{"title":"Halide perovskite photovoltaics","authors":"S. Stranks","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2230698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2230698","url":null,"abstract":"Halide perovskites are a new class of materials that can be processed at low cost yet exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties – a combination rarely seen in semiconductors. This review highlights their exciting promise for inexpensive and efficient solar photovoltaic technologies. The work details the rapid progress in efficiency of solar cells – with efficiencies already rivalling commercial leading technologies such as silicon – and describes the physics of the materials and devices that lend themselves to photovoltaic applications. This work also describes the challenges to realise their true potential as disruptive photovoltaic technologies that could play a key role in decarbonisation in the coming decades, including stabilising long-term operation and furthering understanding of this fascinating class of semiconducting materials.","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"126 1 1","pages":"280 - 304"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84000922","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Flexible supercapacitors: materials and applications","authors":"Vladimir N. Pokrovskii, Jack Reid","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2203117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2203117","url":null,"abstract":"In his monograph, Pokrovskii gives an introduction to thermodynamics and the methods used to treat them, before extending the same approach and philosophy to a number of chemical, biological, and social structures. First, an accessible exposition of rudimentary thermodynamics is given, for those previously less acquainted with them, before proceeding to categorise equilibrium and nonequilibrium states, in dense introductory chapters. Following attention to the concept of the internal variables of a system, Pokrovskii’s contribution clarifies the relation of the several microstates of a system to its global state and equilibrium, demonstrating the power of statisticalmechanics. Entropy, to be understood, requires some consideration, from different perspectives, and thus the treatment that it receives here is beneficial. Alongside the rigorous definition of the concept, it would help to have further expansion upon the intuitive representations of it. Then, the tone shifts from a purely rigorous to a more creative one, and the multifarious applications of the fundamental principles discussed are illustrated, with extensive referencing of several works on the topics, including the author’s own. One standard instance of the statistical mechanical method of averaging over micro-scale phenomena to study global evolution is the well-known set of equations of fluid dynamics, which are usefully derived. Building upon ideas of entropy, complexity, and information, the exposition then turns to how complexity is produced, through the imposition and production of order, such as in manufacturing, and via biological evolution. Towards the end, an insightful link with population dynamics is shown, for those concerned with mathematical biology, leading into an application of thermodynamic ideas to that most curious of creatures, man. In turning towards anthropological structures, in which individuals are all agents contributing to the global system, Pokrovskii stretches thermodynamic concepts to apply to social and economic interactions in a novel and imaginative way, seeking to explain theories of Marx and Weber with the same mode of thinking, although the full formalism cannot be fully carried over to these. For later undergraduate students and researchers in the physical sciences, who are knowledgeable of and interested in thermodynamics, and in the associated description of a complex system through the interaction of its microscopic constituent elements, the book offers good instruction. In order to gain most from the mathematical treatment, readers benefit from knowledge of tensor calculus. For those interested and for more advanced readers, the footnotes provide a guide to more complex ideas, such as aspects of microphysics. Although well structured, some typographical errors affect the text. In parts of the book, some issues of translation and imperfections in the English can impair the readability. Incorporating a table of symbols and a glossary could also","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"97 6 1","pages":"329 - 330"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91114718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discovering the nature of light: the science and the story","authors":"Nicholas Zutt","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2203674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2203674","url":null,"abstract":"This is a rather original and unconventional book, truly different from what one could expect by simply considering the keywords appearing in the title. Remarkably creative and original, with a highly personal style from the author of the book, showing a capacity to find interesting connections following a clear thread stemming from set theory and relating numerous ideas and disciplines in physics and computing with diverse mathematical concepts. Amazingly, its narrative is excellent, allowing the reading of initially abstruse and tedious texts to become an enjoyable experience.A book title can be attractive simply for the keywords it contains. In this case, set theory, physics, and computingmake it tremendously intriguing to try to discoverwhat kind of connections its author has found between the different subjects. The diversity of topics that appear in the book is striking: an introduction to set theory, connections with stability and instability in classical mechanics, as well as chaos theory using set theory and the Cantor set, simple ideas of binary trees to illustrate ideas of hierarchical levels, fractals and dimensions, the laws of thermodynamics, entropy and information, different entropies, probabilities, cosmology, quantum mechanics, quantum statistical mechanics, general relativity, applications in cryptography and codes of error correction, applications in computational biology, quantum computing, Feynman diagrams, applications in C++ program structures, finite elementmethods, etc. Likewise, questions about whether the universe is infinite are raised, finding answers based on ideas from set theory and mathematical logic. The information covered in this book provides a broad and interdisciplinary overview of ideas derived from set theory, offering a rather systematic approach that can be useful for a better understanding of the underlying principles behind a large collection of ideas somehow scattered in the education of a physicist. As what concerns its contents, the book starts providing a basic introduction to set theory, and all kind of sets of numbers, with notions of cardinality and ordinals, finding insights from this perspective into several applications in physics and computer sciences. The author’s background in computing explains the interesting connections appearing with topics such as discrete mathematics, graph theory, binary trees, and combinatorics. He shows a deep background in physics, mathematics, and computer science, integrating different ideas in a coherent description according to a plan described previously in the contents. In addition, he has made a great effort as a sort of reflection aloud, in explaining with words in a rather informalway deep ideas ofmathematical physics. From this point of view, the number of mathematical formulas and graphs is not as excessive as it could be. The book is written in such a manner that all necessary information could be eventually found in the monograph, so that it can be ","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"89 1","pages":"334 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74455062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Set theory and its applications in physics and computing","authors":"M. Sanjuán","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2203673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2203673","url":null,"abstract":"For instance, the lattice is only a mathematical device, not to be confused with the real crystal structure. Or, further on, the restrictions on the lattice parameters are a consequence of symmetry, while the opposite is not necessarily true. Or, yet again, trigonal refers to a crystal system, not to a lattice system, etc. Overall the book is authoritative, but not pedantic. The typical error made by scholars is to forget how to address the undergraduate student. This instead is a thoroughly didactic book, written with the student’s need in mind, yet containing the know-how and the experience of someone working for long time in the field. In addition, this is a richly illustrated work, with a detailed series of appendices, useful also to the practising researcher and to those needing a systematic overview. To conclude, the author’s passion for crystallography shines throughout the book and evenmore so when reading that “the International Tables for Crystallography, vol. A is one of the most outstanding books produced in the 20th21st centuries”! Such enthusiasm for the subject is highly contagious and it should make this brief journey into reciprocal space a pleasant and rewarding experience also for the reader.","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"29 1","pages":"333 - 334"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83993555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Advice to a lecturer","authors":"C. Quigg","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2202498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2202498","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A public lecture is a performance, and it is also an invitation to conversation. A lively conversation – especially when one person does most of the talking – requires that the speaker have something to say. A memorable performance requires assiduous preparation. I touch on a number of important elements: preparing the scene and eliminating barriers between you and the audience … engaging your listeners with a narrative arc … the uses of the minute particular … tension and resolution, surprise and drama … experiments and demonstrations, specimens and souvenirs … showing yourself, and your passion.","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"21 1","pages":"233 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89254330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cosmic analogies: How natural systems emulate the universe","authors":"Nicholas Zutt","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2022.2157886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2022.2157886","url":null,"abstract":"nanomaterials, and the use of computational modeling to collect microscopic information of nano-oxide materials. The amazing thing revealed in the discussion in each chapter of the book is the discovery of new properties frommetal oxides when they turn into nanomaterials as it changes in properties or unusual crystal structures that produce amazing functions. Synthesized metal oxides sometimes have some drawbacks such as the lack of stability of a material when it undergoes a phase transition. So research emerged that then decided to couple metal oxides with carbon nanotubes (CNT) with a hybrid system design to produce controlled nanostructures. Chapters 7 to 13 also impressed us because they presented various applications of nanomaterials in life, such as for NO (Nitrogen Oxides) removal, air and water cleaning, CO2 reduction, photoelectrochemical fuel production, electrochemical energy storage, and gas-sensing. It reveals that nanomaterial is one of the great discoveries to make this world better. This complete and complex material on the basics of nanomaterials and their applications can be a very useful reading resource for readers. The preface of this book presents us with an overview of the contents of the entire book as well as the key features contained. Hence, readers can easily find out the topic of discussion before reading the entire book. The part that we like about this book is that each chapter always begins with an introduction by mentioning existing phenomena and problems so that readers can find out firsthand the reasons for studying and using nanomaterials. Research from previous to recent research is also explained in each chapter so that readers get clear information about improvements in the synthesis, methods, and application of nanomaterials from time