Intrinsic Energy Loss Research Articles

Electrochemical Nitrogen Reduction: The Energetic Distance to Lithium.

Energy-efficient electrochemical reduction of nitrogen to ammonia could help in mitigating climate change. Today, only Li- and recently Ca-mediated systems can perform the reaction. These materials have a large intrinsic energy loss due to the need to electroplate the metal. In this work, we present a series of calculated energetics, formation energies, and binding energies as fundamental features to calculate the energetic distance between Li and Ca and potential new electrochemical nitrogen reduction systems. The featured energetic distance increases with the standard potential. However, dimensionality reduction using principal component analysis provides an encouraging picture; Li and Ca are not exceptional in this feature space, and other materials should be able to carry out the reaction. However, it becomes more challenging the more positive the plating potential is.

Searching for the Rules of Electrochemical Nitrogen Fixation.

Li-mediated ammonia synthesis is, thus far, the only electrochemical method for heterogeneous decentralized ammonia production. The unique selectivity of the solid electrode provides an alternative to one of the largest heterogeneous thermal catalytic processes. However, it is burdened with intrinsic energy losses, operating at a Li plating potential. In this work, we survey the periodic table to understand the fundamental features that make Li stand out. Through density functional theory calculations and experimentation on chemistries analogous to lithium (e.g., Na, Mg, Ca), we find that lithium is unique in several ways. It combines a stable nitride that readily decomposes to ammonia with an ideal solid electrolyte interphase, balancing reagents at the reactive interface. We propose descriptors based on simulated formation and binding energies of key intermediates and further on hard and soft acids and bases (HSAB principle) to generalize such features. The survey will help the community toward electrochemical systems beyond Li for nitrogen fixation.

A Size-Dependent Generalized Thermoelasticity Theory for Thermoelastic Damping in Vibrations of Nanobeam Resonators

Thermoelastic damping (TED) has been discerned as a definite source of intrinsic energy loss in miniaturized mechanical elements. The size-dependent structural and thermal behavior of these small-sized structures has been proven through experimental observations. As a first attempt, this article exploits nonlocal strain gradient theory (NSGT) and nonlocal dual-phase-lag (NDPL) heat conduction model simultaneously to acquire a mathematical formulation and analytical solution for TED in nanobeams that can accommodate size effect into both structural and heat transfer fields. For this purpose, the coupled equations of motion and heat conduction are firstly extracted via NSGT and NDPL model. Next, by deriving the distribution of temperature from heat conduction equation and substituting it in the motion equation, the unconventional thermoelastic frequency equation is established. By deriving the real and imaginary parts of the frequency from this equation and employing the definition of quality factor, an explicit solution is given for approximating TED value. The veracity of the proposed model is checked by comparing it with the solutions reported in the literature for specific and simpler cases. A diverse set of numerical results is then presented to appraise the influence of some factors like structural and thermal nonlocal parameters, strain gradient length scale parameter, geometrical parameters, mode number and material on the amount of TED. According to the results, use of NDPL model yields a smaller value for TED than DPL model, but prediction of NSGT about the magnitude of TED, in addition to the relative amounts of its two scale parameters, strongly depend on other factors such as aspect ratio, vibration mode and material type.

Decoupled Water Splitting for Green Hydrogen Production: Reshaping Water Electrolysis

Green hydrogen production at scale is essential to fight global warming and climate change. The present water electrolysis technologies present significant barriers to meet this challenge, due to high system and operational costs that emerge from the need to divide each cell into gas-tight cathodic and anodic compartments to avoid mixing hydrogen with oxygen, and from intrinsic energy losses in the complex oxygen evolution reaction. Recent efforts to overcome these barriers include transformative approaches to decouple the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions using soluble redox couples or solid redox electrodes that mediate the ion exchange between the primary electrodes such that hydrogen and oxygen are generated at different times and/or different cells. This leads the way to membraneless electrolyzer architectures that can enhance safety, reduce system costs, and provide operational advantages such as high-pressure hydrogen production. In particular, E-TAC water slitting offers these advantages as well as ultrahigh efficiency and compact design of rolled electrode assemblies, opening new frontiers for advanced water electrolysis.

