Hydration significantly boosts ion conductivity in Ba₇Nb₄MoO₂₀, a promising ceramic electrolyte candidate for low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells. But its origin and mobile ionic species were unresolved issues. Researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo found that exposure to water vapor enhances oxide-ion mobility by increasing interstitial oxygen ions, nearly doubling the oxide-ion conductivity at 500 °C. The findings of this study could advance the development of efficient and durable fuel cells for clean energy applications.   

Anomalies in temperature and salinity that originate in the midlatitude North Atlantic can affect the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the Nordic Seas up to a decade later. The study published in Nature’s journal Communications Earth & Environment shows that the anomalies that travel northward with the Atlantic Water are an important part of the system, and actively modulate both the inflow of warm water into the Nordic Seas and the overflow of dense water back into the deep Atlantic.

In a paper published in Earth and Planetary Physics, a team of scientists from China presents a novel technique that can invert the parameters of a dipolar magnetic field, such as the geomagnetic field, based on a sampled magnetic field dataset.  

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA  Physics,Mechanics & Astronomy, researchers discovered that the long sought cubic polymeric nitrogen was synthesized using lithium azide as a precursor. The work achieves the quantitative synthesis of cg-N with a higher mass content at near ambient pressure, owing to the inclusion of the lightest metal, lithium in the product. With respect to the fact that lithium has excellent ignition performance, the approach is promising for applications of polymeric nitrogen as a high energy density material.

Researchers at EPFL and Harvard University have engineered a chip that can convert between electromagnetic pulses in the terahertz and optical ranges on the same device. Their integrated design could enable the development of devices for ultrafast telecommunications, ranging, spectroscopy, and computing.

Achieving high specific detectivity at room-temperature, comparable to background-limited mid-infrared (MIR) performance, has been a longstanding challenge in the MIR optoelectronics. Towards this goal, scientist in Singapore designed a bipolar-barrier tunnel heterostructure, which effectively suppresses dark current while facilitating the tunneling of photogenerated carriers, enabling high-sensitivity mid-infrared photodetection. The design will open new avenues for advancement of next-generation infrared optoelectronic devices.

In this review, we first introduce the fundamentals of OLEDs, including their working mechanisms, materials and device structures. We then summarise the applications of fibre-shaped and planar OLEDs in applications of wearable displays, photo-sensing and photomedicine. Finally, we discuss the challenges and future opportunities for developing high-performance wearable electronic devices based on OLEDs.