Zhang Wenli

Evolution of ZnO architecture on a nanoporous TiO2 film by a hydrothermal method and the photoelectrochemical performance

The synthesis of ZnO architecture on a fluorine-doped SnO2 (FTO) conducting glass pre-coated with nanoporous TiO2 film has been achieved by a one-step hydrothermal method at a temperature of 70°C. The effect of the reaction time on the morphology of the ZnO architecture has been investigated, and a possible growth mechanism for the formation of the ZnO architecture is discussed in detail. The morphology and phase structures of the as-obtained composite films have been investigated by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results show that the growth time greatly affects the morphology of the obtained ZnO architecture. The photoelectrochemical performances of as-prepared composite films are measured by assembling them into dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The DSSC based on the as-prepared composite film (2 h) has obtained the best power conversion efficiency of 1.845%.

Adaptive interactive evolutionary computation for cctive intent-oriented design

Through human participation in the search-and-selection process, an interactive evolutionary computation-based design environment can offer industrial designers an exploration studio for the stimulation of creativity through evolution of continually emerging shapes, helping them to attain models with certain design intent. Such stochastic searches possibly bring user fatigue because of long-time iteration. In order to accelerate the evolving process, adaptive mechanisms of evolutionary computation are used to actively capture the design intent during a man-machine interactive modeling process, adapting the design-evolution process to support the designer in quickly finding appreciated solutions in the midst of giant possibilities. To test the proposed concept of active intent-oriented design, two interactive evolution strategies-based curve modifiers - with and without adaptation - are implemented as plugins with a conventional CAD tool. Primitive experimental results are presented to show the potential of the proposed concept.