Two-dimensional (2D) materials have emerged as promising candidates for various optoelectronic applications based on their diverse electronic properties, ranging from insulating to superconducting. ...However, cooperative phenomena such as ferroelectricity in the 2D limit have not been well explored. Here, we report room-temperature ferroelectricity in 2D CuInP2S6 (CIPS) with a transition temperature of ∼320 K. Switchable polarization is observed in thin CIPS of ∼4 nm. To demonstrate the potential of this 2D ferroelectric material, we prepare a van der Waals (vdW) ferroelectric diode formed by CIPS/Si heterostructure, which shows good memory behaviour with on/off ratio of ∼100. The addition of ferroelectricity to the 2D family opens up possibilities for numerous novel applications, including sensors, actuators, non-volatile memory devices, and various vdW heterostructures based on 2D ferroelectricity.
The Boltzmann distribution of electrons sets a fundamental barrier to lowering energy consumption in metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). Negative capacitance FET (NC-FET), ...as an emerging FET architecture, is promising to overcome this thermionic limit and build ultra-low-power consuming electronics. Here, we demonstrate steep-slope NC-FETs based on two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide and CuInP
S
(CIPS) van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure. The vdW NC-FET provides an average subthreshold swing (SS) less than the Boltzmann's limit for over seven decades of drain current, with a minimum SS of 28 mV dec
. Negligible hysteresis is achieved in NC-FETs with the thickness of CIPS less than 20 nm. A voltage gain of 24 is measured for vdW NC-FET logic inverter. Flexible vdW NC-FET is further demonstrated with sub-60 mV dec
switching characteristics under the bending radius down to 3.8 mm. These results demonstrate the great potential of vdW NC-FET for ultra-low-power and flexible applications.
Materials that can produce large controllable strains are widely used in shape memory devices, actuators and sensors
, and great efforts have been made to improve the strain output
. Among them, ...ferroelastic transitions underpin giant reversible strains in electrically driven ferroelectrics or piezoelectrics and thermally or magnetically driven shape memory alloys
. However, large-strain ferroelastic switching in conventional ferroelectrics is very challenging, while magnetic and thermal controls are not desirable for practical applications. Here we demonstrate a large shear strain of up to 21.5% in a hybrid ferroelectric, C
H
N(CH
)
CdCl
, which is two orders of magnitude greater than that in conventional ferroelectric polymers and oxides. It is achieved by inorganic bond switching and facilitated by structural confinement of the large organic moieties, which prevents undesired 180° polarization switching. Furthermore, Br substitution can soften the bonds, allowing a sizable shear piezoelectric coefficient (d
≈ 4,830 pm V
) at the Br-rich end of the solid solution, C
H
N(CH
)
CdBr
Cl
. The electromechanical properties of these compounds suggest their potential in lightweight and high-energy-density devices, and the strategy described here could inspire the development of next-generation piezoelectrics and electroactive materials based on hybrid ferroelectrics.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a large group of organic compounds which are comprised of two or more fused benzene rings. As a typical environmental pollutant, PAHs are widely ...distributed in water, soil, atmosphere and food. Despite extensive researches on the mechanisms of health damage caused by PAHs, especially their carcinogenic and mutagenic toxicity, there is still a lack of comprehensive summarization and synthesis regarding the mechanisms of PAHs on the gut-testis axis, which represents an intricate interplay between the gastrointestinal and reproductive systems. Thus, this review primarily focuses on the potential forms of interaction between PAHs and the gut microbiota and summarizes their adverse outcomes that may lead to gut microbiota dysbiosis, then compiles the possible mechanistic pathways on dysbiosis of the gut microbiota impairing the male reproductive function, in order to provide valuable insights for future research and guide further exploration into the intricate mechanisms underlying the impact of gut microbiota dysbiosis caused by PAHs on male reproductive function.
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•PAHs reshape gut-testis axis, impacting male reproductive balance.•PAHs influence sperms quality, quantity, and sex hormones in intricate ways.•Summarized the literature on how PAHs affect distal organs through gut microbiota.
The quest for a solid state universal memory with high-storage density, high read/write speed, random access and non-volatility has triggered intense research into new materials and novel device ...architectures. Though the non-volatile memory market is dominated by flash memory now, it has very low operation speed with ~10 μs programming and ~10 ms erasing time. Furthermore, it can only withstand ~10(5) rewriting cycles, which prevents it from becoming the universal memory. Here we demonstrate that the significant photovoltaic effect of a ferroelectric material, such as BiFeO3 with a band gap in the visible range, can be used to sense the polarization direction non-destructively in a ferroelectric memory. A prototype 16-cell memory based on the cross-bar architecture has been prepared and tested, demonstrating the feasibility of this technique.
