and soybean yields. Six different AI models for crop yield prediction are tested in this research. Then, a comprehensive and objective comparison is conducted between the AI models. Particularly for the deep neural network (DNN) model, we performed an optimization process to ensure the best configurations for the layer structure, cost function, optimizer, activation function, and drop-out ratio. In terms of mean absolute error (MAE), our DNN model with the JA database was approximately 21&ndash, 33% and 17&ndash, 22% more accurate for corn and soybean yields, respectively, than the other five AI models. This indicates that corn and soybean yields for a given year can be forecasted in advance, at the beginning of September, approximately a month or more ahead of harvesting time. A combination of the optimized DNN model and spatial statistical methods should be investigated in future work, to mitigate partly clustered errors in some regions.

Two-dimensional germanene has provided a cornucopia of new functionalities in the field of nanotechnology owing to its remarkable electronic and thermoelectric attributes. The robust spin–orbit coupling and high carrier mobility give rise to many salient features including non-trivial topological properties, quantum spin-Hall state near room temperature, and topological superconductivity, rendering it an excellent contender for valleytronics, spintronics, and quantum computation. As such, an in-depth characterization of thermal and mechanical properties of germanene is crucial for its practical implication and efficient operation, which remains elusive. Here, we employed equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations utilizing Stillinger Weber potential to reveal the mechanical strength, melting temperature, and phonon thermal conductivity (PTC) of single-layer germanene nanoribbon (SLGeNR) and bilayer germanene nanoribbon (BiLGeNR). Effects of temperature, biaxial tensile and compressive strain, monovacancy defects, length and width of the nanoribbon on the PTC have been rigorously investigated. It has been found that PTC of SLGeNR could be substantially reduced by BiLGeNR. Our simulation results suggest that PTC of SLGeNR demonstrates an inverse relation with temperature, biaxial compressive strain, and monovacancy defects while biaxial tensile strain, length and width of the nanoribbon increases the PTC of SLGeNR significantly. To understand the PTC more profoundly, phonon density of state (PDOS) profiles have been studied. The BiLGeNR demonstrates more tensile strength as well as melting temperature compared to SLGeNR. This study offers a comprehensive guideline for engineering the TC as well as discloses important mechanical and melting characteristics of the SLGeNR and BiLGeNR for a wide range of applications in flexible nano-electronics and thermoelectric nanodevices.

Fire radiative power (FRP), which is the power radiated by fire within a unit area, is a fundamental component for estimation of fire emissions. Successive information of FRP is provided by instruments on geostationary satellites, such as the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on board Meteosat, and the Imager on board Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) for Europe, Africa and America. In East Asia, however, the geostationary satellites such as Multifunctional Transport Satellite, Himawari, Fengyun, and Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) do not provide official FRP products yet. This article describes the first retrieval of COMS FRP using the mid-infrared radiance method with an optimal sensor coefficient derived from our experimental simulations. The COMS FRP retrievals were compared with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) FRP products in East Asia for each April during 2011–2014. The mean absolute percentage differ...

This study proposes a sea surface wind speed retrieval algorithm (the Hong wind speed algorithm) for use in rainy and rain-free conditions. It uses a combination of satellite-observed microwave brightness temperatures, sea surface temperatures, and horizontally polarized surface reflectivities from the fast Radiative Transfer for TOVS (RTTOV), and surface and atmospheric profiles from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Regression relationships between satellite-observed brightness temperature and satellite-simulated brightness temperatures, satellite-simulated brightness temperatures, rough surface reflectivities, and between sea surface roughness and sea surface wind speed are derived from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR-2). Validation results of sea surface wind speed between the proposed algorithm and the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) data show that the estimated bias and RMSE for AMSR-2 6.925- and 10.65-GHz bands are 0.09 and 1.13 m s−1, and −0.52 and 1.21 m s−1, respectively. Typhoon intensities such as the current intensity (CI) number, maximum wind speed, and minimum pressure level based on the proposed technique (the Hong technique) are compared with best-track data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), and the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMSS) for 13 typhoons that occurred in the northeastern Pacific Ocean throughout 2012. Although the results show good agreement for low- and medium-range typhoon intensities, the discrepancy increases with typhoon intensity. Consequently, this study provides a useful retrieval algorithm for estimating sea surface wind speed, even during rainy conditions, and for analyzing characteristics of tropical cyclones.

