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Abstract Optoelectronic synapses with fast response, low power consumption, and memory function hold great potential in the future of artificial intelligence technologies. Herein, a strategy of annealing in oxygen ambient at different temperatures is presented to improve the optoelectronic synaptic behaviors of acceptor-rich ZnO (A-ZnO) microtubes. The basic synaptic functions of as-grown and annealed A-ZnO microtubes including excitatory postsynaptic current (EPSC), short-term memory (STM) to long-term memory (LTM) conversion, and paired-pulse facilitation (PPF), were successfully emulated. The results show that the annealing temperature of 600 °C yields high figures of merit compared to other annealed A-ZnO microtubes. The 4-fold and 20-fold enhancement dependent on the light pulse duration time and energy density have been achieved in the 600 °C annealed A-ZnO microtube, respectively. Furthermore, the device exhibited a PPF index of up to 238% and achieved four cycles of “learning-forgetting” process, proving its capability for optical information storage. The free exciton (FX) and donor–acceptor pair (DAP) concentrations significantly influenced the persistent photoconductivity (PPC) behavior of A-ZnO microtubes. Therefore, the LTM response can be controlled by the adjustment of numbers, powers, and interval time of the optical stimulation. This work outlines a strategy to improve the EPSC response through defect control, representing a step towards applications in the field of optoelectronic synaptic device.

Abstract Biological cell membrane featuring smart mass-transport channels and sub-10 nm thickness was viewed as the benchmark inspiring the design of separation membranes; however, constructing highly connective and adaptive pore channels over large-area membranes less than 10 nm in thickness is still a huge challenge. Here, we report the design and fabrication of sub-8 nm networked cage nanofilms that comprise of tunable, responsive organic cage-based water channels via a free-interface-confined self-assembly and crosslinking strategy. These cage-bearing composite membranes display outstanding water permeability at the 10−5 cm2 s−1 scale, which is 1–2 orders of magnitude higher than that of traditional polymeric membranes. Furthermore, the channel microenvironments including hydrophilicity and steric hindrance can be manipulated by a simple anion exchange strategy. In particular, through ionically associating light-responsive anions to cage windows, such ‘smart’ membrane can even perform graded molecular sieving. The emergence of these networked cage-nanofilms provides an avenue for developing bio-inspired ultrathin membranes toward smart separation.

To investigate the influence of different rhenium contents on the helium desorption behavior in tungsten–rhenium alloys, pure tungsten and tungsten–rhenium alloys were irradiated with helium under the same conditions. All irradiated samples were characterized using TDS and DBS techniques. The results indicate that the addition of rhenium can reduce the total helium desorption quantity in tungsten–rhenium alloys and slightly accelerate the reduction in the concentration of vacancy-type defects accompanying helium dissociation. The desorption activation energy of helium is approximately 2 eV at the low-temperature peak (~785 K) and about 4 eV at the high-temperature peak (~1475 K). An increase in rhenium content causes the desorption peak to shift towards higher temperatures (>1473 K), which is attributed to the formation of the stable complex structures between rhenium and vacancies. Besides, the migration of He-vacancy complexes towards traps and dynamic annealing processes both lead to the recovery of vacancy-type defects, resulting in a decrease in the positron annihilation S parameters.

The effect of hydrogen ion irradiation on the formation of hydride and vacancy-type defects in pure titanium was investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Doppler broadening spectrum (DBS), and coincidence Doppler broadening spectrum (CDB) based on slow positron beam. The XRD results showed that γ-TiH was observed in single hydrogen ion-irradiated and hydrogen + deuterium (H + D) sequentially irradiated specimens but not in the single deuterium plasma-implanted sample. This finding indicates that the vacancy-type defects caused by H ion irradiation greatly promoted the formation of γ-TiH. The DBS results showed that for the single D plasma-implanted sample, the damage peak was closer to the surface region and lower compared to the other two samples containing γ-TiH, indicating that vacancy generated by lattice distortion didn't diffuse to the depth of the matrix, and the concentration of that was smaller, which was not conducive to the deuteride formation. For the H + D sequentially irradiated sample, the number of hydrogen-vacancy complexes (HmVn) further increased compared with the single H ion-irradiated sample. Thus, the effective volume of vacancy defects was reduced, which led to the decrease in the S parameter.

