A Low-Temperature Structural Transition in Canfieldite, AgSnS, Single Crystals.

Canfieldite, AgSnS, is a semiconducting mineral notable for its high ionic conductivity, photosensitivity, and low thermal conductivity. We report the solution growth of large single crystals of AgSnS of mass up to 1 g from a ternary Ag-Sn-S melt. On cooling from high temperature, AgSnS undergoes a known cubic (4̅3) to orthorhombic (2) phase transition at ≈460 K.

Crystal and Magnetic Structures of the Ternary HoNiSi and HoNiGe Compounds: An Example of Intermetallics Crystallizing with the ZrNiP Prototype.

We report two new rare-earth (R) ternary intermetallic compounds-HoNiT with T = Si and Ge-that correspond to the RNiT phase earlier reported to form in Dy-Ni-T and Ho-Ni-T ternary systems. The compounds crystallize in a filled version of the orthorhombic ZrNiP-type structure with = 0.52; their stoichiometry, determined from both single-crystal and powder X-ray diffraction data, is centered on HoNiT with a narrow solid solubility range for the silicide, while the germanide appears to be a line phase.

Incommensurate transition-metal dichalcogenides mechanochemical reshuffling of binary precursors.

A new family of heterostructured transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) with incommensurate ("misfit") spatial arrangements of well-defined layers was prepared from structurally dissimilar single-phase 2H-MoS and 1T-HfS materials. The experimentally observed heterostructuring is energetically favorable over the formation of homogeneous multi-principle element dichalcogenides observed in related dichalcogenide systems of Mo, W, and Ta. The resulting three-dimensional (3D) heterostructures show semiconducting behavior with an indirect band gap around 1 eV, agreeing with values predicted from density functional theory.

Protein-assisted scalable mechanochemical exfoliation of few-layer biocompatible graphene nanosheets.

A facile method to produce few-layer graphene (FLG) nanosheets is developed using protein-assisted mechanical exfoliation. The predominant shear forces that are generated in a planetary ball mill facilitate the exfoliation of graphene layers from graphite flakes. The process employs a commonly known protein, bovine serum albumin (BSA), which not only acts as an effective exfoliation agent but also provides stability by preventing restacking of the graphene layers.

Unprecedented generation of 3D heterostructures by mechanochemical disassembly and re-ordering of incommensurate metal chalcogenides.

Three-dimensional heterostructures are usually created either by assembling two-dimensional building blocks into hierarchical architectures or using stepwise chemical processes that sequentially deposit individual monolayers. Both approaches suffer from a number of issues, including lack of suitable precursors, limited reproducibility, and poor scalability of the preparation protocols. Therefore, development of alternative methods that enable preparation of heterostructured materials is desired.