Manganese ferrite nanoparticles were synthesized using the reverse micelle method; these particles were then coated with silica. The silica-coated nanoparticles were spherical in shape, with an average diameter of 14 nm. The inverse spinel crystalline structure was observed through X-ray diffraction patterns. The coating status of silica on the surface of the nanoparticles was confirmed with a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The superparamagnetic properties were revealed by the zero coercive force in the hysteresis curve. Controllable heating at a fixed temperature of 42 °C was achieved by changing either the concentration of nanoparticles in the aqueous solution or the intensity of the alternating magnetic field. We found that at a fixed field strength of 5.5 kA/m, the 2.6 mg/ml sample showed a saturation temperature of 42 °C for magnetic hyperthermia. On the other hand, at a fixed concentration of 3.6 mg/ml, a field intensity of 4.57 kA/m satisfied the required temperature of 42 °C.

Sea surface temperature (SST) is an important parameter in understanding atmosphere–ocean circulation processes and monitoring global climate change. In addition to in situ observations of SST, a series of satellite-borne instruments provide global coverage of SST through infrared and microwave remote sensing. This study was the first application of the ensemble Bayesian model averaging (EBMA) method to the blending of satellite SST products to minimize inherent uncertainties and improve the validation statistics. Monthly SST products from moderate resolution imaging spectroadiometer, Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS were used as ensemble members. The mean bias and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the EBMA method were better than those of the individual members or generic methods such as ensemble mean and median. This is because the weighting scheme adjusted by the expectation–maximization algorithm was based on the suitability of each member ...

We developed a ReaxFF reactive force field for Al/C interactions to investigate carbon coating and its effect on the oxidation of aluminum nanoparticles (ANPs). The ReaxFF parameters were optimized against quantum mechanics-based (QM-based) training sets and validated with additional QM data and data from experimental literature. ReaxFF-molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to determine whether this force field description was suitable to model the surface deposition and oxidation on complex materials (i.e., carbon-coated ANPs). Our results show that the ReaxFF description correctly reproduced the Al/C interaction energies obtained from the QM calculations and qualitatively captured the processes of the hydrocarbons’ binding and their subsequent reactions on the bare ANPs. The results of the MD simulations indicate that a carbon coating layer was formed on the surface of the bare ANPs, while H atoms were transferred from the hydrocarbons to the available Al binding sites typically without bre...

The ReaxFF reactive force-field approach has significantly extended the applicability of reactive molecular dynamics simulations to a wide range of material properties and processes. ReaxFF parameters are commonly trained to fit a predefined set of quantum-mechanical data, but it remains uncertain how accurately the quantities of interest are described when applied to complex chemical reactions. Here, we present a dynamic approach based on multiobjective genetic algorithm for the training of ReaxFF parameters and uncertainty quantification of simulated quantities of interest. ReaxFF parameters are trained by directly fitting reactive molecular dynamics trajectories against quantum molecular dynamics trajectories on the fly, where the Pareto optimal front for the multiple quantities of interest provides an ensemble of ReaxFF models for uncertainty quantification. Our in situ multiobjective genetic algorithm workflow achieves scalability by eliminating the file I/O bottleneck using interprocess communications. The in situ multiobjective genetic algorithm workflow has been applied to high-temperature sulfidation of MoO3 by H2S precursor, which is an essential reaction step for chemical vapor deposition synthesis of MoS2 layers. Our work suggests a new reactive molecular dynamics simulation approach for far-from-equilibrium chemical processes, which quantitatively reproduces quantum molecular dynamics simulations while providing error bars. Multi-objective genetic algorithms allow training and uncertainty quantification of force-field parameters with minimal modifications of molecular dynamics codes. A team led by Aiichiro Nakano at University of Southern California used an algorithm based on reactive molecular dynamics (RMD) simulations for the training of reactive force-field parameters and uncertainty quantification of simulated quantities of interest. Chemical vapor deposition synthesis of MoS2 monolayer was set as a specific example, and force-field parameters were trained against quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations. Starting from a 128-atom MoO3–H2S system, the reaction dynamics were investigated by estimating the numbers of H–S, Mo–O, and Mo–S bonds as a function of time during the QMD simulations. By comparing these quantities of interest with those obtained in the RMD simulations, it was found that RMD can quantitatively reproduce QMD within an error bar.

