In recent years, 2D layered materials have received considerable research interest on account of their substantial material systems and unique physicochemical properties. Among them, 2D layered ...transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), a star family member, have already been explored over the last few years and have exhibited excellent performance in electronics, catalysis, and other related fields. However, to fulfill the requirement for practical application, the batch production of 2D TMDs is essential. Recently, the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique was considered as an elegant alternative for successfully growing 2D TMDs and their heterostructures. The latest research advances in the controllable synthesis of 2D TMDs and related heterostructures/superlattices via the CVD approach are illustrated here. The controlled growth behavior, preparation strategies, and breakthroughs on the synthesis of new 2D TMDs and their heterostructures, as well as their unique physical phenomena, are also discussed. Recent progress on the application of CVD‐grown 2D materials is revealed with particular attention to electronics/optoelectronic devices and catalysts. Finally, the challenges and future prospects are considered regarding the current development of 2D TMDs and related heterostructures.
The latest research advances in the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) synthesis of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides and related heterostructures/superlattices are comprehensively summarized. The controlled growth behavior, preparation strategies, and breakthroughs regarding their synthesis are also discussed. Finally, recent progress on the application of CVD‐grown 2D materials is presented with emphasis on the future prospects of these materials.
Lung cancer is one of the most malignant tumors, causing over 1,000,000 deaths each year worldwide. Deep learning has brought success in many domains in recent years. DNA methylation, an epigenetic ...factor, is used for model training in many studies. There is an opportunity for deep learning methods to analyze the lung cancer epigenetic data to determine their subtypes for appropriate treatment.
Here, we employ variational autoencoders (VAEs), an unsupervised deep learning framework, on 450K DNA methylation data of TCGA-LUAD and TCGA-LUSC to learn latent representations of the DNA methylation landscape. We extract a biologically relevant latent space of LUAD and LUSC samples. It is showed that the bivariate classifiers on the further compressed latent features could classify the subtypes accurately. Through clustering of methylation-based latent space features, we demonstrate that the VAEs can capture differential methylation patterns about subtypes of lung cancer.
VAEs can distinguish the original subtypes from manually mixed methylation data frame with the encoded features of latent space. Further applications about VAEs should focus on fine-grained subtypes identification for precision medicine.
To address the urgent need for clean and sustainable energy, the rapid development of hydrogen‐based technologies has started to revolutionize the use of earth‐abundant noble‐metal‐free catalysts for ...the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Like the active sites of hydrogenases, the cation sites of pyrite‐type transition‐metal dichalcogenides have been suggested to be active in the HER. Herein, we synthesized electrodes based on a Se‐enriched NiSe2 nanosheet array and explored the relationship between the anion sites and the improved hydrogen evolution activity through theoretical and experimental studies. The free energy for atomic hydrogen adsorption is much lower on the Se sites (0.13 eV) than on the Ni sites (0.87 eV). Notably, this electrode benefits from remarkable kinetic properties, with a small overpotential of 117 mV at 10 mA cm−2, a low Tafel slope of 32 mV per decade, and excellent stability. Control experiments showed that the efficient conversion of H+ into H2 is due to the presence of an excess of selenium in the NiSe2 nanosheet surface.
Excess selenium: Although the undercoordinated surface metal centers of pyrite‐type transition‐metal dichalcogenides have been suggested to be the main active sites for H2 production, the ligand composition also plays a decisive role. The Se sites and excessive Se atoms on the surface of pyrite‐type NiSe2 are now corroborated to be the active sites for electrochemical H2 evolution.
The exponentially growing works on 2D materials have resulted in both high scientific interest and huge potential applications in nanocatalysis, optoelectronics, and spintronics. Of especial note is ...that the newly emerged and promising family of metal phosphorus trichalcogenides (MPX3) contains semiconductors, metals, and insulators with intriguing layered structures and architectures. The bandgaps of the members in this family range from 1.3 to 3.5 eV, significantly enriching the application of 2D materials in the broad wavelength spectrum. In this review, emphasizing their remarkable structural, physicochemical, and magnetic properties, as well as the numerous applications in various fields, the innovative progress on layered MPX3 crystals is summarized. Different from other layered materials, these crystals will advance a fascinating frontier in magnetism and spintronic devices with their especially featured atomic layered nanosheets. Thus, their crystal and electronic structures, along with some related researches in magnetism, are discussed in detail. The assortments of growth methods are then summarized. Considering their potential applications, the prominent utilization of these 2D MPX3 nanoscrystals in catalysis, batteries, and optoelectronics is also discussed. Finally, the outlook of these kinds of layered nanomaterials is provided.
