Integrating CuO Colloidal Mie Resonators in Structurally Colored Butterfly Wings for Bio-Nanohybrid Photonic Applications.

Colloidal CuO nanoparticles can exhibit both photocatalytic activity under visible light illumination and resonant Mie scattering, but, for their practical application, they have to be immobilized on a substrate. Butterfly wings, with complex hierarchical photonic nanoarchitectures, constitute a promising substrate for the immobilization of nanoparticles and for the tuning of their optical properties. The native wax layer covering the wing scales of butterflies was removed by simple ethanol pretreatment prior to the deposition of CuO nanoparticles, which allowed reproducible deposition on the dorsal blue wing scale nanoarchitectures via drop casting.

Terahertz emission from diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers.

Coherent light sources emitting in the terahertz range are highly sought after for fundamental research and applications. Terahertz lasers rely on achieving population inversion. We demonstrate the generation of terahertz radiation using nitrogen-vacancy centers in a diamond single crystal.

Amino-Termination of Silicon Carbide Nanoparticles.

Silicon carbide nanoparticles (SiC NPs) are promising inorganic molecular-sized fluorescent biomarkers. It is imperative to develop methods to functionalize SiC NPs for certain biological applications. One possible route is to form amino groups on the surface, which can be readily used to attach target biomolecules.

The composition and structure of the ubiquitous hydrocarbon contamination on van der Waals materials.

The behavior of single layer van der Waals (vdW) materials is profoundly influenced by the immediate atomic environment at their surface, a prime example being the myriad of emergent properties in artificial heterostructures. Equally significant are adsorbates deposited onto their surface from ambient. While vdW interfaces are well understood, our knowledge regarding atmospheric contamination is severely limited.

Evaluation of surface passivating solvents for single and mixed halide perovskites.

Surface passivation is one of the commonly used approaches to reduce the density of defects on the surfaces and interfaces hindering the performance and stability of perovskite optoelectronic devices. Although surface passivation leads to performance improvement for the targeted devices, details of the complex intermolecular interactions occurring between the molecules and perovskites are not entirely known. Here, we investigated a variety of commonly used solvents in the post-processing of perovskites by using photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy on single and mixed halide perovskites (MAPbI, MAPbBr and MAPb(BrI)).