Boost of Charge Storage Performance of Graphene Nanowall Electrodes by Laser-Induced Crystallization of Metal Oxide Nanostructures.

Major research efforts are being carried out for the technological advancement to an energetically sustainable society. However, for the full commercial integration of electrochemical energy storage devices, not only materials with higher performance should be designed and manufactured but also more competitive production techniques need to be developed. The laser processing technology is well extended at the industrial sector for the versatile and high throughput modification of a wide range of materials.

SiGe nanocrystals in SiO with high photosensitivity from visible to short-wave infrared.

Films of SiGe nanocrystals (NCs) in oxide have the advantage of tuning the energy band gap by adjusting SiGe NCs composition and size. In this study, SiGe-SiO amorphous films were deposited by magnetron sputtering on Si substrate followed by rapid thermal annealing at 700, 800 and 1000 °C. We investigated films with Si:Ge:SiO compositions of 25:25:50 vol.

Enhancement of the supercapacitive properties of laser deposited graphene-based electrodes through carbon nanotube loading and nitrogen doping.

Several technological routes are being investigated for improving the energy storage capability and power delivery of electrochemical capacitors. In this work, ternary hybrid electrodes composed of conducting graphene/reduced graphene oxide (rGO), which store charge mainly through electric double-layer mechanisms, covered by NiO nanostructures, for adding pseudocapacitance, were fabricated through a matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation technique. The incorporation of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) provokes an increase of the porosity and thus, a substantial enhancement of the electrodes' capacitance (from 4 to 20 F cm at 10 mV s).

Ge nanoparticles in SiO for near infrared photodetectors with high performance.

In this work we prepared films of amorphous germanium nanoparticles embedded in SiO deposited by magnetron sputtering on Si and quartz heated substrates at 300, 400 and 500 °C. Structure, morphology, optical, electrical and photoconduction properties of all films were investigated. The Ge concentration in the depth of the films is strongly dependent on the deposition temperature.

Mineralization-Inspired Synthesis of Magnetic Zeolitic Imidazole Framework Composites.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) capable of mobility and manipulation are attractive materials for potential applications in targeted drug delivery, catalysis, and small-scale machines. One way of rendering MOFs navigable is incorporating magnetically responsive nanostructures, which usually involve at least two preparation steps: the growth of the magnetic nanomaterial and its incorporation during the synthesis of the MOF crystals. Now, by using optimal combinations of salts and ligands, zeolitic imidazolate framework composite structures with ferrimagnetic behavior can be readily obtained via a one-step synthetic procedure, that is, without the incorporation of extrinsic magnetic components.