Metacavities by harnessing the linear-crossing metamaterials.

The formed optical cavity mode intensively relies on the size and geometry of optical cavity. When the defect or impurity exists inside the cavity, the formed cavity mode will be destroyed. Here, we propose a metacavity consisting of arrays of linear-crossing metamaterials (LCMMs) with abnormal dispersion, where each LCMM offers both the directional propagation channel for all incident angles and the negative refraction across its neighboring LCMMs.

Nonlinear Nano-Imaging of Interlayer Coupling in 2D Graphene-Semiconductor Heterostructures.

The emergent electronic, spin, and other quantum properties of 2D heterostructures of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides are controlled by the underlying interlayer coupling and associated charge and energy transfer dynamics. However, these processes are sensitive to interlayer distance and crystallographic orientation, which are in turn affected by defects, grain boundaries, or other nanoscale heterogeneities. This obfuscates the distinction between interlayer charge and energy transfer.

Anisotropic Excitons Reveal Local Spin Chain Directions in a van der Waals Antiferromagnet.

A long-standing pursuit in materials science is to identify suitable magnetic semiconductors for integrated information storage, processing, and transfer. Van der Waals magnets have brought forth new material candidates for this purpose. Recently, sharp exciton resonances in antiferromagnet NiPS have been reported to correlate with magnetic order, that is, the exciton photoluminescence intensity diminishes above the Néel temperature.

Rational Design of 3D Hierarchical Ternary SnO/TiO/BiVO Arrays Photoanode toward Efficient Photoelectrochemical Performance.

BiVO as a promising semiconductor absorber is widely investigated as photoanode in photoelectrochemical water splitting. Herein, the rational design of 3D hierarchical ternary SnO/TiO/BiVO arrays is reported as photoanode for photoelectrochemical application, in which the SnO hierarchically hollow microspheres core/nanosheets shell arrays act as conductive skeletons, while the sandwiched TiO and surface BiVO are working as hole blocking layer and light absorber, respectively. Arising to the hierarchically ordered structure and synergistic effect between each component in the composite, the ternary SnO/TiO/BiVO photoanode enables high light harvesting efficiency as well as enhanced charge transport and separation efficiency, yielding a maximum photocurrent density of ≈5.

An Easy-to-Implement Toolkit to Create Versatile and High-Performance HASEL Actuators for Untethered Soft Robots.

For soft robots to have ubiquitous adoption in practical applications they require soft actuators that provide well-rounded actuation performance that parallels natural muscle while being inexpensive and easily fabricated. This manuscript introduces a toolkit to rapidly prototype, manufacture, test, and power various designs of hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic (HASEL) actuators with muscle-like performance that achieve all three basic modes of actuation (expansion, contraction, and rotation). This toolkit utilizes easy-to-implement methods, inexpensive fabrication tools, commodity materials, and off-the-shelf high-voltage electronics thereby enabling a wide audience to explore HASEL technology.

All-Metal-Organic Framework-Derived Battery Materials on Carbon Nanotube Fibers for Wearable Energy-Storage Device.

The ever-increasing demands for portable and wearable electronics continue to drive the development of high-performance fiber-shaped energy-storage devices. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with well-tunable structures and large surface areas hold great potential as precursors and templates to form porous battery materials. However, to date, there are no available reports about fabrication of wearable energy-storage devices on the utilization of all-MOF-derived battery materials directly grown on current collectors.

3D Printable Graphene Composite.

In human being's history, both the Iron Age and Silicon Age thrived after a matured massive processing technology was developed. Graphene is the most recent superior material which could potentially initialize another new material Age. However, while being exploited to its full extent, conventional processing methods fail to provide a link to today's personalization tide.