Strategy for Fabricating Ultrathin Au Film Electrodes with Ultralow Optoelectrical Losses and High Stability.

A vital objective in the wetting of Au deposited on chemically heterogeneous oxides is to synthesize a completely continuous, highly crystalline, ultrathin-layered geometry with minimized electrical and optical losses. However, no effective solution has been proposed for synthesizing an ideal Au-layered structure. This study presents evidence for the effectiveness of atomic oxygen-mediated growth of such an ideal Au layer by improving Au wetting on ZnO substrates with a substantial reduction in free energy.

An unexpected surfactant role of immiscible nitrogen in the structural development of silver nanoparticles: an experimental and numerical investigation.

Artificially designing the crystal orientation and facets of noble metal nanoparticles is important to realize unique chemical and physical features that are very different from those of noble metals in bulk geometries. However, relative to their counterparts synthesized in wet-chemical processes, vapor-depositing noble metal nanoparticles with the desired crystallographic features while avoiding any notable impurities is quite challenging because this task requires breaking away from the thermodynamically favorable geometry of nanoparticles. We used plasma-generated N atoms as a surface-active agent, a so-called surfactant, to control the structural development of Ag nanoparticles supported on a chemically heterogeneous ZnO substrate.

Large enhancement of superconducting transition temperature in single-element superconducting rhenium by shear strain.

Finding a physical approach for increasing the superconducting transition temperature (T) is a challenge in the field of material science. Shear strain effects on the superconductivity of rhenium were investigated using magnetic measurements, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and first-principles calculations. A large shear strain reduces the grain size and simultaneously expands the unit cells, resulting in an increase in T.

Thermal conductivity reduction of crystalline silicon by high-pressure torsion.

We report a dramatic and irreversible reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity of bulk crystalline silicon when subjected to intense plastic strain under a pressure of 24 GPa using high-pressure torsion (HPT). Thermal conductivity of the HPT-processed samples were measured using picosecond time domain thermoreflectance. Thermal conductivity measurements show that the HPT-processed samples have a lattice thermal conductivity reduction by a factor of approximately 20 (from intrinsic single crystalline value of 142 Wm(-1) K(-1) to approximately 7.

Negative capillary-pressure-induced cavitation probability in nanochannels.

The capillarity-induced negative pressure of water flow has been investigated in nanochannels of a rectangular cross section by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. As a consequent effect of negative pressure, the cavitation probability has been analyzed numerically. The numerical relation between the critical radius of cavitation (R(c)) and geometrical characteristics of channels shows that cavitation does not occur in channels of uniform cross section (UCS), since 2R(c) is larger than the smallest dimension of the channel.