The worst forest fire in South Korea occurred in April 2000 on the eastern coast. Forest recovery works were conducted until 2005, and the forest has been monitored since the fire. Remote sensing techniques have been used to detect the burned areas and to evaluate the recovery-time point of the post-fire processes during the past 18 years. We used three indices, Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Gross Primary Production (GPP), to temporally monitor a burned area in terms of its moisture condition, vegetation biomass, and photosynthetic activity, respectively. The change of those three indices by forest recovery processes was relatively analyzed using an unburned reference area. The selected unburned area had similar characteristics to the burned area prior to the forest fire. The temporal patterns of NBR and NDVI, not only showed the forest recovery process as a result of forest management, but also statistically distinguished the recovery periods at the regions of low, moderate, and high fire severity. The NBR2.1 for all areas, calculated using 2.1 μm wavelengths, reached the unburned state in 2008. The NDVI for areas with low and moderate fire severity levels became significantly equal to the unburned state in 2009 (p > 0.05), but areas with high severity levels did not reach the unburned state until 2017. This indicated that the surface and vegetation moisture conditions recovered to the unburned state about 8 years after the fire event, while vegetation biomass and health required a longer time to recover, particularly for high severity regions. In the case of GPP, it rapidly recovered after about 3 years. Then, the steady increase in GPP surpassed the GPP of the reference area in 2015 because of the rapid growth and high photosynthetic activity of young forests. Therefore, the concluding scientific message is that, because the recovery-time point for each component of the forest ecosystem is different, using only one satellite-based indicator will not be suitable to understand the post-fire recovery process. NBR, NDVI, and GPP can be combined. Further studies will require more approaches using various terms of indices.

SnS films were formed by annealing process of Sn precursor thin-films and their properties were investigated. The Sn thin-films were deposited on glass substrate by using thermal evaporation and the deposited Sn thin-films were annealed with sulfur powder in a graphite box using tube furnace at temperature 250, 300, and 350 °C. As the annealing temperature increased from 300 to 350 °C, the thickness and crystallinity of SnS films also increased. In the XRD patterns, SnS films formed at temperature 300 and 350 °C showed an orthorhombic structure with (100) orientation. The band gap energy of SnS films annealed at 300 and 350 °C determined 1.24 and 1.23 respectively.

The aim of this study is to determine the residual stress within a CZTS thin film, which causes changes to several characteristics of the thin film, including the band gap energy and lattice constants. The CZTS thin film was manufactured using a metal precursor. The crystallization of the CZTS photo absorber was confirmed by XRD analysis, Raman spectrum, and HRTEM. The energy of the band gap of the CZTS thin film was found to be 1.47eV, and the crystalline structure was determined to be under a compressive residual stress of 15.269 MPa.

Intensive deforestation due to human activities has been occurring in the Amazon over the last several decades, leading to a projected decrease in precipitation due to reduced evapotranspiration (ET) according to the prediction by climate model experiments. Such hydrological and climatic changes are closely related to the drying of soil moisture (SM) as a source of atmospheric water vapour via evaporation. We used a satellite-observed index, temperature-vegetation dryness index (TVDI), to assess the impact of deforestation on SM during the dry season. Thirteen-year (2002-2014) data for three representative areas (forest, deforesting and deforested) in the Rondonia, southwest (SW) of Amazon were used to evaluate the relative changes in SM corresponding to the extent of deforestation. We found the increase in dryness in the deforested Amazon using the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite sensor. Furthermore, given that the impact of forest removal on surface SM can be dist...

