News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

In recent years, researchers have shown that boron can make interesting nanostructures, including two-dimensional borophene and a buckyball-like hollow cage structure called borospherene. Now, researchers from Brown University and Tsinghua University have added another boron nanostructure to the list. They have shown that clusters of 18 boron atoms and three atoms of lanthanide elements form a cage-like structure unlike anything they have ever seen.

In recent years, researchers have shown that boron can make interesting nanostructures, including two-dimensional borophene and a buckyball-like hollow cage structure called borospherene. Now, researchers from Brown University and Tsinghua University have added another boron nanostructure to the list. They have shown that clusters of 18 boron atoms and three atoms of lanthanide elements form a cage-like structure unlike anything they have ever seen.

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has used a simple process to implant atoms precisely into the top layers of ultra-thin crystals, yielding two-sided structures with different chemical compositions. The resulting materials, known as Janus structures, may prove useful in developing energy and information technologies.

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has used a simple process to implant atoms precisely into the top layers of ultra-thin crystals, yielding two-sided structures with different chemical compositions. The resulting materials, known as Janus structures, may prove useful in developing energy and information technologies.

Scientists at Michigan State University have designed and fabricated a remote forest-fire detection and alarm system powered by the movement of trees in the wind. The device generates electrical power by harvesting energy from the sporadic movement of the tree branches from which it hangs. It consists of two cylindrical sleeves that fit within one another. As the two sleeves move out of sync, the intermittent loss of contact generates electricity, and the device stores its sporadically generated electrical current in a carbon-nanotube-based micro supercapacitor.

Scientists at Michigan State University have designed and fabricated a remote forest-fire detection and alarm system powered by the movement of trees in the wind. The device generates electrical power by harvesting energy from the sporadic movement of the tree branches from which it hangs. It consists of two cylindrical sleeves that fit within one another. As the two sleeves move out of sync, the intermittent loss of contact generates electricity, and the device stores its sporadically generated electrical current in a carbon-nanotube-based micro supercapacitor.

Researchers from Rice University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Princeton University have created a light-powered catalytic nanoparticle that can break the strong chemical bonds in fluorocarbons, a group of synthetic materials that includes persistent environmental pollutants. The nanoparticles, which are tiny spheres of aluminum dotted with specks of palladium, break carbon-fluorine bonds via a catalytic process in which a fluorine atom is replaced by an atom of hydrogen.

Researchers from Rice University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Princeton University have created a light-powered catalytic nanoparticle that can break the strong chemical bonds in fluorocarbons, a group of synthetic materials that includes persistent environmental pollutants. The nanoparticles, which are tiny spheres of aluminum dotted with specks of palladium, break carbon-fluorine bonds via a catalytic process in which a fluorine atom is replaced by an atom of hydrogen.

An international research team with scientists from Columbia University, the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Flatiron Institute (both in the United States), the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, RWTH Aachen University (both in Germany), and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan has discovered that twisting two layers of an atomically thin material made of tungsten diselenide enables the realization of exotic correlated phenomena – including high-temperature superconductivity and correlated insulators – in a controlled manner and without the geometrical restriction found in twisted bilayer graphene.

An international research team with scientists from Columbia University, the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Flatiron Institute (both in the United States), the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, RWTH Aachen University (both in Germany), and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan has discovered that twisting two layers of an atomically thin material made of tungsten diselenide enables the realization of exotic correlated phenomena – including high-temperature superconductivity and correlated insulators – in a controlled manner and without the geometrical restriction found in twisted bilayer graphene.