Researches on 2D materials have resulted in both high scientific interest and huge potential for a variety of applications. Herein, the frontiers on newly emerged and promising MPX3 family are summarized, which contains semiconductors, metals, and insulators with a special layered structure and architecture. Their compelling structural, physical, chemical, and magnetic properties, as well as the potential applications are highlighted.
Van der Waals epitaxy (vdWE) is of great interest due to its extensive applications in the synthesis of ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) layered materials. However, vdWE of nonlayered functional ...materials is still not very well documented. Here, although tellurium has a strong tendency to grow into one-dimensional nanoarchitecture due to its chain-like structure, we successfully realize 2D hexagonal tellurium nanoplates on flexible mica sheets via vdWE. Chemically inert mica surface is found to be crucial for the lateral growth of hexagonal tellurium nanoplates since it (1) facilitates the migration of tellurium adatoms along mica surface and (2) allows a large lattice mismatch. Furthermore, 2D tellurium hexagonal nanoplates-based photodetectors are in situ fabricated on flexible mica sheets. Efficient photoresponse is obtained even after bending the device for 100 times, indicating 2D tellurium hexagonal nanoplates-based photodetectors on mica sheets have a great application potential in flexible and wearable optoelectronic devices. We believe the fundamental understanding of vdWE effect on the growth of 2D tellurium hexagonal nanoplate can pave the way toward leveraging vdWE as a useful channel to realize the 2D geometry of other nonlayered materials.
The current available superhydrophobic modification techniques that utilize mussel-inspired polydopamine (pDA) to construct hierarchical structures require the addition of nanoparticles or the usage ...of a high concentration of dopamine. These requirements are expensive and therefore lower the application efficiency. Herein, for the first time, a superhydrophobic fabric was prepared by a novel and simple mussel-inspired strategy with a much lower concentration of dopamine without any additional nanoparticles. Folic acid (FA) was first applied to a surface to induce the formation of rough pDA coatings with hierarchical structures. These hierarchical structures can be readily controlled by adjusting FA concentration or coating duration. After octadecylamine (ODA) chemical manipulation, the obtained fabric exhibited water contact and rolling off angles of about 162 degree and 7 degree , respectively, indicating that it was endowed with superhydrophobicity. Importantly, the superhydrophobic fabric can withstand continuous and drastic 3.5 wt% NaCl solution rinses and repeated tearing with an adhesive tape more than 30 times, suggesting that it has excellent durability. This novel mussel-inspired strategy can facilely and cost-effectively realize superhydrophobic manipulation and tailoring of materials. Moreover, an energy-saving and highly-efficient mini boat fabricated from our novel superhydrophobic fabric was utilized for self-driven oil spill cleanup. The boat can automatically recycle crude oil spills while floating freely on water with a cleanup rate of crude oil spill up to 97.1%, demonstrating great potential in environmental remediation. The novel strategy designed in this study will inspire the fast development of mussel-inspired superhydrophobic materials for applications in various fields.
•The synergetic effects of GO and PVP on membrane performance were investigated.•The surface hydrophilicity of membrane was enhanced by the synergistic effects.•The anti-fouling performance was ...obviously improved in PVDF/GO/PVP membrane.•The optimized performance can be obtained at the stipulated GO and PVP contents.
Membrane surface and cross-sectional morphology created during membrane formation is one of the most essential factors determining membrane separation performance. However, the complicated interactions between added nanoparticles and additives influencing membrane morphology and performance during building membrane architectures had been generally neglected. In this study, asymmetric PVDF composite ultrafiltration (UF) membranes containing graphene oxides (GO) were prepared by using N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent and polyvinylpyrrodione (PVP) as the pore forming reagent. In the first time, the effects of mutual interactions between GO and PVP on membranes surface compositions, morphology and performance were investigated in detail. The variation in chemical properties of different membranes and hydrogen bonds in the membrane containing GO and PVP were confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy-attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR). Atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and contact angle (CA) were utilized to clarify the synergetic effects of GO and PVP on morphologies and surface hydrophilicity of membranes. Besides, water flux, bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection and attenuate coefficient were also determined to investigate filtration performance of various membranes. Compared with pure PVDF membrane, the comprehensive performance of PVDF/GO/PVP membrane has been obviously improved. The surface hydrophilicity and anti-fouling performance were enhanced by the synergistic effects of incorporated GO and PVP. When the PVP content was 0.25wt.% and the GO content was 0.5wt.%, the optimized performance can be obtained due to the formation of hydrogen bonds between GO and PVP.
