Publications related to Universal Oxide Shell Growth Enables in Situ Structural Studies of Perovskite Nanocrystals during the Anion Exchange Reaction

Hybrid organic/metal-oxide shells on semiconductor nanocrystals via colloidal atomic layer deposition

The escalating energy demand and the imperative necessity to reduce the carbon footprint require transformative approaches to energy conversion. Materials chemistry plays a pivotal role in addressing these global challenges by developing novel materials fo ...

EPFL2024

Colloidal Atomic Layer Deposition on Nanocrystals Using Ligand-Modified Precursors

Raffaella Buonsanti, Anna Loiudice, Petru Pasquale Albertini, Ona Segura Lecina, Coline Marie Agathe Boulanger, Philippe Benjamin Green, Mark Adrian Newton, Krishna Kumar, Jari Leemans

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a method to grow thin metal oxide layers on a variety of materials for applications spanning from electronics to catalysis. Extending ALD to colloidally stable nanocrystals promises to combine the benefits of thin metal oxi ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Plasmonic Nanostructures for Photocatalysis: Material, Photonic and Electronic Effects

Fateme Kiani Shahvandi

Plasmonic photochemistry has a large potential to replace energy-intensive chemical processes with low-temperature, low-pressure light-driven chemical reactions. Plasmonic nanostructures have emerged as promising photocatalysts with exceptional and tunable ...

EPFL2024

Continuous Supercritical Water Impregnation Method for the Preparation of Metal Oxide on Activated Carbon Composite Materials

Christian Ludwig

Metal oxide (MexOy) nanomaterials are used as catalysts and/or sorbents in processes taking place in supercritical water (scH2O), which is the “green” solvent needed to obtain energy-relevant products. Their properties are significantly influenced by the s ...

2024

Spinel Protective Coatings for Solid Oxide Cell (SOC) Interconnects (ICs)

Samaneh Daviran

Abstract The degradation of metal interconnects (ICs) in Solid Oxide Cells (SOCs) primarily results from chromium (Cr) oxide scale growth on stainless-steel substrates, causing ohmic loss and air-side electrode poisoning by Cr. This thesis addresses these ...

EPFL2024

Second harmonic scattering of nanoparticles: A journey into the electrical double layer

Bingxin Chu

In aqueous solutions, a charged surface causes the redistribution of nearby ions. The ion layers formed are known as the electrical double layer (EDL), and are widespread in many systems involving electrochemistry, colloidal science, biomedicine, and energ ...

EPFL2024

Effects of Hyporheic Exchange and Settlement on the Particle Size Distribution of Colloids

David Andrew Barry, Qihao Jiang

Colloid particle size plays an important role in contaminant adsorption and clogging in the hyporheic zone, but it remains unclear how the particle size changes during the transport of colloids. This study investigated the variation of the particle size of ...

Springer2024

Electrochemical-repaired porous graphene membranes for precise ion-ion separation

Kumar Varoon Agrawal, Heng-Yu Chi, Kuang-Jung Hsu, Kangning Zhao, Shuqing Song, Zongyao Zhou

The preparation of atom-thick porous lattice hosting & Aring;-scale pores is attractive to achieve a large ion-ion selectivity in combination with a large ion flux. Graphene film is an ideal selective layer for this if high-precision pores can be incorpora ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Elimination of buried interfacial voids for efficient perovskite solar cells

Bo Chen, Bin Ding, Yan Liu, Xianfu Zhang

Establishing optimal interfacial contact is crucial for enhancing the efficiency of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, formation of voids at buried interface of perovskite films often hinders this critical objective. Our investigation reveals that the ...

Elsevier2024

Functionalized Å-scale Pores in Graphene for Carbon Capture

Kuang-Jung Hsu

Single-layer graphene, hosting a high density of functionalized molecular-sieving atom-thick pores, is considered to be an excellent material for gas separation membranes. These functionalized atom-thick pores enable the shortest transport pathway across t ...

