A facile and general method has been developed to fabricate oxygen vacancies on perovskite SrTiO3 (STO) nanocrystals through a controllable solid-state reaction of NaBH4 and SrTiO3 nanocrystals. STO samples with tunable color, oxygen vacancy concentration on nanocrystal surface have been synthesized. TEM results reveal that these STO samples have a crystalline core/amorphous shell structure (SrTiO3@SrTiO3-x). XPS and EPR results disclose that the oxygen vacancy concentration increases with the increase of reaction time and temperature. The concentration of oxygen vacancies calculated from TGA data, could reach 5.07% (atom) in this study. UV-vis spectra and photocatalytic results indicate that oxygen vacancies on STO surface play an important role in influencing the light absorption and photocatalytic performance. However, an excess amount of oxygen vacancies leads to a decrease of photocatalytic performance. The optimal photocatalytic activity for H2 production under UV-vis irradiation is up to 2.2 mmol h(-1) g(-1), which is about 2.3 times than the original SrTiO3, corresponding to 3.28% (atom) of oxygen vacancy concentration.

A family of red light-emitting star-shaped porphyrins with four monodisperse conjugated oligofluorene arms was prepared by using two key reactions: Lindsey condensation and Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reactions. All porphyrins exhibit high quantum yields (about 0.22) and good solubility in common organic solvents, and form high-quality solid films. Optical studies showed that the star-shaped oligomers could absorb blue light and emit saturated red light via efficient energy transfer from the fluorene segments to the porphyrin core.

One-dimensional silver materials display unique optical and electrical properties with promise as functional blocks for a new generation of nanoelectronics. To date, synthetic approaches and property engineering of silver nanowires have primarily focused on chemical methods. Here we report a simple physical method of metal nanowire synthesis, based on stressinduced phase transformation and sintering of spherical Ag nanoparticle superlattices. Two phase transformations of nanoparticles under stress have been observed at distinct length scales. First, the lattice dimensions of silver nanoparticle superlattices may be reversibly manipulated between 0-8 GPa compressive stresses to enable systematic and reversible changes in mesoscale optical coupling between silver nanoparticles. Second, stresses greater than 8 GPa induced an atomic lattice phase transformation, which induced sintering of silver nanoparticles into micron-length scale nanowires. The nanowire synthesis mechanism displays a dependence on both nanoparticle crystal surface orientation and presence of particular grain boundaries to enable nanoparticle consolidation into nanowires.