The occlusion of sorption sites during gradual electrochemical degradation is widely implicated in the capacitance fade of carbon-based supercapacitors, yet how pore architecture influences the tolerance of electrodes to pore blocking remains insufficiently studied. This work demonstrates that pore interconnectivity plays a key role in determining the tolerance of carbon electrodes to site occlusion. Alongside electrochemical tests, structural characterization of conventional activated carbons revealed how their narrow micropores are susceptible to accessibility loss while under potentiostatic operation, thus suffering rapid capacitance losses and equivalent series resistance (ESR) increments. In contrast, a carbon developed with a well-interconnected micro-mesoporous network demonstrated up to 14-fold longer lifetime under identical conditions. Critically, this improved durability translated to an 11-fold increase in cumulative energy delivered prior to End-of-Life of the device, as compared to carbons whose structures are initially optimized for maximizing capacitance. Further post-mortem analyses indicated that carbons with improved pore interconnectivity can tolerate a greater buildup of pore-blocking by-products before reaching capacitive failure, thus showing how pore network architecture mitigates or exacerbates the progressive occlusion of ion-accessible regions. We propose that highly interconnected pore structures feature alternative pathways that maintain the accessibility of sorption sites under constant operation. These findings establish pore interconnectivity as a key principle for extending the durability of supercapacitors under demanding voltage and temperature conditions.

Direct Air Capture (DAC) is a critical technology for mitigating atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but current systems require substantial space and high energy input, largely due to the low volumetric CO2 capture capacity of existing sorbents. A major limitation arises from the intrinsic trade-off in conventional mesoporous platforms, where increasing amine loading often compromises CO2 diffusion efficiency, resulting in poor volumetric performance. In this report, we introduce a solid-state sorbent platform that overcomes this limitation by leveraging a fully interconnected three-dimensional (3D) pore network. The sorbent, composed of polyethyleneimine (PEI)-functionalized nanoporous amorphous carbon (NAC) millimeter-sized monoliths, features a hierarchically organized pore architecture with high volumetric pore density, enabling deep and uniform amine infiltration while maintaining unobstructed CO2 diffusion pathways. This synergistic pore design yields a remarkable volumetric CO2 uptake of similar to 1.6 mmol/cm & sup3; under pre-hydrated conditions-over threefold higher than that of the best-performing shaped sorbents reported to date. The NAC-PEI monoliths further exhibit cyclic stability, mechanical robustness, and negligible pressure drop, supporting their integration into compact and energy-efficient continuous DAC modules. These findings establish pore interconnectivity as a key design principle for next-generation solid sorbents, enabling space-efficient, high-performance carbon removal systems suitable for urban and distributed deployment.

Silicon has long been considered one of the most promising anode materials for high-performance lithium-ion batteries due to its high theoretical capacity. However, a significant challenge that restricts its practical application is the persistent issue of weak interfacial contact in the silicon anode, which leads to structural instability during lithiation/delithiation processes due to large volume expansion. In this work, we develop a dual welding encapsulation strategy by constructing Si-C chemical bonding between the silicon and conductive covering shells and establishing C-C interlayer bonding connections among the covering shells. By directly examining the interface of silicon-based composites, we identify the types of compounds and hybrid orbital structures from their spatial distribution using machine-learning-enhanced transmission electron microscopy analysis techniques. This dual welding mechanism not only enhances the mechanical strength of the protective carbon shell but also ensures sustained electrical connection between the core and shell through the Si-C bonds. The robust heterogeneous structure effectively mitigates interfacial instability within the silicon anode, suppressing volume expansion below 12% after 300 cycles. Thus, the full-cell with the composite anode and LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 cathode performs a high energy density of 576 Wh kg-1 and stable cycling, inspiring the construction of commercial silicon batteries.

