In the three-phase (pure donor, pure acceptor, and mixed phases) morphologies of organic solar cells, the mixed phases produce an energy cascade that promotes the generation of free carriers. However, how to optimize the content of the mixed phases is a challenging problem. The authors proposed to control different content of mixed phases in DRTB-T and IDIC blends by additive and solvent vapor annealing (SVA). The authors first formed the largest extent amount of mixed phases by the additive cinene (2%) to inhibit the crystallization of DRTB-T and IDIC. And then, different amounts of mixed phases were achieved by further SVA for different times (from 0 to 50 s) to increase the content of pure DRTB-T and IDIC phases. The energetic offsets (ΔE) of pure and mixed phases gradually decrease from 0.529 to 0.477 eV for different content of mixed phases. When ΔE was 0.498 eV, the highest photocurrent density (Jsc) was obtained. The power conversion efficiency was increased from 3.23% (without any treatment) to 8.54%. Therefore, the authors demonstrated that the optimized content of the mixed phases is critical to device performance.

With an aim to develop novel Cu–Zn alloys with high mechanical properties, in this study, Ni and Si elements were added to Cu–10Zn and Cu–20Zn alloys, and four kinds of Cu–Zn alloys were synthesized through gravity casting. The effect of the addition of Ni and Si on the microstructure and mechanical properties has been systematically investigated. Results revealed that the addition of Ni and Si not only refined the microstructure but also played significant roles to improve the mechanical properties of Cu–Zn alloys; δ-Ni2Si precipitates were formed in the Cu–20Zn–1.5Ni–0.34Si alloy, which obeyed a crystal orientation relationship of (001)Cu‖(001)δ and [110]Cu‖[100]δ. As compared with the Cu–20Zn alloy, the tensile strength of the studied Cu–20Zn–1.5Ni–0.34Si alloy was increased from 373.2 MPa to 776.4 MPa, and the yield strength increased from 242.1 MPa to 718.4 MPa. Operative strengthening mechanisms in the Cu–20Zn–1.5Ni–0.34Si alloy with different thermal-mechanical treatment states will be discussed in detail with the aim to draw a new strategy to develop high strength brass alloys.