To establish the structure-properties relations of an organic polymer-inorganic hybrid nanocomposite, insightful investigation of the molecules packing and interfacial interactions is essential. Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) has been proven as one of the most suitable technique to characterize the free volume structure (molecular packing) of polymer matrices. However, most of the attentions were paid limitedly in organic polymer-based hybrid systems rather than inorganic-based hybrid systems. Classic spherical model was the most frequently used model in free volume holes size calculation of polymer matrix. In the present study, molecular level micro-defects within inorganic-based hybrid systems encaging polymers and carbon species, i.e. novel biological macromolecules of chitosan and its derived carbon/Al pillared montmorillonite clay (CS/PILC and CS-derived C/PILC) stabilized palladium species hybrid nanocomposites, have been investigated by PALS. Besides the classic spherical model, cuboidal and cylindrical models were used to evaluate the molecules packing behavior within the interlayer space of PILC matrices encaging of polymers of CS or CS-derived carbons. The layered porous structure of the nanocomposites was also characterized with other methods, such as X-ray diffraction, N2 adsorption/desorption, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, etc. The correlations of the microstructure and catalytic properties applied in Sonogashira coupling reactions of the nanocomposites were discussed.

In this study, a combination of the porous carbon (PCN), montmorillonite (MMT), and TiO2 was synthesized into a composite immobilized Pd metal catalyst (TiO2-MMT/PCN@Pd) with effective synergism improvements in catalytic performance. The successful TiO2-pillaring modification for MMT, derivation of carbon from the biopolymer of chitosan, and immobilization of Pd species for the prepared TiO2-MMT/PCN@Pd0 nanocomposites were confirmed using a combined characterization with X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms, high-resolution transition electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy. It was shown that the combination of PCN, MMT, and TiO2 as a composite support for the stabilization of the Pd catalysts could synergistically improve the adsorption and catalytic properties. The resultant TiO2-MMT80/PCN20@Pd0 showed a high surface area of 108.9 m2/g. Furthermore, it exhibited moderate to excellent activity (59–99% yield) and high stability (recyclable 19 times) in the liquid–solid catalytic reactions, such as the Sonogashira reactions of aryl halides (I, Br) with terminal alkynes in organic solutions. The positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) characterization sensitively detected the development of sub-nanoscale microdefects in the catalyst after long-term recycling service. This study provided direct evidence for the formation of some larger-sized microdefects during sequential recycling, which would act as leaching channels for loaded molecules, including active Pd species.

In this work, we studied the evolution of vacancy-like defects and the formation of brittle precipitates in a reduced-activation V−Cr−Mn medium-entropy alloy. The evolution of local electronic circumstances around Cr and Mn enrichments, the vacancy defects, and the CrMn3 precipitates were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and positron annihilation spectroscopy. The microstructure measurements showed that the Mn and Cr enrichments in the as-cast sample significantly evolved with temperature, i.e., from 400 °C, the Cr/Mn-segregated regions gradually dissolved into the matrix and then disappeared, and from 900 °C to 1000 °C, they existed as CrMn3 precipitates. The crystallite size of the phase corresponding to CrMn3 precipitates was about 29.4 nm at 900 °C and 43.7 nm at 1000 °C. The positron annihilation lifetime results demonstrated that the vacancies mediated the migration of Cr and Mn, and Cr and Mn segregation finally led to the formation of CrMn3 precipitates. The coincidence Doppler broadening results showed that the characteristic peak moved to the low-momentum direction, due to an increase in the size of the vacancy defects at the interface and the formation of CrMn3 precipitates.

In this study, the swelling resistance of W/Cu nanocomposites is investigated after helium irradiation at RT and 400 °C. The results show that W/Cu nanocomposites with interface structure present better resistance to helium swelling as compared with W monolayer. The PAS results reveal that the unique interfacial structure of W/Cu nanocomposites effectively improves the recovery of vacancy-type defects under He+ irradiation, which results in good resistance to irradiation swelling. This result shows that introducing interface structure can effectively enhance the swelling resistance of materials and sheds light on the design of radiation-tolerant materials for advanced nuclear reactor applications.

