X-ray detectors play a pivotal role in development and advancement of humankind, from far-reaching impact in medicine to furthering the ability to observe distant objects in outer space. While other electronics show the ability to adapt to flexible and lightweight formats, state-of-the-art X-ray detectors rely on materials requiring bulky and fragile configurations, severely limiting their applications. Lead halide perovskites is one of the most rapidly advancing novel materials with success in the field of semiconductor devices. Here, an ultraflexible, lightweight, and highly conformable passively operated thin film perovskite X-ray detector with a sensitivity as high as 9.3 ± 0.5 µC Gy-1 cm-2 at 0 V and a remarkably low limit of detection of 0.58 ± 0.05 μGy s-1 is presented. Various electron and hole transporting layers accessing their individual impact on the detector performance are evaluated. Moreover, it is shown that this ultrathin form-factor allows for fabrication of devices detecting X-rays equivalently from front and back side.A record high zT of 2.2 at 740 K is reported in Ge0.92Sb0.08Te single crystals, with an optimal hole carrier concentration ≈4 × 1020 cm-3 that simultaneously maximizes the power factor (PF) ≈56 µW cm-1 K-2 and minimizes the thermal conductivity ≈1.9 Wm-1 K-1. In addition to the presence of herringbone domains and stacking faults, the Ge0.92Sb0.08Te exhibits significant modification to phonon dispersion with an extra phonon excitation around ≈5-6 meV at Γ point of the Brillouin zone as confirmed through inelastic neutron scattering (INS) measurements. Density functional theory (DFT) confirmed this phonon excitation, and predicted another higher energy phonon excitation ≈12-13 meV at W point. These phonon excitations collectively increase the number of phonon decay channels leading to softening of phonon frequencies such that a three-phonon process is dominant in Ge0.92Sb0.08Te, in contrast to a dominant four-phonon process in pristine GeTe, highlighting the importance of phonon engineering approaches to improving thermoelectric (TE) performance.Tailoring the organic spacing cations enables developing new Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) perovskites with tunable optoelectronic properties and superior stabilities. However, the formation of highly crystallized RP perovskites can be hindered when the structure of organic cations become complex. Strategies to regulate crystal growing process and grains quality remain to be explored. In this study, mixing Rb+ ions in precursor solution is reported to significantly promote the crystallinity of phenylethylammonium (PEA+) based RP perovskites without impacting on the major orientation of perovskite grains, which leads to increased power conversion efficiencies from 12.5% to 14.6%. It is found that the added Rb+ ions prefer to accumulate at crystal growing front and form Rb+ ions-rich region, which functions as mild crystal growth inhibitor to retard the absorption and diffusion of organic cations at growing front and hence regulates crystal growing rate. The retarded crystal growth benefits PEA-based RP perovskite films with elevated crystal qualities and prolonged carrier recombination lifetimes. Similar increased crystallinity and photovoltaic performance are achieved in other RP perovskites with non-linear organic cations such as phenylmethylammonium (PMA+), 1-(2-naphthyl)-methanammoniun (NMA+) by adding Rb+ ions, demonstrating using a small amount of growth inhibitor as a general route to regulate crystal growth.The structuring of the metal-organic framework material ZIF-8 as films and membranes through the vapor-phase conversion of ZnO fractal nanoparticle networks is reported. The extrinsic porosity of the resulting materials can be tuned from 4% to 66%, and the film thickness can be controlled from 80 nm to 0.23 mm, for areas >100 cm2. Freestanding and pure metal-organic frameworks (MOF) membranes prepared this way are showcased as separators that minimize capacity fading in model Li-S batteries.COVID-19, also known as SARS-CoV-2, is a coronavirus that is highly pathogenic and virulent.  https://www.selleckchem.com/ATM.html  It spreads very quickly through close contact, and so in response to growing numbers of cases, many countries have imposed lockdown measures to slow its spread around the globe. The purpose of a lockdown is to reduce reproduction, that is, the number of people each confirmed case infects. Lockdown measures have worked to varying extents but they come with a massive price. Nearly every individual, community, business, and economy has been affected. In this paper, switching strategies that take into account the total "cost" borne by a community in response to COVID-19 are proposed. The proposed cost function takes into account the health and well-being of the population, as well as the economic impact due to the lockdown. The model allows for a comparative study to investigate the effectiveness of various COVID-19 suppression strategies. It reveals that both the strategy to implement a lockdown and the strategy to maintain an open community are individually losing in terms of the total "cost" per day. However, switching between these two strategies in a certain manner can paradoxically lead to a winning outcome-a phenomenon attributed to Parrondo's paradox.Plasmonics have been well investigated on photodetectors, particularly in IR and visible regimes. However, for a wide range of ultraviolet (UV) applications, plasmonics remain unavailable mainly because of the constrained optical properties of applicable plasmonic materials in the UV regime. Therefore, an epitaxial single-crystalline aluminum (Al) film, an abundant metal with high plasma frequency and low intrinsic loss is fabricated, on a wide bandgap semiconductive gallium nitride (GaN) to form a UV photodetector. By deliberately designing a periodic nanohole array in this Al film, localized surface plasmon resonance and extraordinary transmission are enabled; hence, the maximum responsivity (670 A W-1) and highest detectivity (1.48 × 1015 cm Hz1/2 W-1) is obtained at the resonance wavelength of 355 nm. In addition, owing to coupling among nanoholes, the bandwidth expands substantially, encompassing the entire UV range. Finally, a Schottky contact is formed between the single-crystalline Al nanohole array and the GaN substrate, resulting in a fast temporal response with a rise time of 51 ms and a fall time of 197 ms.