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Self-healing nanomaterials that can be used in optoelectronic wafers and various digital devices are being explored on Technion.
From Terminator to Spider-Man’s swimsuit, robots and self-healing devices abound in sci-fi motion pictures. In practice, though, put and effectively scale down digital gadgets until they should be changed. Can your cell phone’s cracked screen heal itself in a day, or can the photovoltaic panels powering satellites regularly repair the damage caused by micrometeorites?
The range of self-healing supplies is growing rapidly and what is science fiction can quickly become a reality, led by Technion scientists – Israel’s Institute of Know-how, who developed semiconductors eco-friendly nanocrystals can self-heal. Their findings, published not long ago in the journal Superior Practical Materials, describe a method by which a carrier known as double perovskite shows self-healing properties after being disrupted by electron beam radiation. Perovskites, first discovered in 1839, have not long ago attracted the attention of scientists as a consequence of their special electro-optical properties that make them extremely eco-friendly. market in converting electricity, regardless of cheap production. A special effort has been put into using lead-based perovskite in extremely eco-friendly photovoltaic cells.
Professor Yehonadav Bekenstein’s Technion analysis team from the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the Strong-State Institute for Technion is looking for inexperienced alternatives to toxic and engineered lead-free perovskites. Crew specializes in the synthesis of nanoscale crystals of recent supplies. By controlling the composition, form and size of the crystals, they alter the physical properties of the fabric.
Nanocrystals are the smallest particles of material that are naturally stable. Their size ensures clearer properties and enables analytical methods that would otherwise be unthinkable on larger crystals, comparable to images using an electron microscope to view. the way the atoms inside the supply transfer. In fact, this is the tactic that has allowed self-repair to be invented in lead-free perovskites.
Perovskite nanoparticles have been produced in Professor Bekenstein’s lab using a brief, easy process that involves heating the fabric to 100°C for a few minutes. When Ph.D. University students Sasha Khalfin and Noam Veber examined the particles with a transmission electron microscope, and they discovered a thrilling phenomenon. The excessive voltage electron beam used by the microscope precipitated errors and holes in the nanocrystals. The researchers were then in a position to discover how these holes work together with the fabric that surrounds them and transfer and rework inside it.
They found that the holes moved freely inside the nanocrystal, but deflected its edges. The researchers have developed a code that analyzes dozens of films made using electron microscopy to capture the motion dynamics within the crystal. They found that holes form in the floor of the nanoparticles, which then migrate to energetically stable regions within. The rationale for the inward motion of the holes is hypothesized to be due to molecules naturally coating the nanocrystal layer. Immediately after these natural molecules were removed, the team found the crystal spontaneously pushed the holes into the floor and out, back to its true pristine structure – in other words, the shell self-repairing. .
This discovery is an important step in understanding the processes that allow perovskite nanoparticles to heal themselves, and paves the way for their incorporation in photovoltaic panels and various digital devices.
Reference: “Self-treatment of crystal holes in double Perovskite nanocrystals associated with cascade passivation” by Sasha Khalfin, Noam Veber, Shaked Dror, Reut Shechter, Saar Shaek, Shai Levy, Yaron Kauffmann , Leonid Klinger, Eugen Rabkin and Yehonadav Bekenstein, December 23, 2021, Advanced Practice Supplies.
DOI: 10.1002 / adfm.202110421
Professor Yehonadav Bekenstein completed his degrees in Physics and Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Under the Postdoctoral Fellowship about California College, Berkeley, he joined Technion college in 2018. He has received a number of awards, along with the Käte and Franz Wiener Prizes (Glorious Doctoral Thesis Award), Rothschild Scholarships for Postdoctoral Students and the Alon Scholarship for the Integration of the School of Excellence. In 2020, he was awarded the ERC Start-up Grant for scientists entering the profession.