Generally, soil moisture plays an important role in water cycle, water resources and other diverse applications over land. Passive microwave remote sensors (e.g., ASCAT, AMSR-E, SMOS, and SMAP) have successfully used for estimating the amount of soil moisture irrespective of their low temporal and special resolutions. In this study, we present a TVDI (temperature-vegetation dryness index)-based soil moisture retrieval algorithm based on visible and infrared remote sensors. The TERRA/MODIS products such LST (MOD11A2) and NDVI (MOD13A2) data were used. Far-East Asia area including the Korean peninsula were investigated for the case study. In particular, we found the elevation dependence on the soil moisture retrieval. We developed a correction method for this elevation effect. The proposed TVDI-based soil moisture algorithm in visible and infrared bands were compared and validated with soil moisture contents estimated from GCOM-W1/AMSR-2 observations in microwave bands.

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) has matured into a preeminent thin film deposition technique by offering a highly scalable and economic route to integrate chemically dissimilar materials with excellent thickness control down to the subnanometer regime. Contrary to its extensive applications, a quantitative and comprehensive understanding of the reaction processes seems intangible. Complex and manifold reaction pathways are possible, which are strongly affected by the surface chemical state. Here, we report a combined modeling and experimental approach utilizing ReaxFF reactive force field simulation and in situ real-time spectroscopic ellipsometry to gain insights into the ALD process of Al2O3 from trimethylaluminum and water on hydrogenated and oxidized Ge(100) surfaces. We deciphered the origin for the different peculiarities during initial ALD cycles for the deposition on both surfaces. While the simulations predicted a nucleation delay for hydrogenated Ge(100), a self-cleaning effect was discovered on o...

This paper investigates the benefits of integrating coarse resolution satellite-derived precipitation estimates with quasi-point rain gauge data for generating a fine spatial resolution precipitation map product. To integrate the two precipitation data sources, a geostatistical downscaling and integration approach is presented that can account for the differences in spatial resolution between data from different supports and adjusts inherent errors in the coarse resolution precipitation estimates. First, coarse resolution precipitation estimates are downscaled at a fine spatial resolution via area-to-point kriging to allow direct comparison with rain gauge data. Second, the downscaled precipitation estimates are integrated with the rain gauge data by multivariate kriging. In particular, errors in the coarse resolution precipitation estimates are adjusted against rain gauge data during this second stage. In this study, simple kriging with local means (SKLM) and kriging with an external drift (KED) are used as multivariate kriging algorithms. For comparative purposes, conditional merging (CM), a frequently-applied method for integrating rain gauge data and radar precipitation, is also employed. From a case study with Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43 monthly precipitation products acquired in South Korea from May–October in 2013, we found that the incorporation of TRMM data with rain gauge data did not improve prediction performance when the number of rain gauge data was relatively large. However, the benefit of integrating TRMM and rain gauge data was most striking, regardless of multivariate kriging algorithms, when a small number of rain gauge data was used. These results indicate that the coarse resolution satellite-derived precipitation product would be a useful source for mapping precipitation at a fine spatial resolution if the geostatistical integration approach is applied to areas with sparse rain gauges.

The variations in the Arctic sea ice thickness (SIT) due to climate change have both positive and negative effects on commercial human activities, the ecosystem, and the Earth&rsquo, s environment. Satellite microwave remote sensing based on microwave reflection signals reflected by the sea ice surface has been playing an essential role in monitoring and analyzing the Arctic SIT and sea ice concentration (SIC) during the past decades. Recently, passive microwave satellites incorporating an L-band radiometer, such as soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) and soil moisture active passive (SMAP), have been used for analyzing sea ice characteristics, in addition to land and ocean research. In this study, we present a novel method to estimate thin SIT and sea ice roughness (SIR) using a conversion relationship between them, from the SMAP and SMOS data. Methodologically, the SMAP SIR is retrieved. The SMAP thin SIT and SMOS SIR are estimated using a conversion relationship between thin SIT data from SMOS data and SMAP-derived SIR, which is obtained from the spatial and temporal collocation of the SMOS thin SIT and the SIR retrieved from SMAP. Our results for the Arctic sea ice during December for four consecutive years from 2015 to 2018, show high accuracy (bias = &minus, 2.268 cm, root mean square error (RMSE) = 15.919 cm, and correlation coefficient (CC) = 0.414) between the SMOS-provided thin SIT and SMAP-derived SIT, and good agreement (bias = 0.03 cm, RMSE = 0.228 cm, and CC = 0.496) between the SMOS-estimated SIR and SMAP-retrieved SIR. Consequently, our study could be effectively used for monitoring and analyzing the variation in the Arctic sea ice.

