AtomEye is free atomistic visualization software for all major UNIX platforms. It is based on a newly developed graphics core library of higher quality than the X-window standard, with area-weighted anti-aliasing. An order-N neighbourlist algorithm is used to compute the bond connectivity. The functionalities of AtomEye include: parallel and perspective projections with full three-dimensional navigation; customizable bond and coordination number calculation; colour-encoding of arbitrary user-defined quantities; local atomic strain invariant; coloured atom tiling and tracing; up to 16 cutting planes; periodic boundary condition translations; high-quality JPEG, PNG and EPS screenshots; and animation scripting. The program is efficient compared to OpenGL hardware acceleration by employing special algorithms to treat spheres (atoms) and cylinders (bonds), in which they are rendered as primitive objects rather than as composites of polygons. AtomEye can handle more than one million atoms on a PC with 1 GB memory. It is a robust, low-cost tool for surveying nanostructures and following their evolutions.

Solar-driven hydrogen production from water using particulate photocatalysts is considered the most economical and effective approach to produce hydrogen fuel with little environmental concern. However, the efficiency of hydrogen production from water in particulate photocatalysis systems is still low. Here, we propose an efficient biphase photocatalytic system composed of integrated photothermal–photocatalytic materials that use charred wood substrates to convert liquid water to water steam, simultaneously splitting hydrogen under light illumination without additional energy. The photothermal–photocatalytic system exhibits biphase interfaces of photothermally-generated steam/photocatalyst/hydrogen, which significantly reduce the interface barrier and drastically lower the transport resistance of the hydrogen gas by nearly two orders of magnitude. In this work, an impressive hydrogen production rate up to 220.74 μmol h−1 cm−2 in the particulate photocatalytic systems has been achieved based on the wood/CoO system, demonstrating that the photothermal–photocatalytic biphase system is cost-effective and greatly advantageous for practical applications.

Simulations demonstrate the critical roles of π-conjugation and large magnetic anisotropy in realizing high-temperature ferromagnetic 2D metal–organic framework, which is also half-metallic.

In situ transmission electron microscope compression testing of submicron Al pillars shows two sample size regimes with contrasting behavior underlying the large strain bursts. For small pillars, the bursts originate from explosive and highly correlated dislocation generation, characterized by very high collapse stresses and nearly dislocation-free post-collapse microstructure. For larger pillars, the bursts result from the reconstruction of jammed dislocation configurations, featuring relative low stress levels and retention of dislocation network after bursts. V