Materials Science

Graphene is a rapidly rising star on the horizon of materials science and condensed-matter physics. This strictly two-dimensional material exhibits exceptionally high crystal and electronic quality, and, despite its short history, has already…

Excitonic solar cells-including organic, hybrid organic-inorganic and dye-sensitized cells (DSCs)-are promising devices for inexpensive, large-scale solar energy conversion. The DSC is currently the most efficient and stable excitonic photocell.…

We present an efficient scheme for calculating the Kohn-Sham ground state of metallic systems using pseudopotentials and a plane-wave basis set. In the first part the application of Pulay's DIIS method (direct inversion in the iterative subspace) to…

The outstanding electrical, mechanical and chemical properties of graphene make it attractive for applications in flexible electronics. However, efforts to make transparent conducting films from graphene have been hampered by the lack of efficient…

From a theory of Hohenberg and Kohn, approximation methods for treating an inhomogeneous system of interacting electrons are developed. These methods are exact for systems of slowly varying or high density. For the ground state, they lead to…

Problems associated with large-scale pattern growth of graphene constitute one of the main obstacles to using this material in device applications. Recently, macroscopic-scale graphene films were prepared by two-dimensional assembly of graphene…

Generalized gradient approximations (GGA's) for the exchange-correlation energy improve upon the local spin density (LSD) description of atoms, molecules, and solids. We present a simple derivation of a simple GGA, in which all parameters (other…

Titanium dioxide is the most investigated single-crystalline system in the surface science of metal oxides, and the literature on rutile (110), (100), (001), and anatase surfaces is reviewed. This paper starts with a summary of the wide variety of…

Researchers must find a sustainable way of providing the power our modern lifestyles demand.

Technological improvements in rechargeable solid-state batteries are being driven by an ever-increasing demand for portable electronic devices. Lithium-ion batteries are the systems of choice, offering high energy density, flexible and lightweight…

Mechanical alloying (MA) is a solid-state powder processng technique involving repeated welding, fracturing, and rewelding of powder particles in a high-energy ball mill. Originally developed to produce oxide-dispersion strengthened (ODS) nickel-…

Contents 1. Historic Introduction 293 2. General Background: Quantum Size Effect and Single-Electron Transitions 294 3. Synthesis and Assembly 296 3.1. Citrate Reduction 296 3.2. The Brust-Schiffrin Method: Two-Phase Synthesis and Stabilization by…

There is great interest in developing rechargeable lithium batteries with higher energy capacity and longer cycle life for applications in portable electronic devices, electric vehicles and implantable medical devices. Silicon is an attractive anode…

In this review, recent developments in the fabrication and understanding of the electronic properties of graphene nanostructures are discussed. After a brief overview of the structure of graphene and the two-dimensional transport properties, the…

Thermoelectric materials, which can generate electricity from waste heat or be used as solid-state Peltier coolers, could play an important role in a global sustainable energy solution. Such a development is contingent on identifying materials with…

The use of Raman spectroscopy to reveal the remarkable structure and the unusual electronic and phonon properties of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) is reviewed comprehensively. The various types of Raman scattering processes relevant to carbon…

Graphene is the name given to a two-dimensional sheet of sp2-hybridized carbon. Its extended honeycomb network is the basic building block of other important allotropes; it can be stacked to form 3D graphite, rolled to form 1D nanotubes, and wrapped…

In the large field of nanotechnology, polymer matrix based nanocomposites have become a prominent area of current research and development. Exfoliated clay-based nanocomposites have dominated the polymer literature but there are a large number of…

This paper deals with the ground state of an interacting electron gas in an external potential v(r). It is proved that there exists a universal functional of the density, Fn(r), independent of v(r), such that the expression Ev(r)n(r)dr+Fn(r) has as…

The ultimate aim of any detection method is to achieve such a level of sensitivity that individual quanta of a measured entity can be resolved. In the case of chemical sensors, the quantum is one atom or molecule. Such resolution has so far been…