Composite bending-dominated hollow nanolattices: A stiff,cyclable mechanical metamaterial

Manufacturing ultralight and mechanical reliable materials has been a long-time challenge. Ceramic-based mechanical metamaterials provide significant opportunities to reverse their brittle nature and unstable mechanical properties and have great potential as strong, ultralight, and ultrastiff materials. However, the failure of ceramics nanolattice and degradation of strength/modulus with decreasing density are caused by buckling of the struts and failure of the nodes within the nanolattices, especially during cyclic loading. Here, we explore a new class of 3D ceramic-based metamaterials with a high strength–density ratio, stiffness, recoverability, cyclability, and optimal scaling factor. Deformation mode of the fabricated nanolattices has been engineered through the unique material design and architecture tailoring. Bending-dominated hollow nanolattice (B-H-Lattice) structure is employed to take advantages of its flexibility, while a few nanometers of carbonized mussel-inspired bio-polymer (C-PDA) is coherently deposited on ceramics’ nanolayer to enable non-buckling struts and bendable nodes during deformation, resulting in reliable mechanical properties and outperforming the current bending-dominated lattices (B-Lattices) and carbon-based cellulose materials. Meanwhile, the structure has comparable stiffness to stretching-dominated lattices (S-Lattices) while with better cyclability and reliability. The B-H-Lattices exhibit high specific stiffness (>10⁶?Pa·kg^?1·m^?3), low-density (～30?kg/m³), buckling-free recovery at 55% strain, and stable cyclic loading behavior under up to 15% strain. As one of the B-Lattices, the modulus scaling factor reaches 1.27, which is lowest among current B-Lattices. This study suggests that non-buckling behavior and reliable nodes are the key factors that contribute to the outstanding mechanical performance of nanolattice materials. A new concept of engineering the internal deformation behavior of mechanical metamaterial is provided to optimize their mechanical properties in real service conditions.     

Detwinning through migration of twin boundaries in nanotwinned Cu films under in situ ion irradiation

The mechanism of radiation-induced detwinning is different from that of deformation detwinning as the former is dominated by supersaturated radiation-induced defects while the latter is usually triggered by global stress. In situ Kr ion irradiation was performed to study the detwinning mechanism of nanotwinned Cu films with various twin thicknesses. Two types of incoherent twin boundaries (ITBs), so-called fixed ITBs and free ITBs, are characterized based on their structural features, and the difference in their migration behavior is investigated. It is observed that detwinning during radiation is attributed to the frequent migration of free ITBs, while the migration of fixed ITBs is absent. Statistics shows that the migration distance of free ITBs is thickness and dose dependent. Potential migration mechanisms are discussed.     

A Two‐Stage Annealing Strategy for Crystallization Control of CH3NH3PbI3 Films toward Highly Reproducible Perovskite Solar Cells

The solvent‐engineering method is widely used to fabricate top‐performing perovskite solar cells, which, however, usually exhibit inferior reproducibility. Herein, a two‐stage annealing (TSA) strategy is demonstrated for processing of perovskite films, namely, annealing the intermediate phase at 60 °C for the first stage then at 100 °C for the second stage. Compared to conventional direct annealing temperature (DHA) at 100 °C, using this strategy, MAPbI₃ films become more controllable, leading to superior film uniformity and device reproducibility with the champion device efficiency reaching 19.8%. More specifically, the coefficient of variation of efficiency for 49 cells is reduced to 5.9%, compared to 9.8% for that using DHA. The TSA process is carefully studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. It is found that in comparison with DHA the formation of hydrogen bonding and crystallization of perovskite are much slower and can be better controlled when using TSA. The improvements in film uniformity and device reproducibility are attributed to: 1) controllable MAPbI₃ crystal growth stemming from the progressive formation of hydrogen bonding between methylammonium and halide; 2) suppression of intermediate phase film dewetting, which is believed to be due to its decreased mobility at the initial low‐temperature annealing stage.     

Rolling texture and its effect on tensile property of a near-α titanium alloy Ti60 plate

Rolling texture and its effect on tensile properties of Ti60 alloy plates were investigated in the present study. The plates wereβ-rolled at 1070℃ and(α+β)-rolled at 980℃, using uni-directionally rolling(UDR) and cross-directionally rolling(CDR) processes, respectively.β-rolled plates exhibited weak textures, which were attributed to the dispersive orientations of secondary α during the β→α phase transformation. Strong deformation textures formed in(α+β)-rolled plates as a result of slipping mechanisms: the strong T-type texture in UDR plate was related to {10 1 0}[11 2 0] slipping, while the B-type texture in CDR plate was relevant with {0001}[11 2 0] slip. Strong T-type textures led to anisotropic tensile properties. B-type textures would decrease such an anisotropy. The(α+β)-CDR process was found to be a candidate process for reducing anisotropy of Ti60 alloy plates.     

