Microelectronic circuits/arrays produced via high-speed printing instead of traditional photolithographic processes offer an appealing approach to creating the long-sought after, low-cost, large-area flexible electronics. Foremost among critical enablers to propel this paradigm shift in manufacturing is a stable, solution-processable, high-performance semiconductor for printing functionally capable thin-film transistors — fundamental building blocks of microelectronics. We report herein the processing and optimisation of solution-processable polymer semiconductors for thin-film transistors, demonstrating very high field-effect mobility, high on/off ratio, and excellent shelf-life and operating stabilities under ambient conditions. Exceptionally high-gain inverters and functional ring oscillator devices on flexible substrates have been demonstrated. This optimised polymer semiconductor represents a significant progress in semiconductor development, dispelling prevalent skepticism surrounding practical usability of organic semiconductors for high-performance microelectronic devices, opening up application opportunities hitherto functionally or economically inaccessible with silicon technologies, and providing an excellent structural framework for fundamental studies of charge transport in organic systems.

Finding ideal material models for studying the role of catalytic active sites remains a great challenge. Here we propose pits confined in an atomically thin sheet as a platform to evaluate carbon monoxide catalytic oxidation at various sites. The artificial three-atomic-layer thin cerium(IV) oxide sheet with approximately 20% pits occupancy possesses abundant pit-surrounding cerium sites having average coordination numbers of 4.6 as revealed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Density-functional calculations disclose that the four-and five-fold coordinated pit-surrounding cerium sites assume their respective role in carbon monoxide adsorption and oxygen activation, which lowers the activation barrier and avoids catalytic poisoning. Moreover, the presence of coordination-unsaturated cerium sites increases the carrier density and facilitates carbon monoxide diffusion along the two-dimensional conducting channels of surface pits. The atomically thin sheet with surface-confined pits exhibits lower apparent activation energy than the bulk material (61.7 versus 122.9 kJ mol À 1 ), leading to reduced conversion temperature and enhanced carbon monoxide catalytic ability.

This review focuses on the mechanisms of CO2 and CO methanation, and catalysts' deactivation.