Thermoelastic damping in rectangular micro/nanoplate resonators by considering three-dimensional heat conduction and modified couple stress theory

Thermoelastic damping (TED) has been confirmed as an intrinsic energy loss and determines the upper limit of the quality factor of micro/nanoelectromechanical system (M/NEMS) resonators. A framework for determining the TED in the full clamped (C-C-C-C), clamped-free-clamped-free (C-F-C-F), and cantilever (C-F-F-F) rectangular microplate resonators operating in the fundamental mode by considering three-dimensional heat conduction in conjunction with modified couple stress theory (MCST) is proposed in this article. Then by using Rayleigh’s method, three analytical models expressed by Fourier series for TED are derived, respectively. The difference between the present TED model and the previous one-dimensional (1-D) MCST model and 3-D classical model are comprehensively investigated. The comparison results indicate that the size effect on TED decreases to be ignorable as the thickness increases to h/l ≥ 50. In the case of h/l ≤ 50, the size effect cannot be ignored. The corresponding critical thicknesses for TED peaks are independent of the size effect. TED behaviors vary significantly under different structural support types.

Temperature-Dependent Ultrafast Response and π-Plasmon Dynamics in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes.

Temperature-dependent femtosecond time-resolved carrier relaxation dynamics has been studied in thin films of single-walled carbon nanotubes. An early time evolution of the photoexcited relaxation shows evidence of superimposed transient bleaching and induced photo absorption of almost similar strengths, whereas at longer times it is governed by slow recovery of long-lived dark excitons. After about 3 ps, the signal is dictated by the slowest negative relaxation component attributed to the low-energy π-plasmons. An absorption trough near 500 fs in the ultrafast response evolves with the increasing sample temperature. This particular feature is masked by the reduced induced transmission at room temperature and above. We have estimated the electron-phonon coupling constant to be ∼0.86 from the linear temperature dependence of the slow relaxation time constant. More such studies can help advance the understanding of the intrinsic charge and energy loss mechanisms to improve the efficiency of the optoelectronic devices based on them.

Analysis of Intrinsic Switching Losses in Superjunction MOSFETs Under Zero Voltage Switching

Switching losses of power transistors usually are the most relevant energy losses in high-frequency power converters. Soft-switching techniques allow a reduction of these losses, but even under soft-switching conditions, these losses can be significant, especially at light load and very high switching frequency. In this paper, hysteresis and energy losses are shown during the charge and discharge of the output capacitance (COSS) of commercial high voltage Superjunction MOSFETs. Moreover, a simple methodology to include information about these two phenomena in datasheets using a commercial system is suggested to manufacturers. Simulation models including COSS hysteresis and a figure of merit considering these intrinsic energy losses are also proposed. Simulation and experimental measurements using an LLC resonant converter have been performed to validate the proposed mechanism and the usefulness of the proposed simulation models.

Dynamics anisotropy in a porous solid with aligned slit fractures

Crustal rocks are commonly permeated by aligned fractures which may control the wave anisotropy and permeability pattern. In the presence of pore fluid the mechanical and hydraulic features of such rocks become more complex. Understanding the dynamic anisotropy in fluid-saturated fractured rocks is important for detecting and characterizing fractured reservoirs and fault zones with applications in geomechanics, hydrogeology, exploration geophysics and reservoir engineering. For waves propagating normal to the fractures, the effects of wave-induced fluid flow (WIFF) due to the presence of permeable fractures on seismic dispersion and attenuation are significant and have been quantified in earlier studies. But previous literatures are restricted to low frequency range within which the fracture size is much smaller than the incident wavelength. In this paper, we extend low-frequency normal incidence results to full-frequency oblique incidence. We first derive exact solutions of the scattering problem of obliquely incident plane waves by a single slit fracture in a poroelastic solid. Based on previous analysis, for ideal fractures with infinitesimal thickness, the fracture fluid can be modelled as an incompressible one. Then, based on the solutions and Foldy's scattering theorem we develop a dynamic-effective-medium model to estimate frequency-dependent anisotropy of wave propagation in a fluid-saturated poroelastic rock with a sparse set of aligned fractures. We find that for the oblique incidence problem apart from WIFF there exist another two important attenuation mechanisms, i.e., the elastic scattering (scattering into fast P and S waves via mode conversion at the fracture faces) and Biot's global flow, in causing velocity dispersion and attenuation. The mixed-boundary problem reveals that the WIFF is controlled by the normal displacement discontinuity that is determined by effective normal stress applied on the fracture faces, while the scattering effects by the tangential displacement discontinuity that is determined by effective shear stress. Because the effective normal and shear stresses depends on incident angles and frequency, the dispersion and attenuation of both P and S waves are anisotropic and frequency-dependent. In contrast, Biot's global flow is an intrinsic energy loss mechanism that can play a role in causing velocity dispersion and attenuation at higher frequency range but it is independent of the presence of fractures or incident angle.

