High energy density electrochemical systems such as metal batteries suffer from uncontrollable dendrite growth on cycling, which can severely compromise battery safety and longevity. This originates from the thermodynamic preference of metal nucleation on electrode surfaces, where obtaining the crucial information on metal deposits in terms of crystal orientation, plated volume, and growth rate is very challenging. In situ liquid phase transmission electron microscopy (LPTEM) is a promising technique to visualize and understand electrodeposition processes, however a detailed quantification of which presents significant difficulties. Here by performing Zn electroplating and analyzing the data via basic image processing, this work not only sheds new light on the dendrite growth mechanism but also demonstrates a workflow showcasing how dendritic deposition can be visualized with volumetric and growth rate information. These results along with additionally corroborated 4D STEM analysis take steps to access information on the crystallographic orientation of the grown Zn nucleates and toward live quantification of in situ electrodeposition processes.

Thanks to the low cost and earth's abundant potassium resources, potassium ion batteries (PIBs) have attracted much interest as alternative energy storage devices. However, there is still a great challenge to develop suitable anode materials for PIBs with high specific capacity, fast charge/discharge and stable ion storage. Nowadays, conductive metal-organic frameworks (c-MOFs) with excellent physicochemical properties are employed for different electrochemical applications, but the study of their potassium storage performance remains unknown, and the detailed potassium storage mechanism needs to be explored. Herein, nanostructured Co₃(HHTP)₂ c-MOF (Co-CAT MOF, HHTP: 2,3,6,7,10,11-hexahydroxytriphenylene) is synthesized by a liquid-phase method and evaluated as the anode for PIBs. The active sites and open pathways in the conductive Co-CAT MOF promote ion diffusion and electron transfer, exhibiting high reversible specific capacity (332 mA h g⁻¹ at 0.1 A g⁻¹), excellent long-cycle stability (230 mA h g⁻¹ at the current density of 1.0 A g⁻¹ after 700 cycles) and outstanding rate performance (165 mA h g⁻¹ at 4.0 A g⁻¹), which is superior to the typical PIB anodes. Combined with different ex situ characterization techniques, the potassium storage mechanism based on 8-electron transfer is revealed. Furthermore, Co-CAT MOF exhibits excellent Li-ion storage performance. In the half-cell, the Co-CAT MOF electrode displays a high reversible capacity of 800 mA h g⁻¹ at 200 mA g⁻¹. In addition, the Co-CAT//LiCoO₂ full cell cycles for 100 cycles at 200 mA h g⁻¹. It is believed that Co-CAT MOF is a promising electrode material for potassium/lithium storage, and the proposed ion storage mechanism can be used to discover other MOF-based electrodes for energy storage.

Charge carrier-selective contacts transform a light-absorbing semiconductor into a photovoltaic device. Current record efficiency solar cells nearly all use advanced heterojunction contacts that simultaneously provide carrier selectivity and contact passivation. One remaining challenge with heterojunction contacts is the tradeoff between better carrier selectivity/contact passivation (thicker layers) and better carrier extraction (thinner layers). Here we demonstrate that the nanowire geometry can remove this tradeoff by utilizing a permanent local gate (molybdenum oxide surface layer) to control the carrier selectivity of an adjacent ohmic metal contact. We show an open-circuit voltage increase for single indium phosphide nanowire solar cells by up to 335 mV, ultimately reaching 835 mV, and a reduction in open-circuit voltage spread from 303 to 105 mV after application of the surface gate. Importantly, reference experiments show that the carriers are not extracted via the molybdenum oxide but the ohmic metal contacts at the wire ends.