The necessity for new sources for greener and cleaner energy production to replace the existing ones has been increasingly growing in recent years. Of those new sources, the hydrogen evolution reaction has a large potential. In this work, for the first time, MoSe /Mo core-shell 3D-hierarchical nanostructures are created, which are derived from the Mo 3D-hierarchical nanostructures through a low-temperature plasma-assisted selenization process with controlled shapes grown by a glancing angle deposition system.

While immunotherapy holds great promise for combating cancer, the limited efficacy due to an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and systemic toxicity hinder the broader application of cancer immunotherapy. Here, we report a combinatorial immunotherapy approach that uses a highly efficient and tumor-selective gene carrier to improve anticancer efficacy and circumvent the systemic toxicity. In this study, we engineered tumor-targeted lipid-dendrimer-calcium-phosphate (TT-LDCP) nanoparticles (NPs) with thymine-functionalized dendrimers that exhibit not only enhanced gene delivery capacity but also immune adjuvant properties by activating the stimulator of interferon genes (STING)–cGAS pathway. TT-LDCP NPs delivered siRNA against immune checkpoint ligand PD-L1 and immunostimulatory IL-2–encoding plasmid DNA to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), increased tumoral infiltration and activation of CD8+ T cells, augmented the efficacy of cancer vaccine immunotherapy, and suppressed HCC progression. Our work presents nanotechnology-enabled dual delivery of siRNA and plasmid DNA that selectively targets and reprograms the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment to improve cancer immunotherapy.

The formation of PtSe -layered films is reported in a large area by the direct plasma-assisted selenization of Pt films at a low temperature, where temperatures, as low as 100 °C at the applied plasma power of 400 W can be achieved. As the thickness of the Pt film exceeds 5 nm, the PtSe -layered film (five monolayers) exhibits a metallic behavior. A clear p-type semiconducting behavior of the PtSe -layered film (≈trilayers) is observed with the average field effective mobility of 0.7 cm V s from back-gated transistor measurements as the thickness of the Pt film reaches below 2.5 nm. A full PtSe field effect transistor is demonstrated where the thinner PtSe , exhibiting a semiconducting behavior, is used as the channel material, and the thicker PtSe , exhibiting a metallic behavior, is used as an electrode, yielding an ohmic contact. Furthermore, photodetectors using a few PtSe -layered films as an adsorption layer synthesized at the low temperature on a flexible substrate exhibit a wide range of absorption and photoresponse with the highest photocurrent of 9 µA under the laser wavelength of 408 nm. In addition, the device can maintain a high photoresponse under a large bending stress and 1000 bending cycles.

An inductively coupled plasma (ICP) process was used to synthesize transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) through a plasma-assisted selenization process of metal oxide (MO x ) at a temperature as low as 250 °C. In comparison with other CVD processes, the use of ICP facilitates the decomposition of the precursors at low temperatures. Therefore, the temperature required for the formation of TMDs can be drastically reduced. WSe 2 was chosen as a model material system due to its technological importance as a p-type inorganic semiconductor with an excellent hole mobility. Large-area synthesis of WSe 2 on polyimide (30 × 40 cm 2 ) flexible substrates and 8 in. silicon wafers with good uniformity was demonstrated at the formation temperature of 250 °C confirmed by Raman and X-ray photoelectron (XPS) spectroscopy. Furthermore, by controlling different H 2 /N 2 ratios, hybrid WO x /WSe 2 films can be formed at the formation temperature of 250 °C confirmed by TEM and XPS. Remarkably, hybrid films composed of partially reduced WO x and small domains of WSe 2 with a thickness of ∼5 nm show a sensitivity of 20% at 25 ppb at room temperature, and an estimated detection limit of 0.3 ppb with a S/N > 10 for the potential development of a low-cost plastic/wearable sensor with high sensitivity.

Graphene, a two-dimensional material with honeycomb arrays of carbon atoms, has shown outstanding physical properties that make it a promising candidate material for a variety of electronic applications. To date, several issues related to the material synthesis and device fabrication need to be overcome. Despite the fact that large-area graphene films synthesised by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) can be grown with relatively few defects, the required transfer process creates wrinkles and polymer residues that greatly reduce its performance in device applications. Graphene synthesised on silicon carbide (SiC) has shown outstanding mobility and has been successfully used to develop ultra-high frequency transistors; however, this fabrication method is limited due to the use of costly ultra-high vacuum (UHV) equipment that can reach temperatures over 1500 °C. Here, we show a simple and novel approach to synthesise graphene on SiC substrates that greatly reduces the temperature and vacuum requirements and allows the use of equipment commonly used in the semiconductor processing industry. In this work, we used plasma treatment followed by annealing in order to obtain large-scale graphene films from bulk SiC. After exposure to N2 plasma, the annealing process promotes the reaction of nitrogen ions with Si and the simultaneous condensation of C on the surface of SiC. Eventually, a uniform, large-scale, n-type graphene film with remarkable transport behaviour on the SiC wafer is achieved. Furthermore, graphene field effect transistors (FETs) with high carrier mobilities on SiC were also demonstrated in this study.