Thermally induced monochromatic microwave generation in magnon polaritons

We propose thermal induced generation of monochromatic microwave radiation in magnon-polariton. Mechanism of thermal to microwave energy transformation is based on intrinsic energy loss compensation of coupled magnon and microwave cavity oscillators by thermal induced "negative damping". A singularity at an exceptional point is achieved when at the critical value of "negative damping" the damping of the system is fully compensated. At the exceptional point, the input energy is equally distributed between the magnon and photon subsystems of the magnon-polariton. The efficiency of transformation of thermal energy into useful microwave radiation is estimated to be as large as 17 percent due to magnon-photon coupling mediated direct conversation of spin current into microwave photons.

Comprehensive analysis of the performance and intrinsic energy losses of centralized Domestic Hot Water (DHW) systems in commercial (educational) buildings

The energy demand for supplying Domestic Hot Water (DHW) has an important share in the overall thermal energy consumption of commercial buildings. The aim of this paper is to analyze the performance of DHW production in commercial public service, i.e., educational buildings, to subsequently identify frequent inherent shortcomings of centralised DHW installations and to provide measures for optimization or economically more viable solutions. Several buildings of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna have been investigated in terms of DHW consumption and performance of the installed centralised systems.Referring to the investigated university buildings, it can be stated, that in cases of low to medium consumption figures, typical centralized DHW installations with a hot water circulation pipework achieve only poor efficiencies in the range of 2–12%. As for one particular centralized DHW system in operation, focusing on demand controlled DHW supply through adapted flow control, e.g., reducing the runtime of the circulating pumps at specific time intervals, and, if applicable and feasible, decreasing hot water flow- and storage capacities can reduce annual energy consumption for DHW by 15–25% and improve the overall system efficiency significantly as could be evaluated in a detailed case study.A seemingly economical yet ecologically controversial option for improving centralised DHW systems is the partial or complete conversion to electric point-of-use water heaters. This reduces thermal energy losses almost completely, hereby significantly increasing the efficiency of a DHW supply system. Nevertheless, existing hot water supply systems, energized by district heating, usually consume less primary energy and most likely generate fewer CO2 emissions compared to electric DHW heaters.

Phase-Shifted Based Numerical Method for Modeling Frequency-Dependent Effects on Seismic Reflections

The significant velocity dispersion and attenuation has often been observed when seismic waves propagate in fluid-saturated porous rocks. Both the magnitude and variation features of the velocity dispersion and attenuation are frequency-dependent and related closely to the physical properties of the fluid-saturated porous rocks. To explore the effects of frequency-dependent dispersion and attenuation on the seismic responses, in this work, we present a numerical method for seismic data modeling based on the diffusive and viscous wave equation (DVWE), which introduces the poroelastic theory and takes into account diffusive and viscous attenuation in diffusive-viscous-theory. We derive a phase-shift wave extrapolation algorithm in frequencywavenumber domain for implementing the DVWE-based simulation method that can handle the simultaneous lateral variations in velocity, diffusive coefficient and viscosity. Then, we design a distributary channels model in which a hydrocarbon-saturated sand reservoir is embedded in one of the channels. Next, we calculated the synthetic seismic data to analytically and comparatively illustrate the seismic frequency-dependent behaviors related to the hydrocarbon-saturated reservoir, by employing DVWE-based and conventional acoustic wave equation (AWE) based method, respectively. The results of the synthetic seismic data delineate the intrinsic energy loss, phase delay, lower instantaneous dominant frequency and narrower bandwidth due to the frequency-dependent dispersion and attenuation when seismic wave travels through the hydrocarbon-saturated reservoir. The numerical modeling method is expected to contribute to improve the understanding of the features and mechanism of the seismic frequency-dependent effects resulted from the hydrocarbon-saturated porous rocks.

