Although reports have shown shifts in carbon dot emission wavelengths resulting from varying the excitation wavelength, this excitation‐dependent emission does not constitute true tuning, as the ...shifted peaks have much weaker intensity than their dominant emission, and this is often undesired in real world applications. We report for the first time the synthesis and photoluminescence properties of carbon dots whose peak fluorescence emission wavelengths are tunable across the entire visible spectrum by simple adjustment of the reagents and synthesis conditions, and these carbon dots are excited by white light. Detailed material characterization has revealed that this tunable emission results from changes in the carbon dots’ chemical composition, dictated by dehydrogenation reactions occurring during carbonization. These significantly alter the nucleation and growth process, resulting in dots with either more oxygen‐containing or nitrogen‐containing groups that ultimately determine their photoluminescence properties, which is in stark contrast to previous observations of carbon dot excitation‐dependent fluorescence. This new ability to synthesize broadband excitable carbon dots with tunable peak emissions opens up many new possibilities, particularly in multimodal sensing, in which multiple analytes and processes could be monitored simultaneously by associating a particular carbon dot emission wavelength to a specific chemical process without the need for tuning the excitation source.
Color tuning: Carbon dots whose peak fluorescence emission wavelengths are tunable across the entire visible spectrum from 400 to 710 nm are synthesized by simple adjustment of reagents and synthesis conditions. They exhibit multicolor emission upon excitation with white light.
Antibiotic resistance has made the treatment of biofilm-related infections challenging. As such, the quest for next-generation antimicrobial technologies must focus on targeted therapies to which ...pathogenic bacteria cannot develop resistance. Stimuli-responsive therapies represent an alternative technological focus due to their capability of delivering targeted treatment. This study provides a proof-of-concept investigation into the use of magneto-responsive gallium-based liquid metal (LM) droplets as antibacterial materials, which can physically damage, disintegrate, and kill pathogens within a mature biofilm. Once exposed to a low-intensity rotating magnetic field, the LM droplets become physically actuated and transform their shape, developing sharp edges. When placed in contact with a bacterial biofilm, the movement of the particles resulting from the magnetic field, coupled with the presence of nanosharp edges, physically ruptures the bacterial cells and the dense biofilm matrix is broken down. The antibacterial efficacy of the magnetically activated LM particles was assessed against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial biofilms. After 90 min over 99% of both bacterial species became nonviable, and the destruction of the biofilms was observed. These results will impact the design of next-generation, LM-based biofilm treatments.
Abstract
Negative carbon emission technologies are critical for ensuring a future stable climate. However, the gaseous state of CO
2
does render the indefinite storage of this greenhouse gas ...challenging. Herein, we created a liquid metal electrocatalyst that contains metallic elemental cerium nanoparticles, which facilitates the electrochemical reduction of CO
2
to layered solid carbonaceous species, at a low onset potential of −310 mV vs CO
2
/C. We exploited the formation of a cerium oxide catalyst at the liquid metal/electrolyte interface, which together with cerium nanoparticles, promoted the room temperature reduction of CO
2
. Due to the inhibition of van der Waals adhesion at the liquid interface, the electrode was remarkably resistant to deactivation via coking caused by solid carbonaceous species. The as-produced solid carbonaceous materials could be utilised for the fabrication of high-performance capacitor electrodes. Overall, this liquid metal enabled electrocatalytic process at room temperature may result in a viable negative emission technology.
Abstract
The predicted strong piezoelectricity for monolayers of group IV monochalcogenides, together with their inherent flexibility, makes them likely candidates for developing flexible ...nanogenerators. Within this group, SnS is a potential choice for such nanogenerators due to its favourable semiconducting properties. To date, access to large-area and highly crystalline monolayer SnS has been challenging due to the presence of strong inter-layer interactions by the lone-pair electrons of S. Here we report single crystal across-the-plane and large-area monolayer SnS synthesis using a liquid metal-based technique. The characterisations confirm the formation of atomically thin SnS with a remarkable carrier mobility of ~35 cm
2
V
−1
s
−1
and piezoelectric coefficient of ~26 pm V
−1
. Piezoelectric nanogenerators fabricated using the SnS monolayers demonstrate a peak output voltage of ~150 mV at 0.7% strain. The stable and flexible monolayer SnS can be implemented into a variety of systems for efficient energy harvesting.
