Nanostructured materials lie at the heart of fundamental advances in efficient energy storage and/or conversion, in which surface processes and transport kinetics play determining roles. This Review describes some recent developments in the synthesis and characterization of nanostructured cathode materials, including lithium transition metal oxides, vanadium oxides, manganese oxides, lithium ph...

Bombardment ofsilicon (100) stIrfaces at room temperature by an oxygen-containing low-energy ion beam is studied as an alternative to thermal oxidation to produce ultrathin oxide films. A self­ limiting oxide thickness of about 50 A is obtained by using ions with energy 100 eV or lower. Auger electron spectroscopy depth profiles of an ion-beam grown oxide and a thermally grown oxide show very s...

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were prepared by the catalytic chemical vapor deposition of C2H2 at 550°C in 120 minutes using nanoparticles of Ni-Ce-Zr mixed oxides. The CNTs were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and Raman spectroscopy. The results revealed that CNTs with diameter of about 45 nm are o...

Bombardment of silicon surfaces by low-energy oxygen ions has been investigated as a possible process for growing films ofSiOzat room temperature. Broad ion beams ofenergy 40-200 eV and variable oxygen content have been used to grow ultrathin oxides of extremely uniform thickness. The ion beam oxides are similar to thin thermal oxides in many respects-composition, chemical binding, optical, and...

Graphene oxides with different surface charges were fabricated from carboxylated graphene oxide by chemical modification with amino- (-NH2), poly-m-aminobenzene sulfonic acid- (-NH2/-SO3H), or methoxyl- (-OCH3) terminated functional groups. The chemically functionalized graphene oxides and the carboxylated graphene oxide were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectrosc...

Four rare earth oxides have been shown to induce autophagy. Interestingly, we often noticed plentiful vacuolization, which was not always involved in this autophagic process. In this study, we investigated three other rare-earth elements, including Yttrium (Y), Ytterbium (Yb), and Lanthanum (La). Autophagic effect could be induced by all of them but only Y(2)O(3) and Yb(2)O(3) could cause massi...

Oxygen coordination of transition metals is a key for functional properties of transition-metal oxides, because hybridization of transition-metal d and oxygen p orbitals determines correlations between charges, spins and lattices. Strain often modifies the oxygen coordination environment and affects such correlations in the oxides, resulting in the emergence of unusual properties and, in some c...

Configurational disorder can be compositionally engineered into mixed oxide by populating a single sublattice with many distinct cations. The formulations promote novel and entropy-stabilized forms of crystalline matter where metal cations are incorporated in new ways. Here, through rigorous experiments, a simple thermodynamic model, and a five-component oxide formulation, we demonstrate beyond...

Ultralong beltlike (or ribbonlike) nanostructures (so-called nanobelts) were successfully synthesized for semiconducting oxides of zinc, tin, indium, cadmium, and gallium by simply evaporating the desired commercial metal oxide powders at high temperatures. The as-synthesized oxide nanobelts are pure, structurally uniform, and single crystalline, and most of them are free from defects and dislo...