N-induced lattice contraction generally boosts the hydrogen evolution catalysis of P-rich metal phosphides

P-rich transition metal phosphides (TMPs) with abundant P sites have been predicted to be more favorable for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysis. However, the actual activities of P-rich TMPs do not behave as expected, and the underlying essence especially at the atomic level is also ambiguous. Our structural analysis reveals the inferior activity could stem from the reduced overlap of atomic wave functions between metal and P with the increase in P contents, which consequently results in too strong P-H interaction. To this end, we used N-induced lattice contraction to generally boost the HER catalysis of P-rich TMPs including CoP2, FeP2, NiP2, and MoP2. Refined structural characterization and theoretical analysis indicate the N-P strong interaction could increase the atomic wave function overlap and eventually modulate the H adsorption strength. The concept of lattice engineering offers a new vision for tuning the catalytic activities of P-rich TMPs and beyond.

THE EFFECT OF SPREAD OF THE ATOMIC WAVE FUNCTION ON SOME STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF THE FIELD

This paper deals with the system of a two-level atom interacting with a quantized single-mode standing-wave cavity field, which is entangled with the centre-of-mass motion of the atom under the coexistence of the Kerr nonlinearity. We investigate the effect of the spread of the initial atomic wave function on some quantum statistical properties (such as Q distribution function, entropy and phase distribution) with or without the Kerr-like medium. Numerical computations and a discussion of the results are presented.