Gallium is a near room temperature liquid metal with extraordinary properties that partly originate from the self‐limiting oxide layer formed on its surface. Taking advantage of the surface gallium ...oxide (Ga2O3), this work introduces a novel technique to synthesize gallium oxide nanoflakes at high yield by harvesting the self‐limiting native surface oxide of gallium. The synthesis process follows a facile two‐step method comprising liquid gallium metal sonication in DI water and subsequent annealing. In order to explore the functionalities of the product, the obtained hexagonal α‐Ga2O3 nanoflakes are used as a photocatalytic material to decompose organic model dyes. Excellent photocatalytic activity is observed under solar light irradiation. To elucidate the origin of these enhanced catalytic properties, the electronic band structure of the synthesized α‐Ga2O3 is carefully assessed. Consequently, this excellent photocatalytic performance is associated with an energy bandgap reduction, due to the presence of trap states, which are located at ≈1.65 eV under the conduction band minimum. This work presents a novel route for synthesizing oxide nanostructures that can be extended to other low melting temperature metals and their alloys, with great prospects for scaling up and high yield synthesis.
Sonication‐assisted route employed on liquid metal gallium is presented as a new route for synthesizing gallium oxide (Ga2O3) nanoflakes. The suspension of Ga2O3 is used for dye degradation, showing a remarkable efficiency, which is ascribed to the presence of trap bands.
The original version of this Article contained errors in the author affiliations. Affiliation 1 incorrectly read ‘School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW ...2031, Australia’ and affiliation 4 incorrectly read ‘School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia.’ This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.
Atomically thin semiconductors are one of the fastest growing categories in materials science due to their promise to enable high-performance electronic and optical devices. Furthermore, a host of ...intriguing phenomena have been reported to occur when a semiconductor is confined within two dimensions. However, the synthesis of large area atomically thin materials remains as a significant technological challenge. Here we report a method that allows harvesting monolayer of semiconducting stannous oxide nanosheets (SnO) from the interfacial oxide layer of liquid tin. The method takes advantage of van der Waals forces occurring between the interfacial oxide layer and a suitable substrate that is brought into contact with the molten metal. Due to the liquid state of the metallic precursor, the surface oxide sheet can be delaminated with ease and on a large scale. The SnO monolayer is determined to feature p-type semiconducting behavior with a bandgap of ∼4.2 eV. Field effect transistors based on monolayer SnO are demonstrated. The synthetic technique is facile, scalable and holds promise for creating atomically thin semiconductors at wafer scale.
Display omitted
Synthesizing two dimensional (2D) nanomaterials with controlled sub-nanometer thicknesses from non-layered crystals presents both significant challenges and vast opportunities. ...However, mechanical exfoliation techniques and physical/wet chemical deposition processes are widely disadvantageous for applicability to non-layered structures. Here we have utilized a simple self-limiting approach to prepare large sheets of 2D zinc oxide (ZnO) at the metal-melt/air interface. These ultra-thin sheets demonstrated highly crystalline hexagonal structures. The specific ZnO hexagonal sheet thickness and its interaction with the substrate were found to have a critical impact on d33. This unusual structure resulted in an exceptionally high out of plane piezoelectricity, yielding a giant value of 80 ± 0.8 pm/V at 2.5 unit-cell thickness for d33, which is 5 Zn-O layers in the wurtzite crystal. This out of plane piezoelectricity value is approximately 8 times larger than that of the value for bulk ZnO. Theoretical studies were carried out to elucidate the impact of the thickness and the substrate’s role on the polarization of the layers. The existence of a large piezoelectricity offered by the synergy of the substrate and specific thickness of ultrathin films offers the opportunity for other groups of potentially piezoelectric materials to be explored.
PDF
