Insulator-on-Conductor Fouling Amplifies Aqueous Electrolysis Rates.

The chemical industry is a major consumer of fossil fuels. Several chemical reactions of practical value proceed with the gain or loss of electrons, opening a path to integrate renewable electricity into chemical manufacturing. However, most organic molecules have low aqueous solubility, causing green and cheap electricity-driven reactions to suffer from intrinsically low reaction rates in industry's solvent of choice: water.

Atomic force microscopy with integrated on-chip interferometric readout.

The most common readout technique used in atomic force microscopy (AFM) is based on optical beam deflection (OBD), which relies on monitoring deflection of the cantilever probe by measuring the position of the laser beam reflected from the free end of the AFM cantilever. Although systems using the OBD readout can achieve subnanometre displacement resolution and video rate imaging speeds, its main limitation is size, which is difficult to minimise, thus limiting multiprobe imaging capability. Currently, system miniaturisation has been accommodated by adopting on-chip electrical readout solutions, often at the expense of measurement sensitivity.

Ultrathin tunable terahertz absorber based on MEMS-driven metamaterial.

The realization of high-performance tunable absorbers for terahertz frequencies is crucial for advancing applications such as single-pixel imaging and spectroscopy. Based on the strong position sensitivity of metamaterials' electromagnetic response, we combine meta-atoms that support strongly localized modes with suspended flat membranes that can be driven electrostatically. This design maximizes the tunability range for small mechanical displacements of the membranes.

On-chip read-out of picomechanical motion under ambient conditions.

Monitoring the nanomechanical movement of suspended cantilever structures has found use in applications ranging from biological/chemical sensing to atomic force microscopy. Interrogating these sensors relies on the ability to accurately determine the sub-nanometre movements of the cantilever. Here we investigate a technique based on the combination of integrated silicon photonics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to create an optically resonant microcavity and demonstrate its use for monitoring of the position of cantilevers on the picometer scale under ambient conditions with dynamic range extending over several microns.

Uniform dispersion of lanthanum hexaboride nanoparticles in a silica thin film: synthesis and optical properties.

Silica thin films containing uniformly dispersed lanthanum hexaboride (LaB₆) nanoparticles have been prepared by spin-coating a sol-gel silica solution containing cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB)-stabilized LaB₆ nanoparticles onto a glass substrate followed by a standard heat treatment. The production of this thin film involved three steps: (i) a CTAB-stabilized LaB₆ nanoparticle dispersion was prepared in water and then dried, (ii) the dried nanoparticles were redispersed in a small amount of water and mixed with tetraethoxyorthosilane (TEOS), ethanol, and a little acid to initiate the sol-gel reaction, and (iii) this reaction mixture was spun to produce a thin film and then was annealed. A range of techniques such as zeta potential, laser sizing, energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (EFTEM), scanning TEM (STEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectrum (EDS) were employed to characterize the particle's size, elemental composition, and stability and the optical properties of silica thin films with LaB₆ nanoparticles.