Structures of Pt clusters on graphene doped with nitrogen, boron, and silicon: a theoretical study

The structures of Pt clusters on nitrogen-,boron-,silicon-doped graphenes are theoretically studied using densityfunctional theory.These dopants(nitrogen,boron and silicon) each do not induce a local curvature in the graphene and the doped graphenes all retain their planar form.The formation energy of the silicon-graphene system is lower than those of the nitrogen-,boron-doped graphenes,indicating that the silicon atom is easier to incorporate into the graphene.All the substitutional impurities enhance the interaction between the Pt atom and the graphene.The adsorption energy of a Pt adsorbed on the silicon-doped graphene is much higher than those on the nitrogen-and boron-doped graphenes.The doped silicon atom can provide more charges to enhance the Pt-graphene interaction and the formation of Pt clusters each with a large size.The stable structures of Pt clusters on the doped-graphenes are dimeric,triangle and tetrahedron with the increase of the Pt coverage.Of all the studied structures,the tetrahedron is the most stable cluster which has the least influence on the planar surface of doped-graphene.     

Infrared Absorption Spectra of Undoped and Doped Few-Layer Graphenes

The infrared absorption spectra of undoped few-layer graphenes with the layer number of N = 1-6, the hole- and electron-doped few-layer graphenes with the layer number of N =1-4 have been studied based upon the tight-binding model. It is found that in contrast with the featureless optical spectrum of the undoped monolayer graphene, the undoped AB-stacking bi-, tri-, tetra- and more-layer graphene exhibit characteristic jumps in their infrared absorption （IR） spectra, which are caused by coupling between different layers. It is also found that the clear peaks exist in the IR spectra of the hole or electron-doped hi-, tri- and tetra-layer graphenes, which are induced by the strong IR transitions between their parallel valence or conduction bands. Based upon their different IR spectra, a powerful experimental tool has been proposed to identify accurately the layer number and doping type for the few-layer graphenes.     

Fabrication of pillar-array superhydrophobic silicon surface and thermodynamic analysis on the wetting state transition

Textured silicon （Si） substrates decorated with regular microscale square pillar arrays of nearly the same side length, height, but different intervals are fabricated by inductively coupled plasma, and then silanized by self-assembly octadecyl- trichlorosilane （OTS） film. The systematic water contact angle （CA） measurements and micro/nanoscale hierarchical rough structure models are used to analyze the wetting behaviors of original and silanized textured Si substrates each as a function of pillar interval-to-width ratio. On the original textured Si substrate with hydrophilic pillars, the water droplet possesses a larger apparent CAs （〉 90~） and contact angle hysteresis （CAH）, induced by the hierarchical roughness of microscale pil- lar arrays and nanoscale pit-like roughness. However, the silanized textured substrate shows superhydrophobicity induced by the low free energy OTS overcoat and the hierarchical roughness of microscale pillar arrays, and nanoscale island-like roughness. The largest apparent CA on the superhydrophobic surface is 169.8~. In addition, the wetting transition of a gently deposited water droplet is observed on the original textured substrate with pillar interval-to-width ratio increasing. Furthermore, the wetting state transition is analyzed by thermodynamic approach with the consideration of the CAH effect. The results indicate that the wetting state changed from a Cassie state to a pseudo-Wenzel during the transition.     

Epitaxial Growth of Graphene on 6H-SiC （0001） by Thermal Annealing

An epitaxial graphene （EG） layer is successfully grown on a Si-terminated 6H-SiC （（9001） substrate by the method of thermal annealing in an ultrahigh vacuum molecular beam epitaxy chamber. The structure and morphology of the EG sample are characterized by reflection high energy diffraction （RHEED）, Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy （AFM）. Graphene diffraction streaks can are clearly observed in the Raman spectrum. The AFM about 4-10 layers. be seen in RHEED. The G and 2D peaks of graphene results show that the graphene nominal thickness is     

Field emissions of graphene films deposited on different substrates by CVD system

<正>Graphene films are deposited on copper(Cu) and aluminum(Al) substrates,respectively,by using a microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition technique.Furthermore,these graphene films are characterized by a field emission type scanning electron microscope(FE-SEM),Raman spectra,and field emission(FE) I-V measurements.It is found that the surface morphologies of the films deposited on Cu and Al substrates are different:the field emission property of graphene film deposited on the Cu substrate is better than that on the Al substrate,and the lowest turn-on field of 2.4 V/μm is obtained for graphene film deposited on the Cu substrate.The macroscopic areas of the graphene samples are all above 400 mm~2.     