EPFL2024

Tuning Pore Size in Graphene in the Angstrom Regime for Highly Selective Ion-Ion Separation

Kumar Varoon Agrawal, Luis Francisco Villalobos Vazquez de la Parra, Heng-Yu Chi, Wan-Chi Lee, Shaoxian Li, Kuang-Jung Hsu, Kangning Zhao, Yuyang Zhang

Zero-dimensional pores spanning only a few angstroms in size in two-dimensional materials such as graphene are some of the most promising systems for designing ion-ion selective membranes. However, the key challenge in the field is that so far a crack-free ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Plasmonically enhanced molecular junctions for investigation of atomic-scale fluctuations in self-assembled monolayers

Sakthi Priya Amirtharaj

Molecular junctions represent a fascinating frontier in the realm of nanotechnology and are one of the smallest optoelectronic devices possible, consisting of individual molecules or a group of molecules that serve as the active element sandwiched between ...

EPFL2024

Long live(d) CsPbBr3 superlattices: colloidal atomic layer deposition for structural stability

Raffaella Buonsanti, Alexander Nicolas Chen, Philippe Benjamin Green, Victoria Lapointe

Superlattice formation afforded by metal halide perovskite nanocrystals has been a phenomenon of interest due to the high structural order induced in these self-assemblies, an order that is influenced by the surface chemistry and particle morphology of the ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Alleviating nanostructural phase impurities enhances the optoelectronic properties, device performance and stability of cesium-formamidinium metal-halide perovskites

Christophe Ballif, Aïcha Hessler-Wyser, Quentin Thomas Jeangros, Beat Ruhstaller, Mostafa Rabie Shlaly Bahr Othman, Daniel Anthony Jacobs, Christian Michael Wolff, Anaël Morgane Jaffrès, Austin George Kuba

The technique of alloying FA+ with Cs+ is often used to promote structural stabilization of the desirable alpha-FAPbI3 phase in halide perovskite devices. However, the precise mechanisms by which these alloying approaches improve the optoelectronic quality ...

Royal Soc Chemistry2024

Modulating the Surface Properties of Lithium Niobate Nanoparticles by Multifunctional Coatings Using Water-in-Oil Microemulsions

Sandrine Gerber, Adrian Stefan Gheata, Manon Inès Noëlla Wittwer, Alessandra Spada

Inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as promising tools in biomedical applications, owing to their inherent physicochemical properties and their ease of functionalization. In all potential applications, the surface functionalization strategy is a key ...

2023

Optical manipulation of plasmonic nanoparticles: Applications in surface chemistry and nano-optics

Jeonghyeon Kim

Optical tweezers are devices that can manipulate nano- and microparticles using a laser. The principle of optical tweezers is to apply a force to an object using the momentum of light. This force is very small, but it is sufficient to move things in the mi ...

EPFL2023

Tungsten oxide-based photoanodes: biomass valorization and the effects of oxygen vacancies

Nukorn Plainpan

Tungsten oxide-based materials have unique and intriguing properties as photoanode materials for solar energy conversion. The first part of the thesis focuses on the use of WO3 photoanodes for the oxidation of 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural (HMF). Chapter one l ...

EPFL2023

Understanding the role of surface oxygen-containing functional groups on carbon-supported cobalt catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction

Thi Ha My Pham, Andreas Züttel, Youngdon Ko, Kangning Zhao, Liping Zhong, Manhui Wei

Supported Co-based catalysts exhibit promising catalytic activities in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) during alkaline water electrolysis. Surface functionalization of the support modulates the dispersion of the catalysts and their interaction with the ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2023

Zn3P2 as an earth-abundant photovoltaic material: from growth to device

Rajrupa Paul

The development of cost-effective and earth-abundant semiconducting materials is imperative for the sustainable deployment of photovoltaic technology. Zinc phosphide (Zn3P2) is a promising candidate for terawatt-scale electricity generation. It has a near- ...

EPFL2023

Nb, Ta and Hf-The tri-dopant tournament for the enhancement of TiO2 photochromism

Reinis Ignatans

TiO2 quantum dot (QD) size nanoparticle colloids have shown tremendous photochromic response. Here we show that the of the photochromic response of TiO2 QDs can be further enhanced by doping. Our synthesis approach allows to reach high nominal doping level ...

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