Modulation of Conductivity and Contact Resistance of RuO2 Nanosheets via Metal Nano-Particles Surface Decoration

We studied the variation in electrical conductivity of exfoliated RuO2 nanosheets and the modulation in the contact resistance of individual nanosheet devices using charge transfer doping effects based on surface metal nanoparticle decorations. The electrical conductivity in the monolayer and bilayer RuO2 nanosheets gradually increased due to the surface decoration of Cu, and subsequently Ag, nanoparticles. We obtained contact resistances between the nanosheet and electrodes using the four-point and two-point probe techniques. Moreover, the contact resistances decreased during the surface decoration processes. We established that the surface decoration of metal nanoparticles is a suitable method for external contact engineering and the modulation of the internal properties of nanomaterials.

Site 2 of the Yersinia pestis substrate-binding protein YfeA is a dynamic surface metal-binding site

The substrate-binding protein YfeA (also known as YPO2439 or y1897) is a polyspecific metal-binding protein that is crucial for nutrient acquisition and virulence in Yersinia pestis, the causative microbe of plague. YfeA folds into a monomeric c-clamp like other substrate-binding proteins and has two metal-binding sites (sites 1 and 2). Site 2 is a bidentate surface site capable of binding Zn and Mn atoms and is a unique feature of YfeA. Occasionally, the site 2 residues of two YfeA molecules will cooperate with the histidine tag of a third YfeA molecule in coordinating the same metal and lead to metal-dependent crystallographic packing. Here, three crystal structures of YfeA are presented at 1.85, 2.05 and 2.25 Å resolution. A comparison of the structures reveals that the metal can be displaced at five different locations ranging from ∼4 to ∼16 Å away from the canonical site 2. These observations reveal different configurations of site 2 that enable cooperative metal binding and demonstrate how site 2 is dynamic and freely available for inter-protein metal coordination.

Time-Resolved FDTD and Experimental FTIR Study of Gold Micropatch Arrays for Wavelength-Selective Mid-Infrared Optical Coupling

Infrared radiation reflection and transmission of a single layer of gold micropatch two-dimensional arrays, of patch length ∼1.0 μm and width ∼0.2 μm, have been carefully studied by a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Through precision design of the micropatch array structure geometry, we achieve a significantly enhanced reflectance (85%), a substantial diffraction (10%), and a much reduced transmittance (5%) for an array of only 15% surface metal coverage. This results in an efficient far-field optical coupling with promising practical implications for efficient mid-infrared photodetectors. Most importantly we find that the propagating electromagnetic fields are transiently concentrated around the gold micropatch array in a time duration of tens of ns, providing us with a novel efficient near-field optical coupling.

An Automated Pipeline for Dynamic Detection of Sub-Surface Metal Loss Defects across Cold Thermography Images

Utilising cooling stimulation as a thermal excitation means has demonstrated profound capabilities of detecting sub-surface metal loss using thermography. Previously, a prototype mechanism was introduced which accommodates a thermal camera and cooling source and operates in a reciprocating motion scanning the test piece while cold stimulation is in operation. Immediately after that, the camera registers the thermal evolution. However, thermal reflections, non-uniform stimulation and lateral heat diffusions will remain as undesirable phenomena preventing the effective observation of sub-surface defects. This becomes more challenging when there is no prior knowledge of the non-defective area in order to effectively distinguish between defective and non-defective areas. In this work, the previously automated acquisition and processing pipeline is re-designed and optimised for two purposes: 1—Through the previous work, the mentioned pipeline was used to analyse a specific area of the test piece surface in order to reconstruct the reference area and identify defects. In order to expand the application of this device over the entire test area, regardless of its extension, the pipeline is improved in which the final surface image is reconstructed by taking into account multiple segments of the test surface. The previously introduced pre-processing method of Dynamic Reference Reconstruction (DRR) is enhanced by using a more rigorous thresholding procedure. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is then used in order for feature (DRR images) reduction. 2—The results of PCA on multiple segment images of the test surface revealed different ranges of intensities across each segment image. This potentially could cause mistaken interpretation of the defective and non-defective areas. An automated segmentation method based on Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) is used to assist the expert user in more effective detection of the defective areas when the non-defective areas are uniformly characterised as background. The final results of GMM have shown not only the capability of accurately detecting subsurface metal loss as low as 37.5% but also the successful detection of defects that were either unidentifiable or invisible in either the original thermal images or their PCA transformed results.

Magnetism of Nanoparticles: Effect of the Organic Coating

The design of novel multifunctional materials based on nanoparticles requires tuning of their magnetic properties, which are strongly dependent on the surface structure. The organic coating represents a unique tool to significantly modify the surface structure trough the bonds between the ligands of the organic molecule and the surface metal atoms. This work presents a critical overview of the effects of the organic coating on the magnetic properties of nanoparticles trough a selection of papers focused on different approaches to control the surface structure and the morphology of nanoparticles’ assemblies.

Unique structure of active platinum-bismuth site for oxidation of carbon monoxide

As the technology development, the future advanced combustion engines must be designed to perform at a low temperature. Thus, it is a great challenge to synthesize high active and stable catalysts to resolve exhaust below 100 °C. Here, we report that bismuth as a dopant is added to form platinum-bismuth cluster on silica for CO oxidation. The highly reducible oxygen species provided by surface metal-oxide (M-O) interface could be activated by CO at low temperature (~50 °C) with a high CO2 production rate of 487 μmolCO2·gPt−1·s−1 at 110 °C. Experiment data combined with density functional calculation (DFT) results demonstrate that Pt cluster with surface Pt−O−Bi structure is the active site for CO oxidation via providing moderate CO adsorption and activating CO molecules with electron transformation between platinum atom and carbon monoxide. These findings provide a unique and general approach towards design of potential excellent performance catalysts for redox reaction.