Ambient Light-Activated Antibacterial Material: Manganese Vanadium Oxide (MnVO).

Antimicrobial surfaces can reduce the spread of bacteria from high-touch surfaces, saving millions of lives worldwide. Antibacterial photocatalytic films, like TiO, are widely reported but limited in practice because they need high-intensity UV light. More practical but less reported are photocatalysts that work under low-intensity visible light from an indoor lamp.

Unconventional plasmonic sensitization of graphene in mid-infrared.

Light-matter interaction in graphene can be engineered and substantially enhanced through plasmonic sensitization, which has led to numerous applications in photodetection, sensing, photocatalysis and spectroscopy. The majority of these designs have relied on conventional plasmonic materials such as gold, silver and aluminum. This limits the implementation of such devices to the ultraviolet and visible regimes of the electromagnetic spectrum.