This article presents a geostatistical approach for downscaling precipitation products from passive microwave satellites with geostationary Meteorological Satellite observations. More precisely, the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) precipitation (daily level 3 product) with 0.25° spatial resolution and the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) infrared (IR) data with 5 km spatial resolution were used for the downscaling experiment over the Korean peninsula. Brightness temperature data observed at COMS IR 1 and water vapour channels were incorporated for downscaling via area-to-point residual Kriging with non-linear regression. The evaluation results with densely sampled Automatic Weather Station data revealed that incorporating the COMS IR observations with the AMSR2 precipitation showed similar error statistics to those of the AMSR2 precipitation because of the limitations of IR observations themselves and the inherent errors of the AMSR2 precipitation product over land. However, the area-based evaluation using information entropy indicated that incorporating the COMS observations resulted in more detailed spatial variation in the final product than direct downscaling of the AMSR2 precipitation. In addition, local precipitation patterns could be captured when there were regions with missing precipitation values in the AMSR2 product. Consequently, the downscaling result is useful for understanding the local precipitation patterns with an accuracy similar to that provided by microwave satellite observations. It is also suggested that the spatial variability in the downscaling result and errors in input low-resolution data should be considered when downscaling coarse resolution data using fine resolution auxiliary variables.

The reactive force-field (ReaxFF) interatomic potential is a powerful computational tool for exploring, developing and optimizing material properties. Methods based on the principles of quantum mechanics (QM), while offering valuable theoretical guidance at the electronic level, are often too computationally intense for simulations that consider the full dynamic evolution of a system. Alternatively, empirical interatomic potentials that are based on classical principles require significantly fewer computational resources, which enables simulations to better describe dynamic processes over longer timeframes and on larger scales. Such methods, however, typically require a predefined connectivity between atoms, precluding simulations that involve reactive events. The ReaxFF method was developed to help bridge this gap. Approaching the gap from the classical side, ReaxFF casts the empirical interatomic potential within a bond-order formalism, thus implicitly describing chemical bonding without expensive QM calculations. This article provides an overview of the development, application, and future directions of the ReaxFF method.

Satellite remote sensing provides significant information for the monitoring of natural disasters. Recently, on a global scale, floods have been increasing both in frequency and in magnitude. In order to map the inundation area, flooding events are investigated using unique RGB composite imagery based on the MODIS surface reflectance (MOD09GA) data obtained from the Terra satellite, which is used to visualize and analyze these events. This study proposes using an RGB combination of MODIS band 6 (1.64 μm), band 5 (1.24 μm), and band 2 (0.86 μm) data from the visible and the near-infrared spectral ranges to map flood events. The flooding events that were investigated in this study occurred on 25 October 2015 along the Pampanga River in the Philippines, and on 28 July 2016 along the Poyang and Dongting Lakes in China. In the case of the Pampanga River, the inundated areas were estimated with surface reflectance (R) thresholds of 0.0 ≤ R6 ≤ 0.102, 0.0 ≤ R5 ≤ 0.138, and 0.03 ≤ R2 ≤ 0.148 for MODIS bands 6, 5, and 2, respectively, which were determined using Otsu’s method. The total inundated area was estimated to be 487.75 km2. This estimate was indirectly compared with the results obtained from SENTINEL-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. The total inundated area on 26 October 2015 for the case of the Pampanga River was estimated to be 486.37 km2 using histogram analysis based on Otsu’s method. For the flooding case in China, the total estimated inundated area using MODIS RGB imagery on 28 July 2016 and SAR on 3 August 2016 was 1148.25 km2 and 1110.096 km2, respectively. In addition, RGB imagery results using MODIS 6-5-2 bands were supported by the refractive index retrieval along the inundation area. A threshold of 1.6 for the real part of the complex refractive index allows for the discrimination between the flooded and non-flooded areas using the Hong and ASH approximations. This study shows that the RGB composite techniques using advanced sensors with more bands and higher spatio-temporal resolutions, and supported by the refractive index retrieval method, are useful for estimating flood events.