We report the strong catalyst–support interaction in WC‐supported RuO2 nanoparticles (RuO2‐WC NPs) anchored on carbon nanosheets with low loading of Ru (4.11 wt.%), which significantly promotes the oxygen evolution reaction activity with a η10 of 347 mV and a mass activity of 1430 A gRu−1, eight‐fold higher than that of commercial RuO2 (176 A gRu−1). Theoretical calculations demonstrate that the strong catalyst–support interaction between RuO2 and the WC support could optimize the surrounding electronic structure of Ru sites to reduce the reaction barrier. Considering the likewise excellent catalytic ability for hydrogen production, an acidic overall water splitting (OWS) electrolyzer with a good stability constructed by bifunctional RuO2‐WC NPs only requires a cell voltage of 1.66 V to afford 10 mA cm−2. The unique 0D/2D nanoarchitectures rationally combining a WC support with precious metal oxides provides a promising strategy to tradeoff the high catalytic activity and low cost for acidic OWS applications.

No abstract

to develop an adequate method to combine them together and understand its charge transport mechanisms.Recent advancements in the field of welding of NWs research indicate its potential capabilities in fabrication and repairing nanoelectronics, [16][17][18][19] nanophotonics, [20] nanomedicine, [21] and nanoelectromechanical systems. [22] There are reports of successful nanowelding following various techniques, including thermal annealing, [23] optical welding, [24][25][26][27][28] capillarity-driven welding, [29] chemical welding, [30] spot welding, [31] stretchinduced cold-welding, [32][33][34] and welding by Joule heating. [35,36] Although much progress has been achieved in this field, there remains many cumbersome issues, such as necessitating complicated and expensive experimental setup, use of chemicals which can contaminate the system, and lack of robustness corresponding to mechanical strength and electrical connectivity, yet to be addressed. Furthermore, the joining of semiconductor and metal NWs remains a challenging issue for miniaturization and integration of next generation nanodevices as the melting points of these two different types of materials are different.In this article, we present a relatively simple technique to achieve adequate welding of ZnO NW with Ag NW and also both type of NWs with Au electrode toward realizing heterojunction-based electronic nanodevices. The effects of local heat generation in closely spaced semiconductor and metal nanostructures due to strong optical interactions have been utilized for melting and eventually welding these nanostructures. Following this technique, four different electronic devices (two devices consisting of one Schottky and two ohmic junctions, one device with two back-to-back Schottky junctions, and another one with three ohmic contacts) have been fabricated. The devices with one Schottky and two ohmic junctions have been fabricated following two different approaches for two different orientations of the ZnO (top/bottom) and Ag (bottom/top) NWs. Although the temperature difference between the melting points of ZnO and Ag NWs is about 1000 K, it has been demonstrated that the melting points of both NWs are reached simultaneously when ZnO NW in on top of Ag NW, which results in superior quality of welding. Thereafter, toward understanding the transport mechanisms of all these devices, the obtained currentvoltage (I-V) characteristic curves are analyzed in detail. This photothermal nanowelding technique paves the path for realizing heterostructure-based 1D electronic nanodevices.An improvised and comparatively inexpensive method for welding semiconductors and metal nanowires (NWs) utilizing a plasmon-enhanced photothermal effect is presented in this article. Different types of heterojunction-based (single Schottky junction and back-to-back Schottky junctions) electronic nanodevices are fabricated by welding various combinations of silver and ZnO NWs on two gold electrodes using continuous wave laser (λ = 532 nm) shots. It is inferred from the current-vo...

We report the strong catalyst–support interaction in WC‐supported RuO2 nanoparticles (RuO2‐WC NPs) anchored on carbon nanosheets with low loading of Ru (4.11 wt.%), which significantly promotes the oxygen evolution reaction activity with a η10 of 347 mV and a mass activity of 1430 A gRu−1, eight‐fold higher than that of commercial RuO2 (176 A gRu−1). Theoretical calculations demonstrate that the strong catalyst–support interaction between RuO2 and the WC support could optimize the surrounding electronic structure of Ru sites to reduce the reaction barrier. Considering the likewise excellent catalytic ability for hydrogen production, an acidic overall water splitting (OWS) electrolyzer with a good stability constructed by bifunctional RuO2‐WC NPs only requires a cell voltage of 1.66 V to afford 10 mA cm−2. The unique 0D/2D nanoarchitectures rationally combining a WC support with precious metal oxides provides a promising strategy to tradeoff the high catalytic activity and low cost for acidic OWS applications.

Healing defects of metallic structures is an essential procedure for manufacturing and maintaining integrated devices. Current nanocomposite-assisted microhealing methodologies are inadequate for nanoscopic applications because of their concomitant contamination and limited operation accuracy. In this paper, we propose an optically controllable targeted nanohealing technique by utilizing the plasmonic-enhanced photothermal effect. The healing of nanogaps between two silver nanowires (NWs) is achieved by increasing the incident laser power in steps. Partial connection of NWs can be readily obtained using this technique, while near-perfect connection of NWs with the same crystal orientations is obtained only when the lattices on the two opposing facets are matched after recrystallization. This non-contaminating nanohealing technique not only provides deeper insight into the heat/mass transfer assisted by plasmonic photothermal conversion in the nanoscale but also suggests avenues for recovering mechanical, electronic, and photonic properties of defected metallic nanodevices.