Mechanical Properties of Ni-Coated Single Graphene Sheet and Their Embedded Aluminum Matrix Composites

The effects of Ni coating on the mechanical behaviors of single graphene sheet and their embedded Al matrix composites under axial tension are investigated using molecular dynamics （MD） simulation method. The results show that the Young＇s moduli and tensile strength of graphene obviously decrease after Ni coating. The results also show that the mechanical properties of Al matrix can be obviously increased by embedding a single graphene sheet. From the simulation, we also find that the Young＇s modulus and tensile strength of the Ni-coated graphene/Al composite is obviously larger than those of the uncoated graphene/Al composite. The increased magnitude of the Young＇s modulus and tensile strength of graphene/Al composite are 52.27% and 32.32% at 0.01 K, respectively, due to Ni coating. By exploring the effects of temperature on the mechanical properties of single graphene sheet and their embedded Al matrix composites, it is found that the higher temperature leads to the lower critical strain and tensile strength.     

First-principles study of hydrogen adsorption on titanium-decorated single-layer and bilayer graphenes

The adsorption of hydrogen molecules on titanium-decorated （Ti-decorated） single-layer and bilayer graphenes is studied using density functional theory （DFT） with the relativistic effect. Both the local density approximation （LDA） and the generalized gradient approximation （GGA） are used for obtaining the region of the adsorption energy of H2 molecules on Ti-decorated graphene. We find that a graphene layer with titanium （Ti） atoms adsorbed on both sides can store hydrogen up to 9.51 wt% with average adsorption energy in a range from -0.170 eV to 0.518 eV. Based on the adsorption energy criterion, we find that chemisorption is predominant for H2 molecules when the concentration of H2 molecules absorbed is low while physisorption is predominant when the concentration is high. The computation results for the bilayer graphene decorated with Ti atoms show that the lower carbon layer makes no contribution to hydrogen adsorption.     

Sessile droplet freezing and ice adhesion on aluminum with different surface wettability and surface temperature

This paper focused on the sessile droplet freezing and ice adhesion on aluminum with different wettability(hydrophilic, common hydrophobic, and superhydrophobic surfaces, coded as HIS, CHS, SHS, respectively) over a surface temperature range of ?9°C to ?19°C. It was found that SHS could retard the sessile droplet freezing and lower the ice adhesion probably due to the interfacial air pockets(IAPs) on water/SHS interface. However, as surface temperature decreasing, some IAPs were squeezed out and such freezing retarding and adhesion lowering effect for SHS was reduced greatly. For a surface temperature of ?19°C, ice adhesion on SHS was even greater than that on CHS. To discover the reason for the squeezing out of IAPs, forces applied to the suspended water on IAPs were analyzed and it was found that the stability of IAPs was associated with surface micro-structures and surface temperature. These findings might be helpful to designing of SHS with good anti-icing properties.     

Raman Spectrum of Epitaxial Graphene Grown on Ion Beam Illuminated 6H-SiC （0001）

Patterning SiC substrates with focused ion beam for growth of confined graphene nanostructures is interesting for fabrication of graphene devices. However, by imposing an ion beam, the morphology of illuminated SiC substrate surface is inevitably damaged, which imposes significant effects on the subsequent growth of graphene. By using confocal Raman spectroscopy, we investigate the effects of ion beam illumination on the quality of graphene layers that are grown on 6H-SiC （0001） substrates with two different growth methods. With the first method, the 6H-SiC （0001） substrate is flash annealed in ultra-high vacuum. Prominent defects in graphene grown on illuminated areas are revealed by the emergence of Raman D peak. Significant changes in D peak intensity are observed with Ga＋ ion fluence as low as 10^5 μm^-2. To eliminate the damage from the ion beam illumination, hydrogen etching is employed in the second growth method, with which prominent improvement in the quality of crystalline graphene is revealed by its Raman features. The defect density is significantly reduced as inferred from the disappearance of D peak. The Raman shift of G peak and 2D peak indicates strain-released graphene layers as grown in such a method. Such results provide essential information for patterning graphene nano-devices.     

A comparison of the field emission characteristics of vertically aligned graphene sheets grown on different SiC substrates

The field emission （FE） properties of vertically aligned graphene sheets （VAGSs） grown on different SiC substrates are reported. The VAGSs grown on nonpolar SiC （10-10） substrate show an ordered alignment with the graphene basal plane-parallel to each other, and show better FE features, with a lower turn-on field and a larger field enhancement factor. The VAGSs grown on polar SiC （000-1 ） substrate reveal a random petaloid-shaped arrangement and stable current emission over 8 hours with a maximum emission current fluctuation of only 4%. The reasons behind the differing FE characteristics of the VAGSs on different SiC substrates are analyzed and discussed.     