The incorporation of a SiC interfacial layer has been recognized as an effective strategy to tackle the interface contact issue between Si and carbon, ensuring the structural integrity of Si-based anodes and thereby enhancing their cycling stability. However, its inherent low activity and poor conductivity pose a persistent challenge for maximizing capacity and facilitating ion and electron transport. Here, we present a thickness/content adjustable SiC interfacial layer in the Si-SiC-C heterostructure using a modified spark plasma sintering technique. The SiC layer, with a content of ∼10%, is discretely coated on the surface of the Si core, exerting minimal influence on capacity and ion/electron kinetics, while ensuring high electrode structural stability. Consequently, the Si-based anode exhibits a stable capacity of 582 mAh g-1 (0.1 A g-1) and good rate capability (324 mAh g-1 at 2 A g-1), while maintaining 80% capacity retention over 500 cycles with a low electrode swelling of 12.6%. More importantly, its capacity presents a continuous rising trend with the increase of the cycle number, suggesting a mechanism where the SiC interfacial layer gradually transforms into a Li-ion-rich phase. This transformation facilitates ion transport and reaction with Si, resulting in gradual capacity enhancement. Therefore, the reasonably thickness-regulated SiC interfacial layer holds promise for providing inspiration for the design of commercial Si-based anodes.

A new nanoporous amorphous carbon (NAC) structure that achieves both ultrahigh strength and high electrical conductivity, which are usually incompatible in porous materials is reported. By using modified spark plasma sintering, three amorphous carbon phases with different atomic bonding configurations are created. The composite consisted of an amorphous sp2-carbon matrix mixed with amorphous sp3-carbon and amorphous graphitic motif. NAC structure has an isotropic electrical conductivity of up to 12 000 S m-1, Young's modulus of up to ≈5 GPa, and Vickers hardness of over 900 MPa. These properties are superior to those of existing conductive nanoporous materials. Direct investigation of the multiscale structure of this material through transmission electron microscopy, electron energy loss spectroscopy, and machine learning-based electron tomography revealed that the origin of the remarkable material properties is the well-organized sp2/sp3 amorphous carbon phases with a core-shell-like architecture, where the sp3-rich carbon forms a resilient core surrounded by a conductive sp2-rich layer. This research not only introduces novel materials with exceptional properties but also opens new opportunities for exploring amorphous structures and designing high-performance materials.

Despite advancements in silicon-based anodes for high-capacity lithium-ion batteries,their widespread commercial adoption is still hindered by significant volume expansion during cycling,especially at high active mass loadings crucial for practical use.The root of these challenges lies in the mechanical instability of the material,which subsequently leads to the structural failure of the electrode.Here,we present a novel synthesis of a composite combining expanded graphite and silicon nanoparticles.This composite features a unique interlayer-bonded graphite structure,achieved through the application of a modified spark plasma sintering method.Notably,this innovative structure not only facilitates efficient ion and electron transport but also provides exceptional mechanical strength（Vickers hardness:up to658 MPa,Young's modulus:11.6 GPa）.This strength effectively accommodates silicon expansion,resulting in an impressive areal capacity of 2.9 mA h cm -2 (736 mA h g -1 ) and a steady cycle life（93% after 100cycles）.Such outsta nding performance is paired with features appropriate for large-scale industrial production of silicon batteries,such as active mass loading of at least 3.9 mg cm -2 ,a high-tap density electrode material of 1.68 g cm -3 (secondary clusters:1.12 g cm -3 ),and a production yield of up to 1 kg per day.

Defect-free graphene is impermeable to gases and liquids but highly permeable to thermal protons. Atomic-scale defects such as vacancies, grain boundaries, and Stone-Wales defects are predicted to enhance graphene's proton permeability and may even allow small ions through, whereas larger species such as gas molecules should remain blocked. These expectations have so far remained untested in experiment. Here, we show that atomically thin carbon films with a high density of atomic-scale defects continue blocking all molecular transport, but their proton permeability becomes ∼1000 times higher than that of defect-free graphene. Lithium ions can also permeate through such disordered graphene. The enhanced proton and ion permeability is attributed to a high density of eight-carbon-atom rings. The latter pose approximately twice lower energy barriers for incoming protons compared to that of the six-atom rings of graphene and a relatively low barrier of ∼0.6 eV for Li ions. Our findings suggest that disordered graphene could be of interest as membranes and protective barriers in various Li-ion and hydrogen technologies.

