Nanoscale Horizons最新文献

In inorganic crystals, phonons are the elementary excitations describing the collective atomic motions. The study of phonons plays an important role in terms of understanding thermal transport behavior and acoustic properties, as well as exploring the interactions between phonons and other energy carriers in materials. Thus, efficient and accurate prediction of phonon transport properties such as thermal conductivity is crucial for revealing, designing, and regulating material properties to meet practical requirements. In this paper, typical strategies used to predict phonon transport properties in modern science and technologies are introduced, and relevant achievements are emphasized. Moreover, insights into the remaining challenges as well as future directions of phonon transport-related exploration are proposed. The viewpoints of this paper are expected to provide a valuable reference to the community and inspire relevant research studies on predicting phonon transport properties in the near future.

Composite quasi-particles with emergent functionalities in spintronic and quantum information science can be realized in correlated materials due to entangled charge, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom. Here we show that by reducing the lateral dimension of correlated antiferromagnet NiPS₃ flakes to tens of nanometers and thickness to less than ten nanometers, we can switch-off the bulk spin–orbit entangled exciton in the near-infrared (1.47 eV) and activate visible-range (1.8–2.2 eV) transitions. These ultra-sharp lines (<120 μeV at 4.2 K) share the spin-correlated nature of the bulk exciton by displaying a strong linear polarization below Néel temperature. Furthermore, exciton photoluminescence lineshape analysis indicates a polaronic character VIA coupling with at-least 3 phonon modes and a comb-like Stark effect through discretization of charges in each layer. These findings augment the knowledge on the many-body nature of excitonic quasi-particles in correlated antiferromagnets and also establish the nanoscale correlated antiferromagnets as a promising platform for integrated magneto-optic devices.

Micro-sized silicon is a promising anode material due to its high theoretical capacity and low cost. However, its bulk particle size poses a challenge during electrochemical cycling, and the long ion/electron transport paths within it limit the rate capability. Herein, we propose a structural engineering approach for establishing a well-defined three-dimensional (3D) micro-sized silicon/carbon matrix to achieve efficient omnidirectional ionic and electronic conductivity within micro-sized silicon and effectively mitigate the volume changes. The prepared materials, comprising ordered two-dimensional porous silicon nanosheets, offer direct two-dimensional electrolyte transport channels aligned parallel to the layer plane and porous channels oriented perpendicular to the layer plane. These well-defined omnidirectional pathways enable more efficient electrolyte mass transport than the disordered paths within the traditional 3D porous silicon anodes. A robust carbon shell, securely bonded to silicon through dual covalent bonding, effectively shields these pathways, buffering the volume changes and offering an electronically conductive 3D carbon network.

High-entropy perovskite fluoride (HEPF) has gradually attracted attention in the field of electrocatalysis due to its unique properties. Although traditional co-precipitation methods can efficiently produce HEPF, the resulting catalysts often lack regular morphology and tend to aggregate extensively. Here, nanocubic K(CuMgCoZnNi)F₃ HEPF (HEPF-2) was successfully prepared on a gram-scale by a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-confined nucleation strategy. Benefiting from its large electrochemically active surface area and well-exposed active sites, the HEPF-2 demonstrates dramatically enhanced electrocatalytic activity in electrocatalytic nitrate reduction to ammonia, leading to an improved ammonia yield rate (7.031 mg h⁻¹ mg_cat.⁻¹), a high faradaic efficiency (92.8%), and excellent long-term stability, outperforming the irregular HEPF nanoparticles (HEPF-0) prepared without the assistance of PVP. Our work presents an efficient and facile method to synthesize perovskite fluorides with a well-defined structure, showing great promise in the field of high-performance electrocatalysis.

This article highlights the recent work of Coleman et al. (Nanoscale Horiz., 2024, 9, 1774–1784, https://doi.org/10.1039/D4NH00224E) on investigating nanosheet thickness and its impact on piezoresistivity in graphene strain sensors.

Semiconductor nanowires are considered as one of the most promising candidates for next-generation devices due to their unique quasi-one-dimensional structures and novel physical properties. In recent years, advanced heterostructures have been developed by combining nanowires with low-dimensional structures such as quantum wells, quantum dots, and two-dimensional materials. Those heterodimensional structures overcome the limitations of homogeneous nanowires and show great potential in high-performance nano-optoelectronic devices. In this review, we summarize and discuss recent advances in fabrication, properties and applications of nanowire heterodimensional structures. Major heterodimensional structures including nanowire/quantum well, nanowire/quantum dot, and nanowire/2D-material are studied. Representative optoelectronic devices including lasers, single photon sources, light emitting diodes, photodetectors, and solar cells are introduced in detail. Related prospects and challenges are also discussed.

We demonstrate a surface lattice resonance (SLR)-based plasmonic nanolaser that leverages bulk production of colloidal nanoparticles and assembly on templates with single particle resolution. SLRs emerge from the hybridization of the plasmonic and photonic modes when nanoparticles are arranged into periodic arrays and this can provide feedback for stimulated emission. It has been shown that perfect arrays are not a strict prerequisite for producing lasing. Here, we propose using high-quality colloids instead. Silver colloidal nanocubes feature excellent plasmonic properties due to their single-crystal nature and low facet roughness. We use capillarity-assisted nanoparticle assembly to produce substrates featuring SLR and comprising single nanocubes. Combined with the laser dye pyrromethene-597, the nanocube array lases at 574 nm with <1.2 nm linewidth, <100 μJ cm⁻² lasing threshold, and produces a beam with <1 mrad divergence, despite less-than-perfect arrangement. Such plasmonic nanolasers can be produced on a large-scale and integrated in point-of-care diagnostics, photonic integrated circuits, and optical communications applications.

Our Emerging Investigator Series features exceptional work by early-career nanoscience and nanotechnology researchers. Read Pengzhan Sun’s Emerging Investigator Series article ‘Catalytic selectivity of nanorippled graphene’ (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3NH00462G) and read more about him in the interview below.

Our Emerging Investigator Series features exceptional work by early-career nanoscience and nanotechnology researchers. Read Valentina Castagnola’s Emerging Investigator Series article ‘Sources of biases in the in vitro testing of nanomaterials: the role of the biomolecular corona’ (https://doi.org/10.1039/D3NH00510K) and read more about her in the interview below.

The use of health-relevant bacteria originating from human microbiomes for the control or therapy of diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders or diabetes, is currently gaining increasing importance in medicine. Directed and successful engineering of microbiomes via probiotic supplementation requires subtle, precise as well as, more importantly, easy, fast and convenient monitoring of its success, e.g., in patients’ gut. Based on a previously described polyclonal SELEX aptamer library evolved against the human gut bacterium Blautia producta, we finally isolated three individual aptamers that proved their performance concerning affinity, specificity and robustness in reliably labeling the target bacterium and in combination with “contaminating” control bacteria. Using biofunctionalization molecules on gFETs, we could specifically quantify 10¹–10⁶ cells per mL, retrace their number in mixtures and determine aptamer K_d-values around 2 nM. These measurements were possible even in the context of a real human stool sample. Our results qualify gFETs in combination with BL2, BL7 and BL8 aptamers as a promising foundation for the construction of respective sensing devices, which will open new avenues towards developing an intended monitoring technique for probiotic therapy and microbiome engineering approaches.