Highly selective and sensitive biosensor for cysteine detection based on in situ synthesis of gold nanoparticles/graphene nanocomposites

Novel electrical properties and applications in kaleidoscopic graphene nanoribbons

As one of the representatives of nano-graphene materials, graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) have more novel electrical properties, highly adjustable electronic properties, and optoelectronic properties than graphene due to their diverse geometric structures and atomic precision configurations. The electrical properties and band gaps of GNRs depend on their width, length, boundary configuration and other elemental doping, etc. With the improvement of the preparation technology and level of GNRs with atomic precision, increasing number of GNRs with different configurations are being prepared. They all show novel electrical properties and high tunability, which provides a broad prospect for the application of GNRs in the field of microelectronics. Here, we summarize the latest GNR-based achievements in recent years and summarize the latest electrical properties and potential applications of GNRs.

Ag and Au nanoparticles/reduced graphene oxide composite materials: Synthesis and application in diagnostics and therapeutics

The exceptional electrical, thermal, optical and mechanical properties have made two dimensional sp² hybridized graphene a material of choice in both academic as well as industrial research. In the last few years, researchers have devoted their efforts towards the development of graphene/polymer, graphene/metal nanoparticle and graphene/ceramic nanocomposites. These materials display excellent mechanical, electrical, thermal, catalytic, magnetic and optical properties which cannot be obtained separately from the individual components. Fascinating physical and chemical properties are displayed by noble metal nanomaterials and thus they represent model building blocks for modifying nanoscale structures for diverse applications extending from catalysis, optics to nanomedicine. Insertion of noble metal (Au, Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) into chemically derived graphene is thus of primary importance to open new avenues for both materials in various fields where the specific properties of each material act synergistically to provide hybrid materials with exceptional performances. This review attempts to summarize the different synthetic procedures for the preparation of Ag and Au NPs/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites. The synthesis processes of metal NPs/rGO composites are categorised into in-situ and ex-situ techniques. The in-situ approach consists of simultaneous reduction of metal salts and GO to obtain metal NPs/rGO nanocomposite materials, while in the ex-situ process, the metal NPs of desired size and shape are first synthesized and then transferred onto the GO or rGO matrix. The application of the Ag NPs and Au NPs/rGO composite materials in the area of biomedical (drug delivery and photothermal therapy) and biosensing are the focus of this review article.

Mesoscopic behaviour of multi-layered graphene: the meaning of supercapacitance revisited

The double layer capacitive phenomena is just a particular case of a more general quantum mechanical approach, wherein the electrochemical capacitance is central hence governing the super-capacitance phenomenology in general.

Highly selective and sensitive fluorescence probe based on thymine-modified carbon dots for Hg2+ and l-cysteine detection

The as-prepared thymine-modified carbon dots were applied to as a sensor for detecting Hg²⁺ and l-cysteine with high sensitivity and selectivity.