to time. Researchers who are interested in developing it for the better will be able to get a clear picture of the shortcomings of previous research and get an idea of which aspects of this nanomaterial need improvement. We are very impressed with this book because the material is presented in a clear, detailed, and well-structured manner. How each author explains the synthesis, method, and application of nanomaterials is very easy to understand. Each chapter also presents curves, graphs, pictures, and tables that can help readers understand the results of the research that has been done. However, unfortunately, for general readers or non-expert readers, it will be difficult to understand the pictures coupledwith themany terms commonly used in the fields of physics and chemistry. We strongly recommend this book as the best resource for students at the advanced undergraduate and graduate level, specifically in fields related to physics, chemistry, natural science, and environmental development, as well as researchers who have an interest in nanomaterial research, environmental research, chemical-physics, or similar. The authors have successfully presented this comprehensive bo","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"3 1","pages":"244 - 245"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88222862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The brain–bladder axis in tissue growth and remodelling","authors":"Aras Beauty, Afnan Taqiyarrahman","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2022.2154392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2022.2154392","url":null,"abstract":"The title of this book captured my interest immediately and the summary of chapter headings looked very promising. Over the years I have lectured on the applications of nanotechnology and mostly with respect to the impacts on humans in terms of safety, diagnostics and therapy, and one of the surprises for me, has been the relative neglect for the impact on plants. This is compounded by the importance of plants for food and the environment and the fact that plants grow in soils which have a very high percentage ofmicro and nanoparticles, and they contribute to aerosol particles in the air. I have also emphasised to my students that looking for effects of nanoparticles on plant cells does not require the expensive and strict regulatory protocols that are required for animals and humans! Despite all of this, there is a shortage of textbooks to help the interested reader and I hoped that this volume would fill this gap. The book is very nicely produced, and it is readable, with very extensive references for each of the 14 chapters. A descriptive style has been adopted which requires hardly any detailed prior knowledge of physics, chemistry ormathematics. However, herein lies the biggest shortcoming: there is a lack of rigour and also a lack of critical analysis. Of the 14 chapters there is some considerable overlap between them which could have been avoided. There are two on biosensors and that topic is repeated in other chapters. However, the treatment is rather superficial and lacks good explanation of the main science behind the sensor function and measurement. There are three chapters on wastewater treatment using nanomaterials and another two on environmental remediation, all with strong overlaps. There is hardly any quantification as to the valence state of toxic metals and the concentrations that occur, apart from one table which does not employ comparable units. Although they refer to World Health Organisation and the US Environment Protection Agency guidelines, there are no actual references to where these are published. Bionanocomposites are in two main chapters and are referred to elsewhere in the book. The treatment is very descriptive, withmany references, but there is no underlying structure to the presentation.Other chapters cover antimicrobial aspects of metals and their oxides as well as pesticide control, fertilisers and growth enhancement. Opportunities have been missed for discussion as to why some of the nanoparticles show antimicrobial properties. There is a separate chapter on the impact of bionanomaterials on the food industry. This is rather brief and again there is inconsistency in the use of units. Concentrations of analytes vary between grams per litre and molar concentrations and there are no definitive references to the regulations by different agencies. To be fair, much of the book will stimulate interest to those who are very new to the field of nanotechnology. So, what is missing? There is nothing on the aspects of so","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"219 1","pages":"242 - 243"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75755436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Venus, phosphine and the possibility of life","authors":"D. Clements","doi":"10.1080/00107514.2023.2184932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00107514.2023.2184932","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The search for life elsewhere in the universe is one of the central aims of science in the twent-first century. While most of this work is aimed at planets orbiting other stars, the search for life in our own Solar System is an important part of this endeavour. Venus is often thought to have too harsh an environment for life, but it may have been a more hospitable place in the distant past. If life evolved there in the past then the cloud decks of Venus are the only remaining niche where life as we know it might survive today. The discovery of the molecule phosphine, PH , in these clouds has reinvigorated research looking into the possibility of life in the clouds. In this review we examine the background to studies of the possibility of life on Venus, discuss the discovery of phosphine, review conflicting and confirming observations and analyses, and then look forward to future observations and space missions that will hopefully provide definitive answers as to the origin of phosphine on Venus and to the question of whether life might exist there.","PeriodicalId":50620,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Physics","volume":"37 1","pages":"180 - 199"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88866305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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