Hydrothermal synthesis and photoluminescence behavior of CeO_2 nanowires with the aid of surfactant PVP

Well-crystalline CeO_2 nanowires were prepared via a surfactant-assisted hydrothermal process.Reaction temperature and reaction time were changed for the determination of optimal synthesis parameters.The as-obtained products were characterized by X-ray diffraction （XRD）,high-resolution transmission electron microscopy（HRTEM）,and field emission scanning electron microscopy（FESEM）.The results show that single crystal CeO_2 nanowires with high yield and good uniformity can be obtained hydrothermally at 180℃for 12 h with the aid of 2.0 g surfactant（polyvinyl pyrrolidone,PVP）.The role of PVP was then discussed and a possible growth mechanism was proposed. Moreover,room temperature photoluminescence（PL） spectra were obtained for these CeO2 nanowires,which are believed to be related to the abundant defects in these nanostructures.

The inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy of edge-modified graphene nanoribbon-based molecular devices

The inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy（IETS） of four edge-modified finite-size grapheme nanoribbon（GNR）-based molecular devices has been studied by using the density functional theory and Green＇s function method. The effects of atomic structures and connection types on inelastic transport properties of the junctions have been studied. The IETS is sensitive to the electrode connection types and modification types. Comparing with the pure hydrogen edge passivation systems, we conclude that the IETS for the lower energy region increases obviously when using donor–acceptor functional groups as the edge modification types of the central scattering area. When using donor–acceptor as the electrode connection groups, the intensity of IETS increases several orders of magnitude than that of the pure ones. The effects of temperature on the inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy also have been discussed. The IETS curves show significant fine structures at lower temperatures. With the increasing of temperature, peak broadening covers many fine structures of the IETS curves.The changes of IETS in the low-frequency region are caused by the introduction of the donor–acceptor groups and the population distribution of thermal particles. The effect of Fermi distribution on the tunneling current is persistent.

Nitrogen–sulfur co-doped porous carbon derived from asphalt as efficient catalyst for oxygen reduction

As an environment-friendly and low-cost petrochemical by-product, asphalt has great potential in the preparation of metal-free oxygen reduction electrocatalysts with excellent performance and outstanding stability. In this paper, we converted asphalt into porous carbon nanosheets by a simple activation method, using potassium citrate as the swelling agent.