Time-dependent many-body treatment of electron-boson dynamics: Application to plasmon-accompanied photoemission

Recent experiments access the time-resolved photoelectron signal originating from plasmon satellites in correlated materials and address their build-up and decay in real time. Motivated by these developments, we present the Kadanoff-Baym formalism for the nonequilibrium time evolution of interacting fermions and bosons. In contrast to the fermionic case the bosons are described by second-order differential equations. Solution of the bosonic Kadanoff-Baym equations - which is the central ingredient of this work - requires substantial modification of the usual two-times electronic propagation scheme. The solution is quite general and can be applied to a number of problems, such as the interaction of electrons with quantized photons, phonons and other bosonic excitations. Here, the formalism is applied to the photoemission from a deep core hole accompanied by plasmon excitation. We compute the time-resolved photoelectron spectra and discuss the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic electron energy losses and their interference.

Intrinsic excitation effect for the Al and Mg samples XPS analysis

DIIMFP extraction method based on the numerical solution of electron scattering is presented. DIIMFP data extracted from Reflected Electron Energy Loss Spectra (REELS) is used for Photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) calculations. Experimental data can be described accurately without any intrinsic excitation effect. Authors propose that intrinsic energy losses were introduced to face inaccuracies due to inadequate description of electron energy loss process.

Piezoelectric effect on the intrinsic dissipation in oscillating gallium nitride nanobelts

The intrinsic dissipation in oscillating gallium nitride (GaN) nanobelts subject to an electric field has been examined using molecular-dynamics simulations. Owing to the piezoelectric effect of GaN nanobelts, their quality factor is greatly influenced by the electric field and can be improved by over 10 times across a range of electric-field strengths. In addition, the temperature dependence of the quality factor is also significantly affected by the applied electric field. Some possible explanations as to how the piezoelectric effect influences the intrinsic energy loss are proposed based on the classical thermoelastic dissipation theory.

Detailed balance limit of power conversion efficiency for organic photovoltaics

A fundamental difference between inorganic photovoltaic (IPV) and organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells is that charges are generated at the interface in OPV cells, while free charges can be generated in the bulk in IPV cells. In OPV cells, charge generation involves intrinsic energy losses to dissociate excitons at the interface between the donor and acceptor. By taking into account the energy losses, we show the theoretical limits of the power conversion efficiency set by radiative recombination of the carriers on the basis of the detailed balance relation between radiation from the cell and black-body radiation.

Tsunami Coda across the Pacific Ocean Following the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake

Abstract A tsunami coda lasting more than 5 days was clearly recorded across the Pacific Ocean following the 2011 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake. We found that the coda energy per unit area (elapsed time of 60–96 hr from the earthquake origin time) does not show a systematic variation with respect to the travel distance at the stations located at sea depths deeper than 2000 m, whereas the maximum amplitude near the source is significantly larger than those of the far‐field stations. This feature is similar to that of a seismic coda in the sense that the coda energy is distributed uniformly in space. The average tsunami coda decays with a decay time of ∼24 hr. When we carefully examined the tsunami waveform near Japan, a large‐amplitude wave was identified at an elapsed time of ∼48 hr, which corresponds to the round‐trip travel time for waves reflected from Chile. To investigate the excitation mechanisms of the tsunami coda, we conducted a tsunami simulation using a global model. Although linear long‐wave tsunami equations were found to overestimate the observed coda amplitude, the equations including an intrinsic energy loss could successfully simulate the observed coda decay if a bottom friction coefficient of 10 −5 was assumed. This indicates that not only wave scattering but also intrinsic energy loss plays an important role in the tsunami coda excitation and decay process.

