Molecular-Level Understanding of Continuous Growth from Iron-Oxo Clusters to Iron Oxide Nanoparticles.

The formation of inorganic nanoparticles has been understood based on the classical crystallization theory described by a burst of nucleation, where surface energy is known to play a critical role, and a diffusion-controlled growth process. However, this nucleation and growth model may not be universally applicable to the entire nanoparticle systems because different precursors and surface ligands are used during their synthesis. Their intrinsic chemical reactivity can lead to a formation pathway that deviates from a classical nucleation and growth model.

Synthesis of nanostructured P2-NaMnO for high performance sodium-ion batteries.

We report a facile two-step method to synthesize nanostructured P2-Na2/3MnO2via ligand exchange and intercalation of sodium ions into ultrathin manganese oxide nanoplates. Sodium storage performance of the synthesized material shows a high capacity (170 mA h g-1) and an excellent rate performance.

Enhancing p-Type Thermoelectric Performances of Polycrystalline SnSe via Tuning Phase Transition Temperature.

SnSe emerges as a new class of thermoelectric materials since the recent discovery of an ultrahigh thermoelectric figure of merit in its single crystals. Achieving such performance in the polycrystalline counterpart is still challenging and requires fundamental understandings of its electrical and thermal transport properties as well as structural chemistry. Here we demonstrate a new strategy of improving conversion efficiency of bulk polycrystalline SnSe thermoelectrics.

Sulfur-Modified Graphitic Carbon Nitride Nanostructures as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Water Oxidation.

There is an urgent need to develop metal-free, low cost, durable, and highly efficient catalysts for industrially important oxygen evolution reactions. Inspired by natural geodes, unique melamine nanogeodes are successfully synthesized using hydrothermal process. Sulfur-modified graphitic carbon nitride (S-modified g-CN ) electrocatalysts are obtained by annealing these melamine nanogeodes in situ with sulfur.

Extraordinary Off-Stoichiometric Bismuth Telluride for Enhanced n-Type Thermoelectric Power Factor.

Thermoelectrics directly converts waste heat into electricity and is considered a promising means of sustainable energy generation. While most of the recent advances in the enhancement of the thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) resulted from a decrease in lattice thermal conductivity by nanostructuring, there have been very few attempts to enhance electrical transport properties, i.e.

Colloidal Synthesis of Uniform-Sized Molybdenum Disulfide Nanosheets for Wafer-Scale Flexible Nonvolatile Memory.

Large-scale colloidal synthesis and integration of uniform-sized molybdenum disulfide (MoS ) nanosheets for a flexible resistive random access memory (RRAM) array are presented. RRAM using MoS nanosheets shows a ≈10 000 times higher on/off ratio than that based on exfoliated MoS . The good uniformity of the MoS nanosheets allows wafer-scale system integration of the RRAM array with pressure sensors and quantum-dot light-emitting diodes.

Wearable red-green-blue quantum dot light-emitting diode array using high-resolution intaglio transfer printing.

Deformable full-colour light-emitting diodes with ultrafine pixels are essential for wearable electronics, which requires the conformal integration on curvilinear surface as well as retina-like high-definition displays. However, there are remaining challenges in terms of polychromatic configuration, electroluminescence efficiency and/or multidirectional deformability. Here we present ultra-thin, wearable colloidal quantum dot light-emitting diode arrays utilizing the intaglio transfer printing technique, which allows the alignment of red-green-blue pixels with high resolutions up to 2,460 pixels per inch.