The preservation and manipulation of a spin state mainly depends on the strength of the spin-orbit interaction. For pristine graphene, the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is only in the order of few ueV, which makes it almost impossible to be used as an active element in future electric field controlled spintronics devices. This stimulates the development of a systematic method for extrinsically enhancing the SOC of graphene. In this letter, we study the strength of SOC in weakly fluorinated graphene devices. We observe high non-local signals even without applying any external magnetic field. The magnitude of the signal increases with increasing fluorine adatom coverage. From the length dependence of the non-local transport measurements, we obtain SOC values of ~ 5.1 meV and ~ 9.1 meV for the devices with ~ 0.005% and ~ 0.06% fluorination, respectively. Such a large enhancement, together with the high charge mobility of fluorinated samples (u~4300 cm2/Vs - 2700 cm2/Vs), enables the detection of the spin Hall effect even at room temperature.

Significant progress has been made in the construction and theoretical understanding of molecular motors because of their potential use. Here, we have demonstrated fabrication of a simple but powerful 1 nm thick graphene engine. The engine comprises a high elastic membrane-piston made of graphene and weakly chemisorbed ClF3 molecules as the high power volume changeable actuator, while a 532 nm LASER acts as the ignition plug. Rapid volume expansion of the ClF3 molecules leads to graphene blisters. The size of the blister is controllable by changing the ignition parameters. The estimated internal pressure per expansion cycle of the engine is about ∼10(6) Pa. The graphene engine presented here shows exceptional reliability, showing no degradation after 10,000 cycles.

Advances in large-area graphene synthesis via chemical vapour deposition on metals like copper were instrumental in the demonstration of graphene-based novel, wafer-scale electronic circuits and proof-of-concept applications such as flexible touch panels. Here, we show that graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition on copper is equally promising for spintronics applications. In contrast to natural graphene, our experiments demonstrate that chemically synthesized graphene has a strong spin–orbit coupling as high as 20 meV giving rise to a giant spin Hall effect. The exceptionally large spin Hall angle ~0.2 provides an important step towards graphene-based spintronics devices within existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Our microscopic model shows that unavoidable residual copper adatom clusters act as local spin–orbit scatterers and, in the resonant scattering limit, induce transverse spin currents with enhanced skew-scattering contribution. Our findings are confirmed independently by introducing metallic adatoms-copper, silver and gold on exfoliated graphene samples.

Reactivity control of graphene is an important issue because chemical functionalization can modulate graphene's unique mechanical, optical, and electronic properties. Using systematic optical studies, we demonstrate that van der Waals interaction is the dominant factor for the chemical reactivity of graphene on two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures. A significant enhancement in the chemical stability of graphene is achieved by replacing the common SiO2 substrate with 2D crystals such as an additional graphene layer, WS2, MoS2, or h-BN. Our theoretical and experimental results show that its origin is a strong van der Waals interaction between the graphene layer and the 2D substrate. This results in a high resistive force on graphene toward geometric lattice deformation. We also demonstrate that the chemical reactivity of graphene can be controlled by the relative lattice orientation with respect to the substrates and thus can be used for a wide range of applications including hydrogen storage.

Semi‐ionically fluorinated graphene (s‐FG) is synthesized with a one step liquid fluorination treatment. The s‐FG consists of two different types of bonds, namely a covalent C‐F bond and an ionic C‐F bond. Control is achieved over the properties of s‐FG by selectively eliminating ionic C‐F bonds from the as prepared s‐FG film which is highly insulating (current < 10−13 A at 1 V). After selective elimination of ionic C‐F bonds by acetone treatment, s‐FG recovers the highly conductive property of graphene. A 109 times increase in current from 10−13 to 10−4A at 1 V is achieved, which indicates that s‐FG recovers its conducting property. The properties of reduced s‐FG vary according to the number of layers and the single layer reduced s‐FG has mobility of more than 6000 cm2 V−1 s−1. The mobility drastically decreases with increasing number of layers. The bi‐layered s‐FG has a mobility of 141cm2 V−1 s−1 and multi‐layered s‐FG film showed highly p‐type doped electrical property without Dirac point. The reduction via acetone proceeds as 2C2F(semi‐ionic) + CH3C(O)CH3(l) → HF + 2C(s) + C2F(covalent) + CH3C(O)CH2(l). The fluorination and reduction processes permit the safe and facile non‐destructive property control of the s‐FG film.