한반도 남부에서의 지진파 감쇠: 고유감쇠와 산란감쇠의 분리

The attenuation mechanism of seismic waves in the crust is controlled both by intrinsic absorption and scattering of energy. The amount of scattering and intrinsic energy losses from the total attenuation is separately estimated in this study for the southern Korean Peninsula. The formula to be deduced from the theoretical relationship between single back-scattered coda Q and multiple scattering theory was used to separate the total attenuation into the intrinsic Q and the scattering Q. It was found that the intrinsic Q was considerably lower than that of the scattering Q in the frequency range of 1.5 to 20 Hz. This fact implies that the energy loss caused by the intrinsic absorption is relatively larger than one by the scattering effect within the crust of the southern Korean Peninsula. Both intrinsic and scattering Q values appeared to be comparatively larger than those measured in other seismically active regions except for intrinsic Q in the frequency range of 1.5 to 3 Hz.

Predictive modeling of thermoelastic energy dissipation in tunable MEMS mirrors

The design of microstructures with a high quality factor Q value is of significant importance in many microelectromechanical sys- tem MEMS applications. Thermoelastic damping can cause an intrinsic energy loss that affects the Q value of high-frequency resonance in those devices such as MEMS mirrors. We deal with the simulation and analysis of thermoelastic damping of MEMS mirrors based on the finite element method. Four designs of MEMS mirrors with different geometric shapes are studied. In each model, the dynamic responses of the sys- tem subjected to thermoelastic damping are compared to those of the undamped modes. Then we present a systematic parametric study on both the resonant frequency and the Q value as functions of various representative parameters. These results are useful for early prediction of thermoelastic energy loss, not only restricted to the MEMS mirrors but also applicable in more general MEMS resonators and filters design.

Comparison of intrinsic zero-energy loss and Shirley-type background corrected profiles of XPS spectra for quantitative surface analysis: Study of Cr, Mn and Fe oxides

The intrinsic zero-energy loss profiles of transition metal 2p and 3p XPS spectra for Cr, Mn, and Fe oxides are obtained by spectral deconvolution and compared with Shirley-type background corrected profiles. The metal core level spectra are deconvoluted by O 1s spectra as the response function of each oxide. As the O 1s spectra include intrinsic and extrinsic energy loss parts, the background corrected core level spectra are zero-energy loss spectra. The good agreement of the deconvoluted spectra with the reported spectra obtained by the many body effect theory indicates that the background subtraction method is accurate. A comparison of the deconvoluted with the background corrected spectra of the Shirely-type subtraction reveals that almost all the spectra coincide with each other except for Fe 3p with α-Fe 2O 3. The good coincidence of the Shirley-type corrected spectra with the deconvoluted and calculated spectra indicates that Shirley-type background correction can be used for daily quantitative surface analysis.

High Quality Factor Silicon Cantilever Transduced by Piezoelectric Lead Zirconate Titanate Film for Mass Sensing Applications

In this paper, we present a single-crystal silicon cantilever integrated with piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate (PZT) film as both an actuator and a sensor for resonant-based mass sensing applications. The pattern size of the PZT film was restricted to the fixed end of the cantilever to suppress intrinsic energy loss from the PZT film and multi layered structure. The energy dissipation mechanism of the cantilever was discussed. The mechanical quality factor (Q-factor) and sensitivity dependence on the cantilever's geometry were investigated. It was found that the Q-factor and sensitivity of the cantilever can be markedly improved by partially covering the cantilever with the PZT film. Under atmospheric pressure, excellent Q-factor of 808 was achieved by a 30-µm-wide 100-µm-long cantilever at fundamental resonant mode. Under reduced pressure, the proposed cantilever exhibits Q-factor several times greater than that of our previous reported fully PZT-covered cantilever. Moreover, high-mode vibration was successfully demonstrated using the proposed structure for the pursuit of higher mass-detection sensitivity.