Spin-Resolved Visible Optical Spectra and Electronic Characteristics of Defect-Mediated Hexagonal Boron Nitride Monolayer

Defect-mediated hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) supercells display visible optical spectra and electronic characteristics. The defects in the hBN supercells included atomic vacancy, antisite, antisite vacancy, and the substitution of a foreign atom for boron or nitrogen. The hBN supercells with VB, CB, and NB-VN were characterized by a high electron density of states across the Fermi level, which indicated high conductive electronic characteristics. The hBNs with defects including atomic vacancy, antisite at atomic vacancy, and substitution of a foreign atom for boron or nitride exhibited distinct spin-resolved optical and electronic characteristics, while defects of boron and nitrogen antisite did not display the spin-resolved optical characteristics. The hBNs with positively charged defects exhibited dominant optical and electronic characteristics in the longer spectral region. Acknowledgment: This work at HU is supported by ARO W911NF-15-1-0535, NSF HRD-1137747, and NASA NNX15AQ03A.

Synergetic contribution of enriched selenium vacancies and out-of-plane ferroelectric polarization in AB-stacked MoSe2 nanosheets as efficient piezocatalysts for TC degradation

Novel MoSe2 piezocatalysts with surface selenium vacancies and out-of-plane ferroelectric polarization exhibit ultrafast degradation of the antibiotic tetracycline.

New Alternating Current Noise Analytics Enables High Discrimination in Gas Sensing

Feature analysis has been increasingly considered as an important way to enhance the discrimination performance of gas sensors. In this work, a new analytical method based on alternating current noise spectrum is developed to discriminate chemically and structurally similar gases with remarkable performance. Compared with the conventional analytics based on the maximum, integral, and time of response, the noise spectrum of electrical response introduces a new informative feature to discriminate chemical gases. In experiment, three chemically and structurally similar gases, mesitylene, toluene, and o-xylene, are tested on ZnO thin film gas sensors. The result indicated that the noise analytics assisted by the support vector machine algorithm discriminated these similar gases with 94.2% in precision, about 20% higher than those obtained by conventional methods. Such a new alternating current noise analytics is very promising for application in sensors for high discrimination precision.

Attachable piezoelectric nanogenerators using collision-induced strain of vertically grown hollow MoS2 nanoflakes

Piezoelectric materials convert external mechanical force into electrical energy, due to the breaking of the centrosymmetry of the atomic structure. Piezoelectricity-based nano-generators (PNGs) based on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) can generate electrical energy stably by the piezoelectric effect at their nanoscale thickness. However, the commercialization of TMD-based PNGs is limited by their poor piezoelectric performance and microscale energy harvesting. Here, we present the first centimeter-scale PNGs based on molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanosheets with vertically grown hollow MoS₂ nanoflakes (v-MoS₂ NFs) obtained by chemical vapor deposition for energy harvesting from human motions. The collision of v-MoS₂ NFs with a preferred odd-atomic-layer number and their 2H antiparallel phase leads to efficient electrical energy generation during the bending movement. Further, basal MoS₂ films with v-MoS₂ NFs are transferred onto flexible substrates via conventional polymer-assisted methods for the fabrication of attachable and wearable piezoelectric power generators.

Chlorine-doped α-Co(OH)2 hollow nano-dodecahedrons prepared by a ZIF-67 self-sacrificing template route and enhanced OER catalytic activity

A ZIF-67-self-sacrificing template strategy was designed for the synthesis of undoped/Cl-doped α-Co(OH)₂ hollow nano-dodecahedrons with enhanced OER performance.

Piezoelectricity in WSe2/MoS2 heterostructure atomic layers

A two-dimensional heterostructure of WSe2/MoS2 atomic layers has unique piezoelectric characteristics which depend on the number of atomic layers, stacking type and interlayer interaction size. The van der Waals heterostructure of p- and n-type TMDC atomic layers with different work functions forms a type-II staggered gap alignment. The large band offset of the conduction band minimum and the valence band maximum between p-type WSe2 and n-type MoS2 atomic layers leads to large electric polarization and piezoelectricity. The output voltages for a MoS2/WSe2 partial vertical heterostructure with a size of 3.0 nm × 1.5 nm were 0.137 V and 0.183 V under 4% and 8% tensile strains, respectively. The output voltage of an AB-stacking MoS2/WSe2 heterostructure was larger than that of an AA-stacking heterostructure under 4% tensile strain due to the contribution of intrinsic piezoelectricity and symmetric out-of-plane conditions. The AB-stacking has a lower formation energy and better structural stability compared to AA-stacking. The large output voltage of nanoscale partial or full vertical heterostructures of 2D WSe2/MoS2 atomic layers in addition to the increased output voltage through the series connection of multiple nanoscale piezoelectric devices will enable the realization of nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) with TMDC heterostructure atomic layers.

Electrochemical Oxidation of Chlorine-Doped Co(OH)2 Nanosheet Arrays on Carbon Cloth as a Bifunctional Oxygen Electrode

The primary challenge of developing clean energy conversion/storage systems is to exploit an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst both for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with low cost and good durability. Here, we synthesized chlorine-doped Co(OH)₂ in situ grown on carbon cloth (Cl-doped Co(OH)₂) as an integrated electrode by a facial electrodeposition method. The anodic potential was then applied to the Cl-doped Co(OH)₂ in an alkaline solution to remove chlorine atoms (electro-oxidation (EO)/Cl-doped Co(OH)₂), which can further enhance the electrocatalytic activity without any thermal treatment. EO/Cl-doped Co(OH)₂ exhibits a better performance both for ORR and OER in terms of activity and durability because of the formation of a defective structure with a larger electrochemically active surface area after the electrochemical oxidation. This approach provides a new idea for introducing defects and developing active electrocatalyst.