Origin of symmetry breaking in the seed-mediated growth of bi-metal nano-heterostructures

Seed-mediated growth is the most general way to controllably synthesize bimetal nano-heterostructures. Despite successful instances through trial and error were reported, the way for second metal depositing on the seed. namely whether the symmetry of resulted nano-heterostructure follows the original crystal symmetry of seed metal, remains an unpredictable issue to date. In this work, we propose that the ther- modynamic factor, i.e., the difference of equilibrium electrochemical potentials （corresponding to their Fermi levels） of two metals in the growth solution, plays a key role for the symmetry breaking of bimetal nano-heterostructures during the seed-mediated growth. As a proof-of-principle experiment, by revers- ing the relative position of Fermi levels of the Pd nanocube seeds and the second metal Au with changing the concentration of reductant （L-ascorbic acid） in the growth solution, the structure of as-prepared prod- ucts successfully evolved from centrosymmetric Pd@Au core-shell trisoctabedra to asymmetric Pd-Au hetero-dimers. The idea was further demonstrated by the growth of Ag on the Pd seeds. The present work intends to reveal the origin of symmetry breaking in the seed-mediated growth of nano-heterostructures from the viewpoint of thermodynamics, and these new insights will in turn help to achieve rational con- struction of bimetal nano-heterostructures with soecific functions.

Measuring thermoelectric property of nano-heterostructure

A method of measuring the thermoelectric power of nano-heterostructures based on four-probe scanning tunneling microscopy is presented. The process is composed of the in-situ fabrication of a tungsten-indium tip, the precise control of the tip-sample contact and the identification of thermoelectric potential. When the temperature of the substrate is elevated, while that of the tip is kept at room temperature, a thermoelectric potential occurs and can be detected by a current voltage measurement. As an example of its application, the method is demonstrated to be effective to measure the thermoelectric power in several systems. A Seebeck coefficient of tens of IxV/K is obtained in graphene epitaxially grown on Ru （0001） substrate and the thermoelectric potential polarity of this system is found to be the reverse of that of bare Ru （0001） substrate.

Carbon dots-confined CoP-CoO nanoheterostructure with strong interfacial synergy triggered the robust hydrogen evolution from ammonia borane

Ammonia borane(NH_(3)BH_(3),AB) is promising for chemical hydrogen sto rage;however,current systems for rapid hydrogen production are limited by the expensive noble metal catalysts required for AB hydrolysis.Here we report the design and synthesis of a highly efficient and robust non-noble-metal catalyst for the hydrolysis of AB at 298 K(TOF=89.56 molH_(2) min^(-1) molCo^(-1)).Experiments and density functional theory calculations were performed to explore the catalyst’s hybrid nanoparticle heterostructure and its catalytic mechanism.The catalyst comprised nitrogen-doped carbon dots confining CoO and CoP,and exhibited strong interface-induced synergistic catalysis for AB hydrolysis that effectively decreased the energy barriers for the dissociation of both AB and water molecules.The co-doping of N and P introduced numerous defects,and further regulated the reactivity of the carbon layers.The heterogeneous interface design technique presented here provides a new strategy for developing efficient and inexpensive non-noblemetal catalysts that may be applicable in other fields related to energy catalysis.