Universalized and robust length separation of carbon and boron nitride nanotubes with improved polymer depletion-based fractionation.

Partitioning nanoparticles by shape and dimension is paramount for advancing nanomaterial standardization, fundamental colloidal investigations, and technologies such as biosensing and digital electronics. Length-separation methods for single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have historically incurred trade-offs in precision and mass throughput, and boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) are a rapidly emerging material analogue. We extend and detail a polymer precipitation-based method to fractionate populations of either nanotube type at significant mass scale for four distinct nanotube sources of increasing average diameter (0.

Developments and applications of the OPTIMADE API for materials discovery, design, and data exchange.

The Open Databases Integration for Materials Design (OPTIMADE) application programming interface (API) empowers users with holistic access to a growing federation of databases, enhancing the accessibility and discoverability of materials and chemical data. Since the first release of the OPTIMADE specification (v1.0), the API has undergone significant development, leading to the v1.

Low-temperature synthesis of cation-ordered bulk ZnWN semiconductor heterovalent solid-state metathesis.

Metathesis reactions are widely used in synthetic chemistry. While state-of-the-art organic metathesis involves highly controlled processes where specific bonds are broken and formed, inorganic metathesis reactions are often extremely exothermic and, consequently, poorly controlled. Ternary nitrides offer a technologically relevant platform for expanding synthetic control of inorganic metathesis reactions.

Assessment of a host-guest interaction in a bilayer membrane model.

Supramolecular interactions are well recognized and many of them have been extensively studied in chemistry. The formation of supramolecular complexes that rely on weak force interactions are less well studied in bilayer membranes. Herein, a supported bilayer membrane is used to probe the penetration of a complex between tetracycline and a macrocyclic polyether.

Investigating the effect of a simplified perfume accord and dilution on the formation of mixed-surfactant microemulsions.

The phase analysis of a mixed surfactant system is much more complex than that for a single surfactant system. The addition of fragrance further enhances the complexity of such colloidal systems. The wide variation in structure and log  values of perfume raw materials influence its partitioning into the micellar phase.

Investigation of the excitations of plasmons and surface exciton polaritons in monoclinic gadolinium sesquioxide by electron energy-loss spectroscopy and plasmon spectroscopic imaging.

The monoclinic gadolinium sesquioxide (denoted as m-GdO) with its lower crystal symmetry exhibits larger dielectric permittivity () than the cubic GdO (denoted as c-GdO). Recently, a few nanometers thick m-GdO thin film has been successfully epitaxially grown on a GaN substrate as a promising candidate gate oxide in metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Thus, it is important to understand the electronic excitations in m-GdO and investigate them by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) performed with aloof electron beams and electron diffraction to gain the spatial and momentum resolutions.

Toward Fast Screening of Organic Solar Cell Blends.

The ever increasing library of materials systems developed for organic solar-cells, including highly promising non-fullerene acceptors and new, high-efficiency donor polymers, demands the development of methodologies that i) allow fast screening of a large number of donor:acceptor combinations prior to device fabrication and ii) permit rapid elucidation of how processing affects the final morphology/microstructure of the device active layers. Efficient, fast screening will ensure that important materials combinations are not missed; it will accelerate the technological development of this alternative solar-cell platform toward larger-area production; and it will permit understanding of the structural changes that may occur in the active layer over time. Using the relatively high-efficiency poly[(5,6-difluoro-2,1,3-benzothiadiazol-4,7-diyl)-alt-(3,3'''-di(2-octyldodecyl)-2,2';5',2'';5'',2'''-quaterthiophen-5,5'''-diyl)] (PCE11):phenyl-C61-butyric acid-methyl-ester acceptor (PCBM) blend systems, it is demonstrated that by means of straight-forward thermal analysis, vapor-phase-infiltration imaging, and transient-absorption spectroscopy, various blend compositions and processing methodologies can be rapidly screened, information on promising combinations can be obtained, reliability issues with respect to reproducibility of thin-film formation can be identified, and insights into how processing aids, such as nucleating agents, affect structure formation, can be gained.

Efficient Surface Plasmon Polariton Excitation and Control over Outcoupling Mechanisms in Metal-Insulator-Metal Tunneling Junctions.

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are viable candidates for integration into on-chip nano-circuitry that allow access to high data bandwidths and low energy consumption. Metal-insulator-metal tunneling junctions (MIM-TJs) have recently been shown to excite and detect SPPs electrically; however, experimentally measured efficiencies and outcoupling mechanisms are not fully understood. It is shown that the MIM-TJ cavity SPP mode (MIM-SPP) can outcouple via three pathways to i) photons via scattering of MIM-SPP at the MIM-TJ interfaces, ii) SPPs at the metal-dielectric interfaces (bound-SPPs) by mode coupling through the electrodes, and iii) photons and bound-SPP modes by mode coupling at the MIM-TJ edges.

Spin Solid versus Magnetic Charge Ordered State in Artificial Honeycomb Lattice of Connected Elements.

The nature of magnetic correlation at low temperature in two-dimensional artificial magnetic honeycomb lattice is a strongly debated issue. While theoretical researches suggest that the system will develop a novel zero entropy spin solid state as → 0 K, a confirmation to this effect in artificial honeycomb lattice of connected elements is lacking. This study reports on the investigation of magnetic correlation in newly designed artificial permalloy honeycomb lattice of ultrasmall elements, with a typical length of ≈12 nm, using neutron scattering measurements and temperature-dependent micromagnetic simulations.

Removing divergence of JCGM documents from the GUM ( 1993) and repairing other defects.

The mission of the Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology (JCGM) is to maintain and promote the use of the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM) and the International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM, second edition). The JCGM has produced the third edition of the VIM (referred to as VIM3) and a number of documents; some of which are referred to as supplements to the GUM. We are concerned with the Supplement 1 (GUM-S1) and the document JCGM 104.