Large PbS protruded cubes, edge and cornertruncated cubes and octahedra, and perfect octahedra with sizes over 200 nm have been synthesized in aqueous solution. By using two surface oxidefree tungsten probes to contact a clean particle, these PbS nanocrystals displayed facet dependent electrical conductivity behaviors. Both {110} and {100} faces are highly conductive at applied voltages beyond 4 V, but the {111} faces can remain nonconductive even at 5 V. An asymmetric I-V curve was recorded when electrical contacts were made simultaneously on the {110} and {111} facets of a truncated cube. A modified band diagram of PbS is constructed to account for the observed facetdependent effect. Density of states plots for varying numbers of PbS surface planes show larger areas of conduction band electron occupancy for the (110) and (100) planes than that for the (111) planes at a layer thickness of 3.0-3.4 nm. The work represents that, for the first time, the facetdependent electrical properties of an ntype semiconductor nanocrystal are directly probed. Facetdependent electrical conductivity should be a general semiconductor property and can be exploited to fabricate singlenanocrystal operating electronic components. 

In the work, mechanisms behind various 3D-nanocrystals enhanced performance of bulk heterojunction solar cells were studied comprehensively. Four types of gold nanoparticles (NPs) with distinctly different shapes and great uniformity were designed and synthesized, including cubes, rhombic dodecahedra (RD), edge-and corner-truncated octahedra (ECTO), and triangular plates, to systematically probe their influences on photovoltaic. RD and triangular plates show a higher growth rate, while slower growth favors cubes and ECTO formation by controlling reduction agent and capping ions amount. NPs with increasing corners and proper size of crosssection induce stronger near-field coupling and far-field scattering in P3HT:PC 61 BM based active layers. Both finite-difference time-domain simulation and UV-visible absorption spectra firmly support that RD exhibit the strongest localized surface plasmon resonance and optical scattering. With optimized condition, a high power conversion efficiency exceeding 4% was reproducibly achieved.

X-ray free-electron lasers provide novel opportunities to conduct single particle analysis on nanoscale particles. Coherent diffractive imaging experiments were performed at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), SLAC National Laboratory, exposing single inorganic core-shell nanoparticles to femtosecond hard-X-ray pulses. Each facetted nanoparticle consisted of a crystalline gold core and a differently shaped palladium shell. Scattered intensities were observed up to about 7 nm resolution. Analysis of the scattering patterns revealed the size distribution of the samples, which is consistent with that obtained from direct real-space imaging by electron microscopy. Scattering patterns resulting from single particles were selected and compiled into a dataset which can be valuable for algorithm developments in single particle scattering research.

The Data Descriptor incorrectly states the number of normal incidences used to generate the plot in Fig. 4b as 209. This plot was generated from 32 normal incidence cases.