Electrolytic hydrogen charging experiments on cold-deformed and well-annealed (annealing at 700 °C for 2 h) pure titanium samples were carried out, respectively. Positron annihilation spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction were used to characterize all experimental samples to explore the formation of vacancy defects and the storage form of hydrogen in pure titanium after charging. Results showed that hydrides formed in well-annealed samples after electrolytic hydrogen charging, but a new phase in the cold-deformed samples was not observed. The annealed samples formed vacancy-type defects in the process of electrolytic hydrogen charging, and the excess hydrogen atoms were easily trapped by vacancies to form a hydrogen vacancy complex (HmVn). The defects formed in the cold-deformed hindered the diffusion of hydrogen atoms and inhibited the formation of vacancies. Compared with the well-annealed electrolytic hydrogen charging samples, the S parameters of the deformed electrolytic hydrogen charging samples hardly changed. The coincidence Doppler broadening spectrum results showed that wide peaks related to hydrogen vacancy complexes were found in electrolytic hydrogen charging samples. The formation of hydride in titanium affected the positron annihilation environment in the low-momentum region. The hydride-related peak was observed only in the electrolytic hydrogen-charged samples after being well annealed.

The atomic-scale defects such as (deuterium, helium)-vacancy clusters in nuclear energy materials are one of the causes for the deterioration of the macroscopic properties of materials. Unfortunately, they cannot be observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) before they grow to the nanometer scale. Positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) has been proven to be sensitive to open-volume defects, and could characterize the evolution of the size and concentration of the vacancy-like nanoclusters. We have investigated the effects of He-D interaction on the formation of nanoscale cavities in Fe9Cr alloys by PAS and TEM. The results show that small-sized bubbles are formed in the specimen irradiated with 5 × 1016 He+/cm2, and the subsequent implanted D-ions contribute to the growth of these helium bubbles. The most likely reason is that helium bubbles previously formed in the sample captured deuterium injected later, causing bubbles to grow. In the lower dose He-irradiated samples, a large number of small dislocations and vacancies are generated and form helium-vacancy clusters with the helium atoms.

Dual-filler MMMs have attracted special interests in recent years because of the possibility of producing synergetic effect. This study is aimed at exploring the underlying synergy between two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets and a non-2D filler in mixed matrix membranes for gas separation. MXene or graphene oxide (GO) as typical nanosheet filler is selected to be in pair with a non-2D filler, SiO2 or halloysite nanotubes (HNTs), with Pebax as the polymer matrix. In this way, four pairs of binary fillers are designed and the corresponding four groups of MMMs are fabricated. By tuning the mass ratio of binary fillers, synergetic effect is found for each group of MMMs. However, the two 2D fillers found different preferential non-2D partners. GO works better with HNTs than SiO2, while MXene prefers SiO2 to HNTs. To be noted, GO/HNTs renders the membranes the maximum enhancement of CO2 permeability (153%) and CO2/N2 selectivity (72%) compared to Pebax control membrane, while each of them as single filler only brought about very limited enhancement of CO2 separation performance. The possible mechanisms are thoroughly discussed in terms of filler dispersion, nanosheet flexibility, and the tortuosity and connectivity of the surface diffusion pathways along nanosheets.

The microstructural evolution of dilute Al–Ag alloys in its early aging stage and at low temperatures ranging from 15 K to 300 K was studied by the combined use of Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and positron annihilation Coincidence Doppler broadening (CDB) techniques. It is shown that at low temperatures below 200 K, an Ag–vacancy complex is formed in the quenched alloy, and above 200 K, it decomposes into Ag clusters and monovacancies. Experimental and calculation results indicate that Ag clusters in Al–Ag alloys can act as shallow trapping sites, and the positron trapping rate is considerably enhanced by a decreasing measurement temperature.

The behavior of helium in reduced-activation ferritic/martensitic steels was investigated systematically with positron annihilation Doppler broadening measurement and thermal desorption spectroscopy. Specimens were irradiated with helium ions with different energies to various fluences at different temperatures. A threshold fluence was observed above which the rate of formation and growth of helium bubbles dramatically increased. Irradiation at higher temperature could suppress the formation and growth of HenVm clusters with low binding energies and enhance that of helium bubbles and HenVm clusters with high binding energies. Different changes of S parameters were observed in various depth after the irradiation temperature was increased from 523 K to 723 K. Irradiation of 18 keV-He+ enhanced the growth of HenVm clusters and helium bubbles compared with 100 keV-He+ irradiation. A possible mechanism is discussed.

For the first time to our knowledge, positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) was used to study vacancy defects in KTiOPO4 (KTP) single crystals. Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy combined with dielectric measurements identified the existence of oxygen vacancies and reflected the concentration of vacancy defects in three samples. The vacancy defects in KTP do not consist of monovacancies, but rather vacancy complexes. Doppler broadening indicates that the vacancy defects are distributed uniformly. A relationship is established where a crystal with a low oxygen vacancy concentration and a highly balanced stoichiometry has a higher resistance to gray track formation.