Dissociation process of glutathione-gold(I) polymers in aqueous solution resulted in the formation of a class of ~2 nm gold nanoparticles. Different from the same sized but NaBH4 reduced gold nanoparticles, these nanoparticles exhibit strong luminescence but no surface plasmon absorption. Luminescence lifetimes of the nanoparticles were found strongly dependent on excitation wavelengths, and singlet and triplet excited states involving the emission were found degenerate in energy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic studies showed that nearly 40~50% gold atoms in the luminescent nanoparticles were in gold(I) state, which are responsible for the unique optical properties of the luminescent gold nanoparticles. These luminescent nanoparticles can be considered an intermediate state between luminescent gold(I) complexes and reduced nonluminescent gold nanoparticles.

The stacking of two-dimensional layered materials, such as semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), insulating hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), and semimetallic graphene, has been theorized to produce tunable electronic and optoelectronic properties. Here we demonstrate the direct growth of MoS2, WSe2, and hBN on epitaxial graphene to form large-area van der Waals heterostructures. We reveal that the properties of the underlying graphene dictate properties of the heterostructures, where strain, wrinkling, and defects on the surface of graphene act as nucleation centers for lateral growth of the overlayer. Additionally, we show that the direct synthesis of TMDs on epitaxial graphene exhibits atomically sharp interfaces. Finally, we demonstrate that direct growth of MoS2 on epitaxial graphene can lead to a 10(3) improvement in photoresponse compared to MoS2 alone.

Most materials expand on heating, known as positive thermal expansion. There are some instances most of which have been discovered in the past decade to exhibit a negative thermal expansion (NTE). [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The nature of NTE behavior originates from the effect of atomic vibrations, (e.g., the low-energy transverse mode (ice), 2 the coupled rotation of rigid polyhedra (ZrW 2 O 8 , Fe[Co-(CN) 6 ]), 1,4 and active vibration modes of carbon fullerenes and nanotubes), 7 from the effect of magnetic transition (Invar alloy), 3 or from the changes in electron configuration (Sm 2.72 C 60 , YbCuAl). 8 The occurrence of NTE materials immediately found their important technical applications in many fields, because the overall thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) could be tailored by introduction of NTE materials. 1,2 In particular, zero thermal expansion (ZTE) is very interesting, where the volume neither expands nor contracts with the temperature fluctuation. 3-6 The ZTE could be achieved to form composite by combining the materials with positive thermal expansion with NTE materials. However, the fabrication of ZTE composite is hampered by the poor thermal stability of NTE compounds. For example, ZrW 2 O 8 will be decomposed at a relatively low temperature (777°C). 1 The requirement of ZTE will be satisfied if the ZTE is available in a single phase. Up to now, rare materials exhibit the novel ZTE, such as Invar alloys and Fe-[Co(CN) 6 ]. 3,4 Moreover, the ZTE generally appears in a low temperature (below room temperature). The ZTE over a wider temperature range would be very useful for the applications.PbTiO 3 (PT) as an important perovskite-type multifunctional material exhibits a unique NTE in the perovskite family. 9,10 The unit cell volume of PT contracts over a wide temperature range in the ferroelectric phase (25-490°C) with an average intrinsic volumetric TEC (-1.99 × 10 -5°C-1 ). 9b The NTE of PT-based compounds can be controlled over a large range from -0.11 × 10 -5 to -3.92 × 10 -5°C-1 , which covers the range found in almost all other known NTE oxides. 9 However, a low or ZTE could only be achieved by sacrificing the temperature range, that is, reducing the Curie point (T C ), such as for Pb 0.80 La 0.20 TiO 3 (-0.11 × 10 -5°C -1 , 25-130°C). 9b It is a challenge to expand ZTE to the hightemperature range. On the basis of our previously studied PbTiO 3 -based compounds, we could only access a low expansion or ZTE by reducing the tetragonality (c/a), resulting in the decrease in the ZTE temperature range (region II in Figure 1). To obtain the ZTE in a wider temperature range, a kind of PbTiO 3 -based compound should be found in the region I where c/a is large and the absolute value of TEC is low (Figure 1). Recently, in the PbTiO 3 -BiMeO 3 (Me is cations with an average valence +3), the Bi substitution plays an unusual role in which both T C and c/a are considerably enhanced, owing to the strong coupling between the Pb/Bi cations and the B-site cations with strong ferroelectricity activity, suc...