Zinc–air batteries (ZABs) are gaining attention as an ideal option for various applications requiring high-capacity batteries, such as portable electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage. ZABs offer advantages such as low environmental impact, enhanced safety compared to Li-ion batteries, and cost-effectiveness due to the abundance of zinc. However, early research faced challenges due to parasitic reactions at the zinc anode and slow oxygen redox kinetics. Recent advancements in restructuring the anode, utilizing alternative electrolytes, and developing bifunctional oxygen catalysts have significantly improved ZABs. Scientists have achieved battery reversibility over thousands of cycles, introduced new electrolytes, and achieved energy efficiency records surpassing 70%. Despite these achievements, there are challenges related to lower power density, shorter lifespan, and air electrode corrosion leading to performance degradation. This review paper discusses different battery configurations, and reaction mechanisms for electrically and mechanically rechargeable ZABs, and proposes remedies to enhance overall battery performance. The paper also explores recent advancements, applications, and the future prospects of electrically/mechanically rechargeable ZABs.

We developed a simple but efficient method to mass-produce highly flexible and high-performance photodetectors based on aligned cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanowire (NW) networks. In this method, the CdS NWs were selectively aligned along the molecular patterns on flexible substrates via a direct assembly method, and the aligned CdS NW patterns were utilized as the channels of flexible photodetectors. The photodetectors based on the aligned CdS NWs exhibited ∼10 times higher photosensitivity and ∼100 times faster photoresponse than those based on randomly oriented NW networks. In addition, the flexible photodetectors exhibited stable photoconductive characteristics even when these were bent down to the radius of curvature of 0.2 mm. This research may pave the way for the large-scale fabrication of low-cost and high performance flexible photodetectors based on the aligned NW networks.

Ni thin films were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using bis(dimethylamino-2-methyl-2-butoxo)nickel <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mo>[</mml:mo><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ni</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mi>dmamb</mml:mi><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>]</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math>[Ni(dmamb)2] as a precursor and <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">N</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">H</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>NH3 gas as a reactant. The growth characteristics and film properties of ALD Ni were investigated. Low-resistivity films were deposited on Si and <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Si</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">O</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>SiO2 substrates, producing high-purity Ni films with a small amount of oxygen and negligible amounts of nitrogen and carbon. Additionally, ALD Ni showed excellent conformality in nanoscale via holes. Utilizing this conformality, <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ni</mml:mi><mml:mo>∕</mml:mo><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Si</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>Ni∕Si core/shell nanowires with uniform diameters were fabricated. By combining ALD Ni with octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer as a blocking layer, area-selective ALD was conducted for selective deposition of Ni films. When performed on the prepatterned OTS substrate, the Ni films were selectively coated only on OTS-free regions, building up Ni line patterns with <mml:math display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>3</mml:mn><mml:mspace width="0.3em"></mml:mspace><mml:mi>μ</mml:mi><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>3μm width. Electrical measurement results showed that all of the Ni lines were electrically isolated, also indicating the selective Ni deposition.