Abstract
Producing hydrogen by water electrolysis suffers from the kinetic barriers in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) that limits the overall efficiency. With spin-dependent kinetics in OER, to ...manipulate the spin ordering of ferromagnetic OER catalysts (e.g., by magnetization) can reduce the kinetic barrier. However, most active OER catalysts are not ferromagnetic, which makes the spin manipulation challenging. In this work, we report a strategy with spin pinning effect to make the spins in paramagnetic oxyhydroxides more aligned for higher intrinsic OER activity. The spin pinning effect is established in oxide
FM
/oxyhydroxide interface which is realized by a controlled surface reconstruction of ferromagnetic oxides. Under spin pinning, simple magnetization further increases the spin alignment and thus the OER activity, which validates the spin effect in rate-limiting OER step. The spin polarization in OER highly relies on oxyl radicals (O∙) created by 1
st
dehydrogenation to reduce the barrier for subsequent O-O coupling.
Abstract
Flexoelectricity induced by the strain gradient is attracting much attention due to its potential applications in electronic devices. Here, by combining a tunable flexoelectric effect and ...the ferroelectric photovoltaic effect, we demonstrate the continuous tunability of photoconductance in BiFeO
3
films. The BiFeO
3
film epitaxially grown on SrTiO
3
is transferred to a flexible substrate by dissolving a sacrificing layer. The tunable flexoelectricity is achieved by bending the flexible substrate which induces a nonuniform lattice distortion in BiFeO
3
and thus influences the inversion asymmetry of the film. Multilevel conductance is thus realized through the coupling between flexoelectric and ferroelectric photovoltaic effect in freestanding BiFeO
3
. The strain gradient induced multilevel photoconductance shows very good reproducibility by bending the flexible BiFeO
3
device. This control strategy offers an alternative degree of freedom to tailor the physical properties of flexible devices and thus provides a compelling toolbox for flexible materials in a wide range of applications.
Among the many materials investigated for next-generation photovoltaic cells, organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites have demonstrated great potential thanks to their high power conversion ...efficiency and solution processability. Within a short period of about 5 years, the efficiency of solar cells based on these materials has increased dramatically from 3.8 to over 20%. Despite the tremendous progress in device performance, much less is known about the underlying photophysics involving charge-orbital-lattice interactions and the role of the organic molecules in this hybrid material remains poorly understood. Here, we report a giant photostrictive response, that is, light-induced lattice change, of >1,200 p.p.m. in methylammonium lead iodide, which could be the key to understand its superior optical properties. The strong photon-lattice coupling also opens up the possibility of employing these materials in wireless opto-mechanical devices.
As a main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) activates chloride-permeable GABAa receptors (GABAa Rs) and induces chloride ion (Cl
) flow, which ...relies on the intracellular chloride concentration (Cl
) of the postsynaptic neuron. The Na-K-2Cl cotransporter isoform 1 (NKCC1) and the K-Cl cotransporter isoform 2 (KCC2) are two main cation-chloride cotransporters (CCCs) that have been implicated in human epilepsy. NKCC1 and KCC2 reset Cl
by accumulating and extruding Cl
, respectively. Previous studies have shown that the profile of NKCC1 and KCC2 in neonatal neurons may reappear in mature neurons under some pathophysiological conditions, such as epilepsy. Although increasing studies focusing on the expression of NKCC1 and KCC2 have suggested that impaired chloride plasticity may be closely related to epilepsy, additional neuroelectrophysiological research aimed at studying the functions of NKCC1 and KCC2 are needed to understand the exact mechanism by which they induce epileptogenesis. In this review, we aim to briefly summarize the current researches surrounding the expression and function of NKCC1 and KCC2 in epileptogenesis and its implications on the treatment of epilepsy. We will also explore the potential for NKCC1 and KCC2 to be therapeutic targets for the development of novel antiepileptic drugs.
In this paper, a delayed virus model with two different transmission methods and treatments is investigated. This model is a time-delayed version of the model in (Zhang et al. in Comput. Math. ...Methods Med. 2015:758362,
2015
). We show that the virus-free equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable if the basic reproduction number is smaller than one, and by regarding the time delay as a bifurcation parameter, the existence of local Hopf bifurcation is investigated. The results show that time delay can change the stability of the endemic equilibrium. Finally, we give some numerical simulations to illustrate the theoretical findings.
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