Thin graphene/polymer sheet composites were fabricated using easily soluble expanded graphite (ESEG), and their field emission (FE) parameters were examined. Due to the high dispersability of ESEG, a stable graphene suspension was prepared by ultrasonication in toluene without the need for a surfactant. The suspension consisted of exfoliated graphene sheets with a thickness of 1 - 2 nm. Using a calendering process, the solution was further shear mixed with ethyl cellulose to obtain a well-dispersed graphene/polymer composite. The composite was screen printed onto a conducing substrate to fabricate the FE cathode layers. The FE measurements were taken in a diode configuration at an applied electrostatic field and inter-electrode distance of 1.7 to 6 V/microm and approximately 200 microm, respectively. The threshold turn-on-field was approximately 3.5 V/microm at a current density of approximately 10 microA/cm2 with a corresponding mean field enhancement factor of 1350 +/- 50. Emission occurred mainly from the edges and bends of the graphene layers. The luminescence uniformity of the composite cathode layers was examined using a phosphor-coated anode.

This study examined the effect of the growth parameters on the characteristics of polycrystalline In2Se3 (IS) films using metal organic chemical vapor deposition. Trimethylindium and ditertiarybutylselenide metal organic compounds were used as the indium and selenium sources to deposit the IS films on soda lime glass. The effect of the growth pressure was examined from 10 to 80 torr. The effect of the growth temperature was studied in the range, 300°C to 500°C. Scanning electron microscopy and high resolution x-ray diffraction was used to analyze the morphological and structural properties of the deposited films. Optical absorption was used to examine the optical properties and band gap of the deposited IS films. The details of the analysis are presented.

Phototransistors based on multilayer MoS(2) crystals are demonstrated with a wider spectral response and higher photoresponsivity than single-layer MoS(2) phototransistors. Multilayer MoS(2) phototransistors further exhibit high room temperature mobilities (>70 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) ), near-ideal subthreshold swings (~70 mV decade(-1) ), low operating gate biases (<5 V), and negligible shifts in the threshold voltages during illumination.

Unlike graphene, the existence of bandgaps (1-2 eV) in the layered semiconductor molybdenum disulphide, combined with mobility enhancement by dielectric engineering, offers an attractive possibility of using single-layer molybdenum disulphide field-effect transistors in low-power switching devices. However, the complicated process of fabricating single-layer molybdenum disulphide with an additional high-k dielectric layer may significantly limit its compatibility with commercial fabrication. Here we show the first comprehensive investigation of process-friendly multilayer molybdenum disulphide field-effect transistors to demonstrate a compelling case for their applications in thin-film transistors. Our multilayer molybdenum disulphide field-effect transistors exhibited high mobilities (>100 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)), near-ideal subthreshold swings (~70 mV per decade) and robust current saturation over a large voltage window. With simulations based on Shockley's long-channel transistor model and calculations of scattering mechanisms, these results provide potentially important implications in the fabrication of high-resolution large-area displays and further scientific investigation of various physical properties expected in other layered semiconductors.

Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film was deposited with MnO(2) using a spontaneous redox reaction between MnO(4)(-) ions and the SWCNTs. Doping and dedoping had a significant effect on the sheet resistance of the resulting SWCNT film. The injection of holes in the SWCNT film bleached the van Hove singularity transitions (E(11)(s)) observed by optical absorption spectroscopy. The observed doping was not permanent, and spontaneous reduction under ambient conditions restored the efects and dedoped the SWCNT film. Dedoping increased the Fermi level and restored the van Hove singularity transitions (E(11)(s)). The doping and dedoping mechanism of these films was investigated. Transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and optical transmission spectroscopy were used to characterize the films.