Easily Repairable and High-Performance Carbon Nanostructure Absorber for Solar Photothermoelectric Conversion and Photothermal Water Evaporation.

Carbon materials are a category of broadband solar energy harvesting materials that can convert solar energy into heat under irradiation, which can be used for photothermal water evaporation and photothermoelectric power generation. However, destruction of the carbon nanostructure during usage will significantly decrease the light-trapping performance and, thus, limit their practical applications. In this article, an easily repairable carbon nanostructure absorber with full-solar-spectrum absorption and a hierarchically porous structure is prepared.

Exfoliated 2D Layered and Nonlayered Metal Phosphorous Trichalcogenides Nanosheets as Promising Electrocatalysts for CO Reduction.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials catalysts provide an atomic-scale view on a fascinating arena for understanding the mechanism of electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction (CO ECR). Here, we successfully exfoliated both layered and nonlayered ultra-thin metal phosphorous trichalcogenides (MPCh ) nanosheets via wet grinding exfoliation (WGE), and systematically investigated the mechanism of MPCh as catalysts for CO ECR. Unlike the layered CoPS and NiPS nanosheets, the active Sn atoms tend to be exposed on the surfaces of nonlayered SnPS nanosheets.

Formation of nanoflowers: Au and Ni silicide cores surrounded by SiO branches.

This work reports the formation of nanoflowers after annealing of Au/Ni bilayers deposited on SiO/Si substrates. The cores of the nanoflowers consist of segregated Ni silicide and Au parts and are surrounded by SiO branches. The SiO decomposition is activated at 1050 °C in a reducing atmosphere, and it can be enhanced more by Au compared to Ni.

Black Silver: Three-Dimensional Ag Hybrid Plasmonic Nanostructures with Strong Photon Coupling for Scalable Photothermoelectric Power Generation.

The conversion of solar energy into electric power has been extensively studied, for example, by photovoltaics. However, photo-thermoelectric (P-TE) conversion as an effective solar-to-electricity conversion process is less studied. Here, we present an efficient full-solar-spectrum plasmonic absorber for scalable P-TE conversion based on a simple integration of light absorber and commercial thermoelectric modules.

Solid-State Dewetting of Gold on Stochastically Periodic SiO Nanocolumns Prepared by Oblique Angle Deposition.

Solid-state dewetting (SSD) on patterned substrates is a straightforward method for fabricating ordered arrays of metallic nanoparticles on surfaces. However, a drawback of this procedure is that the patterning of substrates usually requires time-consuming and expensive two-dimensional (2D) fabrication methods. Nanostructured thin films deposited by oblique angle deposition (OAD) present at the surface a form of stochastically arranged periodic bundles of nanocolumns that might act as a patterned template for fabricating arrays of nanoparticles by SSD.

Photo-Thermoelectric Conversion Using Black Silicon with Enhanced Light Trapping Performance far beyond the Band Edge Absorption.

During the past years, much research work has been focused on efficiently harvesting solar energy with black silicon (b-Si). However, semiconductor Si can only utilize solar energy with wavelength smaller than λ = 1110 nm (bandgap = 1.12 eV) for photovoltaic applications or photoelectrochemical conversions.

Metastable Atomic Layer Deposition: 3D Self-Assembly toward Ultradark Materials.

Black body materials are promising candidates to meet future energy demands, as they are able to harvest energy from the total bandwidth of solar radiation. Here, we report on high-absorption near-blackbody-like structures (>98% for a wide solar spectrum range from 220 to 2500 nm) consisting of a silica scaffold and Ag nanoparticles with a layer thickness below 10 μm, fabricated using metastable atomic layer deposition (MS-ALD). Several effects contribute collectively and in a synergistic manner to the ultrahigh absorption, including the pronounced heterogeneity of the nanoparticles in size and shape, particle plasmon hybridization, and the trapping of omnidirectionally scattered light in the 3D hierarchical hybrid structures.

Hierarchically-Designed 3D Flower-Like Composite Nanostructures as an Ultrastable, Reproducible, and Sensitive SERS Substrate.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is an attractive tool in the analytical sciences due to its high specificity and sensitivity. Because SERS-active substrates are only available as two-dimensional arrays, the fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures allows for an increased number of hot spots in the focus volume, thus further amplifying the SERS signal. Although a great number of fabrication strategies for powerful SERS substrates exist, the generation of 3D nanostructures with high complexity and periodicity is still challenging.