Increasing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of silicon solar cells by improving their junction properties or minimizing light reflection losses remains a major challenge. Extensive studies were carried out in order to develop an effective antireflection coating for monocrystalline solar cells. Here we report on the preparation of a nanostructured cerium oxide thin film by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) as an antireflection coating for silicon solar cell. The structural, optical, and electrical properties of a cerium oxide nanostructure film are investigated as a function of the number of laser pulses. The X-ray diffraction results reveal that the deposited cerium oxide films are crystalline in nature and have a cubic fluorite. The field

Detection of early clinical keratoconus (KCN) is a challenging task, even for expert clinicians. In this study, we propose a deep learning (DL) model to address this challenge. We first used Xception and InceptionResNetV2 DL architectures to extract features from three different corneal maps collected from 1371 eyes examined in an eye clinic in Egypt. We then fused features using Xception and InceptionResNetV2 to detect subclinical forms of KCN more accurately and robustly. We obtained an area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) of 0.99 and an accuracy range of 97–100% to distinguish normal eyes from eyes with subclinical and established KCN. We further validated the model based on an independent dataset with

Alumina thin films have significant applications in the areas of optoelectronics, optics, electrical insulators, sensors and tribology. The novel aspect of this work is that the homogeneous alumina thin films were prepared in several stages to generate a plasma jet. In this paper, aluminium nanoparticles suspended in vinyl alcohol were prepared using exploding wire plasma. TEM analysis was used to determine the size and shape of particles in aluminium and vinyl alcohol suspensions; the TEM images showed that the particle size is 17.2 nm. Aluminium/poly vinyl alcohol (Al/PVA) thin films were prepared using this suspension on quartz substrate by plasma jet technique at room temperature with an argon gas flow rate of 1 L/min. The Al/PV

The double-skin profiled composite wall (DSPCW) system, filled with concrete material, is favorable in modern structures due to its high strength and ductility. Openings may be required within this composite wall (DSPCW) for various reasons, similar to a conventional bearing wall, which can lead to a reduction in bearing capacity. Therefore, to avoid changes in the geometry, materials, and thickness of this DSPCW wall, a new internally stiffening concept has been suggested by providing embedded cold-formed steel tube (CFST) columns. For this purpose, two full-scale DSPCW specimens were tested under static axial load, one of which was fabricated with a large opening size and stiffened with two octagonal CFST columns, while the other

The present study investigated the use of pretreated fish bone (PTFB) as a new surface, natural waste and low-cost adsorbent for the adsorption of Methyl green (MG, as model toxic basic dye) from aqueous solutions. The functional groups and surface morphology of the untreated fish bone (FB) and pretreated fish bone were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS),respectively. The effect of operating parameters including contact time, pH, adsorbent dose, temperature, and inorganic salt was evaluated. Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin adsorption isotherm models were studied and the results showed that the adsorption of basic dye followed Freundlich iso

Coupling reaction of ( 4-amino antipyrene) with the (L- tyrosine ) gave the new azo ligand 2- ( 4- Antipyrene azo ) - tyrosine .Treatment of this ligand with metal ions (Mn(II) ,Co(II), Ni(II), and Cu(II) )in ethanolic medium in (1:2) (M:L) ratio yield a series of a neutral complexes of the general formula [M(L)2] . The prepared complexes were characterized using flame atomic absorption , FT.IR , UV-Vis spectroscopic and elemental microanalysis (C.H.N) as well as magnetic susceptibility and conductivity measurement

In this research local wheat peel was used as an adsorbent surface for removal of Azure B (AB) dye from the aqueous solution. The adsorption process was performed at different experimental parameters, equilibrium time, temperature, ionic strength and solution pH. The isotherms of adsorption are of H-type as compared with Giles curves and the adsorption data were coincide with Freundlich equation. The adsorption kinetic data were analyzed using pseudo- first and second order kinetic models. The effect of temperature was studied and the amount of dye adsorbed was found to increase with the increasing of temperature from 25 to 50 oC. The values of thermodynamic functions like enthalpy and entropy have been estimated. The quantity of adso