There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

As a fascinating conjugated polymer, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has become a new research hotspot and drawn broad interdisciplinary attention as a metal-free and visible-light-responsive photocatalyst in the arena of solar energy conversion and environmental remediation. This is due to its appealing electronic band structure, high physicochemical stability, and “earth-abundant” nature. This critical review summarizes a panorama of the latest progress related to the design and construction of pristine g-C3N4 and g-C3N4-based nanocomposites, including (1) nanoarchitecture design of bare g-C3N4, such as hard and soft templating approaches, supramolecular preorganization assembly, exfoliation, and template-free synthesis routes, (2) functionalization of g-C3N4 at an atomic level (elemental doping) and molecular level (copolymerization), and (3) modification of g-C3N4 with well-matched energy levels of another semiconductor or a metal as a cocatalyst to form heterojunction nanostructures. The constructi...

Graphitic Carbon Nitride (g-C3N4)-Based Photocatalysts for Artificial Photosynthesis and Environmental Remediation: Are We a Step Closer To Achieving Sustainability?

Metamaterials are artificially fabricated materials that allow for the control of light and acoustic waves in a manner that is not possible in nature. This Review covers the recent developments in the study of so-called metasurfaces, which offer the possibility of controlling light with ultrathin, planar optical components. Conventional optical components such as lenses, waveplates and holograms rely on light propagation over distances much larger than the wavelength to shape wavefronts. In this way substantial changes of the amplitude, phase or polarization of light waves are gradually accumulated along the optical path. This Review focuses on recent developments on flat, ultrathin optical components dubbed 'metasurfaces' that produce abrupt changes over the scale of the free-space wavelength in the phase, amplitude and/or polarization of a light beam. Metasurfaces are generally created by assembling arrays of miniature, anisotropic light scatterers (that is, resonators such as optical antennas). The spacing between antennas and their dimensions are much smaller than the wavelength. As a result the metasurfaces, on account of Huygens principle, are able to mould optical wavefronts into arbitrary shapes with subwavelength resolution by introducing spatial variations in the optical response of the light scatterers. Such gradient metasurfaces go beyond the well-established technology of frequency selective surfaces made of periodic structures and are extending to new spectral regions the functionalities of conventional microwave and millimetre-wave transmit-arrays and reflect-arrays. Metasurfaces can also be created by using ultrathin films of materials with large optical losses. By using the controllable abrupt phase shifts associated with reflection or transmission of light waves at the interface between lossy materials, such metasurfaces operate like optically thin cavities that strongly modify the light spectrum. Technology opportunities in various spectral regions and their potential advantages in replacing existing optical components are discussed.

Flat Optics With Designer Metasurfaces

Since the discovery of mechanically exfoliated graphene in 2004, research on ultrathin two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials has grown exponentially in the fields of condensed matter physics, material science, chemistry, and nanotechnology. Highlighting their compelling physical, chemical, electronic, and optical properties, as well as their various potential applications, in this Review, we summarize the state-of-art progress on the ultrathin 2D nanomaterials with a particular emphasis on their recent advances. First, we introduce the unique advances on ultrathin 2D nanomaterials, followed by the description of their composition and crystal structures. The assortments of their synthetic methods are then summarized, including insights on their advantages and limitations, alongside some recommendations on suitable characterization techniques. We also discuss in detail the utilization of these ultrathin 2D nanomaterials for wide ranges of potential applications among the electronics/optoelectronics, electrocat...

Recent Advances in Ultrathin Two-Dimensional Nanomaterials

The use of solar energy to produce molecular hydrogen and oxygen (H2 and O2) from overall water splitting is a promising means of renewable energy storage. In the past 40 years, various inorganic and organic systems have been developed as photocatalysts for water splitting driven by visible light. These photocatalysts, however, still suffer from low quantum efficiency and/or poor stability. We report the design and fabrication of a metal-free carbon nanodot-carbon nitride (C3N4) nanocomposite and demonstrate its impressive performance for photocatalytic solar water splitting. We measured quantum efficiencies of 16% for wavelength λ = 420 ± 20 nanometers, 6.29% for λ = 580 ± 15 nanometers, and 4.42% for λ = 600 ± 10 nanometers, and determined an overall solar energy conversion efficiency of 2.0%. The catalyst comprises low-cost, Earth-abundant, environmentally friendly materials and shows excellent stability.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/347/6225/970.full.pdf

Metal-free efficient photocatalyst for stable visible water splitting via a two-electron pathway

Electron transfer and cascade relaxation dynamics of graphene quantum dots/MoS2 monolayer mixed-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures

Two dimensional excitonic devices are of great potential to overcome the dilemma of response time and integration in current generation of electron or/and photon based systems. The ultrashort diffusion length of exciton arising from ultrafast relaxation and low carrier mobility greatly discounts the performance of excitonic devices. Phonon scattering and exciton localization are crucial to understand the modulation of exciton flux in two dimensional disorder energy landscape, which still remain elusive. Here, we report an optimized scheme for exciton diffusion and relaxation dominated by phonon scattering and disorder potentials in WSe2 monolayers. The effective diffusion coefficient is enhanced by > 200% at 280 K. The excitons tend to be localized by disorder potentials accompanied by the steadily weakening of phonon scattering when temperature drops to 260 K, and the onset of exciton localization brings forward as decreasing temperature. These findings identify that phonon scattering and disorder potentials are of great importance for long-range exciton diffusion and thermal management in exciton based systems, and lay a firm foundation for the development of functional excitonic devices.

Phonon scattering and exciton localization: molding exciton flux in two dimensional disorder energy landscape

Plasmonic Circular Dichroism of Gold Nanoparticle Based Nanostructures

A conductive substrate can provide a simple and straightforward way to induce charge-transfer plasmon modes in Au nanoparticle clusters. For a simple dimer structure, a remarkably narrow charge transfer plasmon, which differs dramatically from the dipolar plasmon mode of the electrically isolated nanostructure, is clearly observed. For a more complex nonamer cluster that supports a strong Fano resonance on an insulating substrate, a mixed charge transfer-dipole mode is observed, where charge transfer is induced on the outer nanoparticles, establishing an opposing dipole on the intervening central particles, resulting in a strongly damped far field response.

Substrate-mediated charge transfer plasmons in simple and complex nanoparticle clusters

A multifocal metalens, which focuses incident light at multiple foci, has many applications in imaging systems and optical communications. However, the traditional design strategy of a multifocal metalens combines several lenses that have different focal points into a planar integrated unit, resulting in low imaging quality because of the high background noise. Here we show that the defects of the traditional method can be overcome by designing a metalens with conic shapes (the ellipse and the hyperbola); this approach could improve the imaging performance and substantially decrease the background noise of multifocal metalenses. These benefits arise from the intrinsic properties of the two conic curves, which can focus incident light constructively at all of the foci of the metalens. We further demonstrate that the proposed conic-shaped metalens can function well within a broadband operation wavelength that ranges from 600 to 900 nm with the dual polarity actively controlled by the incident circular polarized light. The great agreement between the experimental and simulation results demonstrates that our proposed metalens has significant potential for use in future integrated nanophotonic devices.

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Zheyu Fang

Papers

Electron transfer and cascade relaxation dynamics of graphene quantum dots/MoS2 monolayer mixed-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures

Phonon scattering and exciton localization: molding exciton flux in two dimensional disorder energy landscape

Plasmonic Circular Dichroism of Gold Nanoparticle Based Nanostructures

Substrate-mediated charge transfer plasmons in simple and complex nanoparticle clusters

Enhanced optical performance of multifocal metalens with conic shapes