Physical model for the exotic ultraviolet photo-conductivity of ZnO nanowire films

Employing a simple and efficient method of electro-chemical anodization,ZnO nanowire films are fabricated on Zn foil,and an ultraviolet(UV)sensor prototype is formed for investigating the electronic transport through back-to-back double junctions.The UV(365 nm)responses of surface-contacted ZnO film are provided by I–V measurement,along with the current evolution process by on/off of UV illumination.In this paper,the back-to-back metal–seconductor–metal(M–S–M)model is used to explain the electronic transport of a ZnO nanowire film based structure.A thermionic-field electron emission mechanism is employed to fit and explain the as-observed UV sensitive electronic transport properties of ZnO film with surface-modulation by oxygen and water molecular coverage.     

Effects of annealing temperature on the electrical property and microstructure of aluminum contact on n-type 3C–SiC

The 3C-SiC thin films used herein are grown on Si substrates by chemical vapor deposition. A1 contacts with differ- ent thickness values are deposited on the 3C-SiC/Si （100） structure by the magnetron sputtering method and are annealed at different temperatures. We focus on the effects of the annealing temperature on the ohmic contact properties and mi- crostructure of A1/3C-SiC structure. The electrical properties of A1 contacts to n-type 3C-SiC are characterized by the transmission line method. The crystal structures and chemical phases of A1 contacts are examined by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectra, and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. It is found that the A1 contacts exhibit ohmic contact behaviors when the annealing temperature is below 550 ℃, and they become Schottky contacts when the annealing tem- perature is above 650 ℃. A minimum specific contact resistance of 1.8 × 10-4 Ω cm2 is obtained when the A1 contact is annealed at 250 ℃.     

Three-Dimensional Multi-mesh Material Point Method for Solving Collision Problems

A new multi-mesh contact algorithm for three-dimensional material point method is presented. The contact algorithm faithfully recovers the opposite acting forces between colliding bodies. Collision procedures between regular bodies and/or rigid bodies are treated within the same framework. Multi-value of momentum and mass are defined on every node to describe the contact/sliding/separation procedure. Both normal and tangential velocities of each particle at the contact surface are calculated in respective individual mesh. A Coulomb friction is applied to describe the sliding or slipping between the contacting bodies. The efficiency of the contact algorithm is linearly related to the number of the contacting bodies because the overlapped nodes are labeled by sweeping the material particles of all bodies when the nodal momentum and mass are formed at every time step. Numerical simulation shows that our contact algorithm possesses high accuracy and low numerical energy dissipation, which is very important for solving collision problems.     

A1/Ti/4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes with inhomogeneous barrier heights

This paper investigates the current-voltage （I-V） characteristics of Al/Ti/4H-SiC Schottky barrier diodes （SBDs） in the temperature range of 77 K-500 K, which shows that Al/Ti/4H SiC SBDs have good rectifying behaviour. An abnormal behaviour, in which the zero bias barrier height decreases while the ideality factor increases with decreasing temperature （T）, has been successfully interpreted by using thermionic emission theory with Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights due to the inhomogeneous barrier height at the A1/Ti/4H-SiC interface. The effective Richardson constant A＊ = 154 A/cm2 . K2 is determined by means of a modified Richardson plot In（I0/T2） - （qσ）2/2（κT）2 versus q/kT, which is very close to the theoretical value 146 A/cm2 · K2.     

Manipulation of plasmonic wavefront and light–matter interaction in metallic nanostructures: A brief review

The control and application of surface plasmons （SPs）, is introduced with particular emphasis on the manipulation of the plasmonic wavefront and light-matter interaction in metallic nanostructures. We introduce a direct design methodology called the surface wave holography method and show that it can be readily employed for wave-front shaping of near-infrared light through a subwavelength hole, it can also be used for designing holographic plasmonic lenses for SPs with complex wavefronts in the visible band. We also discuss several issues of light-matter interaction in plasmonic nanostructures. We show theoretically that amplification of SPs can be achieved in metal nanoparticles incorporated with gain media, leading to a giant reduction of surface plasmon resonance linewidth and enhancement of local electric field intensity. We present an all-analytical semiclassical theory to evaluate spaser performance in a plasmonic nanocavity incorporated with gain media described by the four-level atomic model. We experimentally demonstrate amplified spontaneous emission of SP polaritons and their amplification at the interface between a silver film and a polymer film doped with dye molecules. We discuss various aspects of microscopic and macroscopic manipulation of fluorescent radiation from gold nanorod hybrid structures in a system of either a single nanoparticle or an aligned group of nanoparticles. The findings reported and reviewed here could help others explore various approaches and schemes to manipulate plasmonic wavefront and light-matter interaction in metallic nanostructures for potential applications, such as optical displays, information integration, and energy harvesting technologies.     

