Grain

Summary

A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes. After being harvested, dry grains are more durable than other staple foods, such as starchy fruits (plantains, breadfruit, etc.) and tubers (sweet potatoes, cassava, and more). This durability has made grains well suited to industrial agriculture, since they can be mechanically harvested, transported by rail or ship, stored for long periods in silos, and milled for flour or pressed for oil. Thus, the grain market is a major global commodity market that includes crops such as maize, rice, soybeans, wheat and other grains. Grains and cereal Grains and cereal are synonymous with caryopses, the fruits of the grass family. In agronomy and commerce, seeds or fruits from other plant families are called grains if they resemble caryopses.

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain

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Highly efficient, stable and hysteresis-less planar perovskite solar cell based on chemical bath treated Zn2SnO4 electron transport layer

Seckin Akin, Michael Graetzel, Ulf Anders Hagfeldt, Marco Alejandro Ruiz Preciado, Faranak Sadegh, Mohammad Mahdi Tavakoli, Wolfgang Richard Tress, Zaiwei Wang

The electron transport layer (ETL) is a key constituent in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). It should provide efficient and selective electron extraction, low resistivity and high stability. Here, zinc stannate (Zn2SnO4, ZSO) is employed as an ETL in planar PSCs. A surface treatment of a compact ZSO layer is introduced based on chemical bath deposition (CBD). CBD results in a dense and uniform surface morphology that promotes the formation of a perovskite film with better surface coverage and enlarged grains, which lead to reduced recombination losses. Such improvements effectively increase the charge extraction at ETL/perovskite interface and reduce trapassisted recombination, which results in a remarkable photovoltaic performance, low hysteresis index, and good reproducibility. The efficiency of PSCs based on CBD-modified ZSO ETL has been dramatically increased from 19.3% to 21.3% with a notable increase in open circuit voltage of 60 mV compared to bare ZSO-based devices. This value is among the highest for ZSO-based PSCs. More importantly, the CBD-treated PSCs exhibited good stability, retaining more than 90% of its initial efficiency over 1000 h under continuous illumination at maximum power point. These results demonstrate that CBD can significantly improve the performance and stability of ZSO-based planar PSCs, a crucial requirement for commercialization.

ELSEVIER2020

Zinc blende-wurtzite polytypism in nanocrystalline ZnO films

Arthur Brian Aebersold, Duncan Alexander, Christophe Ballif, Lorenzo Fanni, Cécile Hébert, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Sylvain Nicolay

ZnO is commonly observed and assumed to crystallize fully in a wurtzite structure. Indeed, While polytypism between a wurtzite and a zinc blende phase is often seen in some II-VI compounds, it has only rarely been observed in ZnO. Here, by means of automated crystal orientation mapping and high resolution imaging in transmission electron microscopy, we identify nanometer-sized regions of zinc blende forming during the growth of compact nanocrystalline metal organic chemical vapor deposited ZnO films. We analyze a c-fiber-textured wurtzite ZnO film, where the columnar grain growth, typical for polycrystalline films, is interrupted by the formation of these zinc blende regions. These regions in turn provide surfaces for the heteroepitaxial renucleation of newly oriented wurtzite grains. In contrast to the columnar grains, which grow fastest along their c-axis, these new grains are identified to grow fastest along their basal plane. By means of convergent beam electron diffraction, we show that this difference in fast growth direction relates to the polarity of exposed facets. A growth model is proposed, showing how this polytypism affects the microstructure evolution of the film in ways that were not predicted by existing film growth models. (C) 2017 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2017

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We investigate the structural evolution of polycrystalline zinc oxide films grown by low pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. The goal is to achieve larger grains-leading to higher charge carrier mobility from lower grain boundary density-by controlling the grain orientation during growth. The results are 2-fold. First we describe how the combination of deposition temperature and gas flow influences the nucleation and film thickening stages: low temperature and high gas flow favor a high nucleation density and the development of c-textured films, whereas high temperature and low gas flow lead to a lower nucleation density and a-textured films. Second we demonstrate how a fine control of the film preferential orientation at the different growth stages allows the fabrication of films with grains that are 25% larger, hence improving the carrier mobility with respect to the reference film.

American Chemical Society2015