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

A dissipative-driven system can generate steady-state entanglement robust to control parameters, while a quantum plasmonic system has the advantages of being strongly coupled to qubits and manipulation of electromagnetic waves in the subwavelength regime. We propose an effective multiqubit dissipative-driven entanglement model for a plasmonic system which takes into account coupling of the plasmonic cavity and qubits as well as the direct coupling between any two qubits and develop a numerical solution of the effective model on a scalable composite plasmonic structure. In this structure, the multiqubit entanglement under asymmetric detuning, especially for those combinations containing pairs of antisymmetric detuning qubits, achieves stronger steady-state entanglement measured by negativity and pairwise concurrence. The robustness of multiqubit entanglement against variations of the control parameters is also presented. In addition, the phenomenon of entanglement sudden death caused by the driving field in entanglement dynamics is investigated. Our model shows evidence that quantum plasmonics has great potential in multiqubit entanglement.

Plasmonic-modulated dissipative-driven multiqubit entanglement under asymmetric detuning

Graphene has attracted great interests in various areas including optoelectronics, spintronics, and nanomechanics due to its unique electronic structure, a linear dispersion with a zero bandgap around the Dirac point. Shifts of Dirac cones in graphene creates pseudo-magnetic field, which generates an energy gap and brings a zero-magnetic-field analogue of the quantum Hall effect. Recent studies have demonstrated that graphene pseudo-magnetic effects can be generated by vacancy defects, atom adsorption, zigzag or armchair edges, and external strain. Here, a larger than 100 T pseudo-magnetic field is reported that generated on the step area of graphene; and with the ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy, the observed Landau levels can be effectively tailored by graphene phonons. The zero pseudo-Landau level is suppressed due to the phonon-mediated inelastic tunneling, and this is observed by the scanning tunneling spectroscopy spectrum and confirmed by the Vienna ab initio simulation package calculation, where graphene phonons modulate the flow of tunneling electrons and further mediate pseudo-Landau levels. These observations demonstrate a viable approach for the control of pseudo-Landau levels, which tailors the electronic structure of graphene, and further ignites applications in graphene valley electronics.

Graphene Acoustic Phonon‐Mediated Pseudo‐Landau Levels Tailoring Probed by Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy

Editable shape-memory transparent wood based on epoxy-based dynamic covalent polymer with excellent optical and thermal management for smart building materials

The structural and thermodynamic properties of 75 polybrominated 5,10-dihydrophenazines (PBDPs) in the ideal gas state at 298.15K and 1.013 × 105 Pa have been calculated at the B3LYP/6-31G* level using the Gaussian 03 program. The isodesmic reactions are developed to calculate the standard enthalpy of formation (ΔfHθ) and standard free energy of formation (ΔfGθ) of PBDP congeners. The relationships of these thermodynamic parameters with the number and position of the Br atom substitution (NPBS) are discussed, and it is found that there exists a high correlation between thermodynamic parameters and NPBS. In addition, the correlations between structural parameters and NPBS are discussed. High correlations were found between the energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital (EHOMO), the most negative atomic partial charge in the molecule (q−) and NPBS, and all R2 values are larger than 0.90.

DFT Study of Structural and Thermodynamic Properties for Polybrominated 5,10-Dihydrophenazines

The fascinating properties of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) atomic layers have recently been found to support novel physics, such as valleytronics and the quantum Hall effect. The facile and potentially useful semiconducting (2H) to metallic (1T) phase transitions in MoS2 may be exploited as a means of controlling the electronic and optical properties of devices based on this material. The ability to actively control and induce this phase transition by optical means would enable the further development of such applications. By using Raman scattering and photolumi-nescence within ultra-vacuum and low temperature environment, here we demonstrate that hot electrons generated by plasmonic Au nanoparticles can induce a 2H-to-1T phase transition in a single MoS2 layer. Our finding that plasmonic hot electrons can induce phase transitions in nearby low-dimensional materials opens up new possibilities for the development of optoelectronic devices.

https://www.osapublishing.org/viewmedia.cfm?uri=JSAP-2014-19p_C3_6&seq=0

Zheyu Fang

Papers

Plasmonic-modulated dissipative-driven multiqubit entanglement under asymmetric detuning

Graphene Acoustic Phonon‐Mediated Pseudo‐Landau Levels Tailoring Probed by Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy

Editable shape-memory transparent wood based on epoxy-based dynamic covalent polymer with excellent optical and thermal management for smart building materials

DFT Study of Structural and Thermodynamic Properties for Polybrominated 5,10-Dihydrophenazines

Plasmonic Hot Electron Induced Structural Phase Transition in Monolayer MoS 2