Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of Inkjet-Printed Organic Piezoresistive Tactile Sensor on Flexible Substrate.

In this paper, we propose a novel tactile sensor with a "fingerprint" design, named due to its spiral shape and dimensions of 3.80 mm × 3.80 mm.

Shape Transformation Photolithography: Self-Assembled Arrays of Suspended MEMS Structures from Patterned Polymer Membranes.

Suspended micromechanical structures are typically formed by dissolving underlying spacer material. However, capillary force-induced collapse during solvent removal can damage soft structures. If instead capillary forces are directed in the plane, they can drive liquid polymeric bridges to directly transform into suspended fibers.

Incommensurate Graphene Foam as a High Capacity Lithium Intercalation Anode.

Graphite's capacity of intercalating lithium in rechargeable batteries is limited (theoretically, 372 mAh g) due to low diffusion within commensurately-stacked graphene layers. Graphene foam with highly enriched incommensurately-stacked layers was grown and applied as an active electrode in rechargeable batteries. A 93% incommensurate graphene foam demonstrated a reversible specific capacity of 1,540 mAh g with a 75% coulombic efficiency, and an 86% incommensurate sample achieves above 99% coulombic efficiency exhibiting 930 mAh g specific capacity.

Efficient hydrogen evolution in transition metal dichalcogenides via a simple one-step hydrazine reaction.

Hydrogen evolution reaction is catalysed efficiently with precious metals, such as platinum; however, transition metal dichalcogenides have recently emerged as a promising class of materials for electrocatalysis, but these materials still have low activity and durability when compared with precious metals. Here we report a simple one-step scalable approach, where MoOx/MoS2 core-shell nanowires and molybdenum disulfide sheets are exposed to dilute aqueous hydrazine at room temperature, which results in marked improvement in electrocatalytic performance. The nanowires exhibit ∼100 mV improvement in overpotential following exposure to dilute hydrazine, while also showing a 10-fold increase in current density and a significant change in Tafel slope.

Solution phase synthesis and intense pulsed light sintering and reduction of a copper oxide ink with an encapsulating nickel oxide barrier.

Copper oxide nanoparticle inks sintered and reduced by intense pulsed light (IPL) are an inexpensive means to produce conductive patterns on a number of substrates. However, the oxidation and diffusion characteristics of copper are issues that must be resolved before it can be considered as a viable solution. Nickel can provide a degree of oxidation protection and act as a barrier for the diffusion of copper.

In situ study of hydrogenation of graphene and new phases of localization between metal-insulator transitions.

Monolayer graphene synthesized by chemical vapor deposition was subjected to controlled and sequential hydrogenation using RF plasma while monitoring its electrical properties in situ. Low-temperature transport properties, namely, electrical resistance (R), thermopower (S), Hall mobility (μ), and magnetoresistance (MR), were measured for each sample and correlated with ex situ Raman scattering and X-ray photoemission (XPS) characteristics. For weak hydrogenation, the transport is seen to be governed by electron diffusion, and low-temperature transport properties show metallic behavior (conductance G remains nonzero as T → 0).