2D magnetic materials have generated an enormous amount of attention due to their unique 2D‐limited magnetism and their potential applications in spintronic devices. Recently, most of this research ...has focused on 2D van der Waals layered magnetic materials exfoliated from the bulk with random size and thicknesses. Controllable growth of these materials is still a great challenge. In contrast, 2D nonlayered magnetic materials have rarely been investigated, not especially regarding their preparation. CrnX (X = S, Se and Te; 0 < n < 1), a class of nonlayered transition metal dichalcogenides, has rapidly attracted extensive attention due to its abundance of structural compounds and unique magnetic properties. Herein, the controlled synthesis of ultrathin CrSe crystals, with grain size reaching the sub‐millimeter scale, on mica substrates via an ambient pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method is demonstrated. A continuous CrSe film can also be achieved via precise control of the key growth parameters. Importantly, the CVD‐grown 2D CrSe crystals possess obvious ferromagnetic properties at temperatures below 280 K, which has not been observed experimentally before. This work broadens the scope of the CVD growth of 2D magnetic materials and highlights their significant application possibilities in spintronics.
The synthesis of ultrathin nonlayered CrSe single crystals with a lateral size of up to ≈150 μm and a thickness as low as ≈2.5 nm is realized. The CrSe flakes exhibit obvious ferromagnetic properties. This work not only paves the way for the synthesis of 2D magnetic materials but also has applications in spintronics.
2D materials, represented by transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), have attracted tremendous research interests in photoelectronic and electronic devices. However, for their relatively small ...bandgap (<2 eV), the application of traditional TMDs into solar‐blind ultraviolet (UV) photodetection is restricted. Here, for the first time, NiPS3 nanosheets are grown via chemical vapor deposition method. The nanosheets thinning to 3.2 nm with the lateral size of dozens of micrometers are acquired. Based on the various nanosheets, a linearity is found between the Raman intensity of specific Ag modes and the thickness, providing a convenient method to determine their layer numbers. Furthermore, a UV photodetector is fabricated using few‐layered 2D NiPS3 nanosheets. It shows an ultrafast rise time shorter than 5 ms with an ultralow dark current less than 10 fA. Notably, this UV photodetector demonstrates a high detectivity of 1.22 × 1012 Jones, outperforming some traditional wide‐bandgap UV detectors. The wavelength‐dependent photoresponsivity measurement allows the direct observation of an admirable cut‐off wavelength at 360 nm, which indicates a superior spectral selectivity. The promising photodetector performance, accompanied with the controllable fabrication and transfer process of nanosheet, lays the foundation of applying 2D semiconductors for ultrafast UV light detection.
Herein, a high‐performance ultraviolet photodetector based on a few‐layered 2D NiPS3 nanosheet is demonstrated. NiPS3 nanosheets are first synthesized by the chemical vapor deposition method and the thickness‐dependent Raman spectra are systematically investigated. A two‐terminal device based on NiPS3 nanosheets exhibits significant spectral selectivity. A rise time shorter than 5 ms and a detectivity of 1.22 × 1012 Jones are realized.
DNA methylation has been identified to be widely associated to complex diseases. Among biological platforms to profile DNA methylation in human, the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip ...(450K) has been accepted as one of the most efficient technologies. However, challenges exist in analysis of DNA methylation data generated by this technology due to widespread biases.
Here we proposed a generalized framework for evaluating data analysis methods for Illumina 450K array. This framework considers the following steps towards a successful analysis: importing data, quality control, within-array normalization, correcting type bias, detecting differentially methylated probes or regions and biological interpretation.
We evaluated five methods using three real datasets, and proposed outperform methods for the Illumina 450K array data analysis. Minfi and methylumi are optimal choice when analyzing small dataset. BMIQ and RCP are proper to correcting type bias and the normalized result of them can be used to discover DMPs. R package missMethyl is suitable for GO term enrichment analysis and biological interpretation.
PDF
