Progress in Electronic, Energy, Biomedical and Environmental Applications of Boron Nitride and MoS2 Nanostructures

Abstract

In this review, we examine recent progress using boron nitride (BN) and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanostructures for electronic, energy, biomedical, and environmental applications. The scope of coverage includes zero-, one-, and two-dimensional nanostructures such as BN nanosheets, BN nanotubes, BN quantum dots, MoS2 nanosheets, and MoS2 quantum dots. These materials have sizable bandgaps, differentiating them from other metallic nanostructures or small-bandgap materials. We observed two interesting trends: (1) an increase in applications that use heterogeneous materials by combining BN and MoS2 nanostructures with other nanomaterials, and (2) strong research interest in environmental applications. Last, we encourage researchers to study how to remove nanomaterials from air, soil, and water contaminated with nanomaterials. As nanotechnology proceeds into various applications, environmental contamination is inevitable and must be addressed. Otherwise, nanomaterials will go into our food chain much like microplastics.

Contact resistances between ZnO and Ti, Al, Zn, and Bi: correlation with the density of states at Fermi energies

“…In such cases, matching of the E F of the metals with the conduction band edge of the semiconductor would lead to gap-state saturation and ultralow CRs. 30,54,55 This immediately describes the observation of the best quality contacts in Bi/ZnO samples because Bi is a semimetal and has, in theory, zero density of states at its E F level (Fig. 5) which matches the conduction band edge of ZnO (Table 1).…”