Measurement of the friction coefficient of a fluctuating contact line using an AFM-based dual-mode mechanical resonator

A dual-mode mechanical resonator using an atomic force microscope （AFM） as a force sensor is developed. The resonator consists of a long vertical glass fiber with one end glued onto a rectangular cantilever beam and the other end immersed through a liquid-air interface. By measuring the resonant spectrum of the modified AFM cantilever, one is able to accurately determine the longitudinal friction coefficient ξv along the fiber axis associated with the vertical oscillation of the hanging fiber and the traversal friction coefficient ξh perpendicular to the fiber axis associated with the horizontal swing of the fiber around its joint with the cantilever. The technique is tested by measurement of the friction coefficient of a fluctuating （and slipping） contact line between the glass fiber and the liquid interface. The experiment verifies the theory and demonstrates its applications. The dual-mode mechanical resonator provides a powerful tool for the study of the contact line dynamics and the rheological property of anisotropic fluids.     

Influence of roughness on the detection of mechanical characteristics of low-k film by the surface acoustic waves

The surface acoustic wave （SAW） technique is a precise and nondestructive method to detect the mechanical charac- teristics of the thin low dielectric constant （low-k） film by matching the theoretical dispersion curve with the experimental dispersion curve. In this paper, the influence of sample roughness on the precision of SAW mechanical detection is inves- tigated in detail. Random roughness values at the surface of low-k film and at the interface between this low-k film and the substrate are obtained by the Monte Carlo method. The dispersive characteristic of SAW on the layered structure with rough surface and rough interface is modeled by numerical simulation of finite element method. The Young＇s moduli of the Black DiamondTM samples with different roughness values are determined by SAWs in the experiment. The results show that the influence of sample roughness is very small when the root-mean-square （RMS） of roughness is smaller than 50 nm and correlation length is smaller than 20 μm. This study indicates that the SAW technique is reliable and precise in the nondestructive mechanical detection for low-k films.     

Quantum confinement and surface chemistry of 0.8–1.6 nm hydrosilylated silicon nanocrystals

In the framework of density functional theory(DFT), we have studied the electronic properties of alkene/alkynehydrosilylated silicon nanocrystals(Si NCs) in the size range from 0.8 nm to 1.6 nm. Among the alkenes with all kinds of functional groups considered in this work, only those containing –NH2and –C4H3S lead to significant hydrosilylationinduced changes in the gap between the highest occupied molecular orbital(HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital(LUMO) of an Si NC at the ground state. The quantum confinement effect is dominant for all of the alkenehydrosilylated Si NCs at the ground state. At the excited state, the prevailing effect of surface chemistry only occurs at the smallest(0.8 nm) Si NCs hydrosilylated with alkenes containing –NH2and –C4H3S. Although the alkyne hydrosilylation gives rise to a more significant surface chemistry effect than alkene hydrosilylation, the quantum confinement effect remains dominant for alkyne-hydrosilylated Si NCs at the ground state. However, at the excited state, the effect of surface chemistry induced by the hydrosilylation with conjugated alkynes is strong enough to prevail over that of quantum confinement.     

Synthesis of Au nanorods in a low pH solution via seed-media method

The gold(Au) nanorods with various aspect ratios are obtained by a seed-media method in low pH growth solution.Transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and UV-visible spectrophotometry are utilized to characterize the Au nanorods,and the longitudinal absorption peak positions of Au nanorods show different shifting trends of the growth evolutions in various low pH(1～3) solutions. Other influential factors on the shape of Au nanorod are also systematically studied under low pH reaction condition. The positions of longitudinal peak shift between 600 nm and 900 nm, with the aspect ratios of Au nanorods varying from 2 to 5 both in the simulation and experimental results. The simulation results are in agreement with experimental ones.     

Effects of clouds, sea surface temperature, and its diurnal variation on precipitation efficiency

The effects of clouds, sea surface temperature, and its diurnal variation on precipitation efficiency are investigated using grid-scale data from nine equilibrium sensitivity cloud-resolving model experiments driven without large-scale vertical velocity. The precipitation efficiencies are respectively defined in surface rainfall, cloud, and rain microphysical budgets. We mathematically and physically demonstrate the relationship between these precipitation efficiencies. The 2℃ increases in spatiotemporal invariant sea surface temperature (SST) from 27℃ to 29℃ and from 29℃ to 31℃, and the inclusion of diurnal SST difference 1℃ and the 1℃ increase in diurnal SST difference generate opposite changes in the precipitation efficiency by changing ice cloud-radiation interactions. The radiative and microphysical processes of ice clouds have opposite effects on the precipitation efficiency because of the rainfall increase associated with the reduction in the saturation mixing ratio caused by the exclusion of radiative effects and the decrease in rainfall related to the reduction in net condensation caused by the exclusion of deposition processes. The radiative effects of water clouds on the precipitation efficiency are statistically insensitive to the radiative effects of ice clouds.