High temperature shockwave stabilized single atoms.

The stability of single-atom catalysts is critical for their practical applications. Although a high temperature can promote the bond formation between metal atoms and the substrate with an enhanced stability, it often causes atom agglomeration and is incompatible with many temperature-sensitive substrates. Here, we report using controllable high-temperature shockwaves to synthesize and stabilize single atoms at very high temperatures (1,500-2,000 K), achieved by a periodic on-off heating that features a short on state (55 ms) and a ten-times longer off state.

Ultrafast, Controllable Synthesis of Sub-Nano Metallic Clusters through Defect Engineering.

Supported metallic nanoclusters (NCs, < 2 nm) are of great interests in various catalytic reactions with enhanced activities and selectivities, yet it is still challenging to efficiently and controllably synthesize ultrasmall NCs with a high-dispersal density. Here we report the in situ synthesis of surfactant-free, ultrasmall, and uniform NCs via a rapid thermal shock on defective substrates. This is achieved by using high-temperature synthesis with extremely fast kinetics while limiting the synthesis time down to milliseconds (e.