Numerical and experimental investigations of laser shock forming aluminum alloy sheet with mold

Laser shock forming (LSF) technology employs shock waves to form sheet metal into three-dimensional complex parts, and has application potential in manufacturing sheet metal parts. In this paper, the forming of 2024 aluminum alloy sheet with LSF was investigated through numerical and experimental methods. The numerical model was established with the commercial code ABAQUS/Explicit. The formed conical cup was obtained from the simulation, and validated by the experiment. With the verified numerical model, the deformation behaviors, including deformation velocity, sheet thickness variation and strain distribution, were studied. In addition, the influence of different shock wave pressures on the forming precision was also investigated. The experimental and numerical results show that the metal sheet loaded by shock wave can take the shape of the mold, and the non-uniform thickness is distributed in the formed cup. The investigations also display that there exists reverse deformation at the central region of deforming sheet owing to severe collision during LSF. In order to obtain formed part with better quality, an appropriate pressure of applied shock waves is required.     

Unique role of non-mercapto groups in thiol-pinning-mediated Ag growth on Au nanoparticles

Owing to the strong affinity of thiols to Au and Ag, they are often employed to modify the surfaces of nanoparticles (NPs). Recently, these strong ligand-interface interactions have been employed to control NP growth, and this technique has emerged as a unique modulation strategy for creating unconventional plasmonic hybrid nanostructures. In these systems, the roles of the non-mercapto components of the thiol molecules and their structures are still unknown. Therefore, we herein present our investigation into this phenomenon. Primary amino (–NH₂) groups in thiols are found to play a key role in regulating growth kinetics, i.e., in accelerating Ag deposition on Au NPs. The–NH₂ groups are thought to bring Ag ions to the particle surface by coordinating to them, and thereby assist their reduction. The effect of molecular structure is non-trivial and thus provides the possibility of selective thiol detection. Based on the dependence of kinetic modulation on the non-mercapto components and molecular structures of molecules, we demonstrate the highly sensitive and specific detection of cysteine (limit of detection: 6 nM) in a mixture of 19 natural amino acids based on Ag growth on Au nanospheres. In addition, based on this modulation effect, we reveal the entrapping of chiral thiols within the growth layer through their plasmonic circular dichroism (PCD) responses. We believe that thiol-based growth regulation has great potential for creating plasmonic nanostructures with novel functionalities.

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Hierarchical porous onion-shaped LiMn<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>4</Subscript> as ultrahigh-rate cathode material for lithium ion batteries

Spinel LiMn₂O₄ is a widely utilized cathode material for Li-ion batteries. However, its applications are limited by its poor energy density and power density. Herein, a novel hierarchical porous onion-like LiMn₂O₄(LMO) was prepared to shorten the Li⁺ diffusion pathway with the presence of uniform pores and nanosized primary particles. The growth mechanism of the porous onion-like LiMn₂O₄ was analyzed to control the morphology and the crystal structure so that it forms a polyhedral crystal structure with reduced Mn dissolution. In addition, graphene was added to the cathode (LiMn₂O₄/graphene) to enhance the electronic conductivity. The synthesized LiMn₂O₄/graphene exhibited an ultrahigh-rate performance of 110.4 mAh·g^–1 at 50 C and an outstanding energy density at a high power density, maintaining 379.4 Wh·kg^–1 at 25,293 W·kg^–1. Besides, it shows durable stability, with only 0.02% decrease in the capacity per cycle at 10 C. Furthermore, the (LiMn₂O₄/graphene)/graphite full-cell exhibited a high discharge capacity. This work provides a promising method for the preparation of outstanding, integrated cathodes for potential applications in lithium ion batteries.

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Large capacitance and fast polarization response of thin electrolyte dielectrics by spin coating for two-dimensional MoS2 devices

Nano Research - A spin-coating method was applied to obtain thinner and smoother PEO/LiClO4 polymer electrolyte films (EFs) with a lower level of crystallization than those obtained using a...