Van der Waals (vdW) crystals with covalently bonded building blocks assembled together through vdW interactions have attracted tremendous attention recently because of their interesting properties and promising applications. Compared to the explosive research on two-dimensional (2D) vdW materials, quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) vdW crystals have received considerably less attention, while they also present rich physics and engineering implications. Here we report on the thermal conductivity of exfoliated quasi-1D TaPdSe vdW nanowires. Interestingly, even though the interatomic interactions along each molecular chain are much stronger than the interchain vdW interactions, the measured thermal conductivity still demonstrates a clear dependence on the cross-sectional size up to >110 nm. The results also reveal that partial ballistic phonon transport can persist over 13 μm at room temperature along the molecular chain direction, the longest experimentally observed ballistic transport distance with observable effects on thermal conductivity so far. First-principles calculations suggest that the ultralong ballistic phonon transport arises from the highly focused longitudinal phonons propagating along the molecular chains. These data help to understand phonon transport through quasi-1D vdW crystals, facilitating various applications of this class of materials.

An Acinetobacter strain, given the code name LCH001 and having the potential to be an endophytic antagonist, has been isolated from healthy stems of the plant Cinnamomum camphora (L.) Presl, guided by an in vitro screening technique. The bacterium inhibited the growth of several phytopathogenic fungi such as Cryphonectria parasitica, Glomerella glycines, Phytophthora capsici, Fusarium graminearum, Botrytis cinerea, and Rhizoctonia solani. Biochemical, physiological, and 16S rDNA sequence analysis proved that it is Acinetobacter baumannii. When the filtrate from the fermentation broth of strain LCH001 was tested in vitro and in vivo, it showed strong growth inhibition against several phytopathogens including P. capsici, F. graminearum, and R. solani, indicating that suppression of the growth of the fungi was due to the presence of antifungal compounds in the culture broth. Moreover, the antifungal activity of the culture filtrate was significantly correlated with the cell growth of strain LCH001. The active metabolites in the filtrate were relatively thermally stable, but were sensitive to acidic conditions. Three antifungal compounds were isolated from the culture broth by absorption onto macropore resin, ethanol extraction, chromatography on silica gel or LH-20 columns, and crystallization. The structures of the bioactive compounds were identified by spectroscopic methods as isomers of iturin A, namely, iturin A2, iturin A3, and iturin A6. The characterization of an unusual endophytic bacterial strain LCH001 and its bioactive components may provide an alternative resource for the biocontrol of plant diseases.

The discovery of a record high figure of merit (ZT) of ≈2.6 associated with bulk SnSe has stimulated considerable enthusiasm in searching for 2D systems with similar high ZT. However, previously reported 2D thermoelectric (TE) materials generally possess very low ZT due to the high lattice thermal conductivity (κ L ) and/or small power factor (PF). Herein, a very high ZT (≈2.08) value associated with atomically thin 2D KAgSe nanosheet is reported, which also exhibits an unprecedented low intrinsic κ L (≈0.03 Wm −1 K −1 at 700 K for trilayer) and fairly large PF. The low κ L mainly stems from the high lattice anharmonicity induced by both the "interfacial shear slip" vibrations and the asymmetric "AgSe pair" vibrations from distorted AgSe 4 tetrahedrons. Meanwhile, the complete band-extrema alignment and coexistence of heavy and light bands result in an optimal Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity, thereby a large PF. This work suggests not only an alternative way to acquiring high lattice anharmonicity but also a highly competitive 2D TE candidate for wide applications.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202001200.devices, recently much attention has been devoted to the development of 2D highefficiency TE materials with controllable thickness. [5][6][7] In general, the TE efficiency is characterized by the dimensionless figure of merit ZT = S 2 σT/(κ L + κ e ), where S, σ, T, κ L , and κ e are Seebeck coefficient, electrical conductivity, absolute temperature, lattice thermal conductivity and electronic thermal conductivity, respectively. Apparently, the high TE efficiency can be achieved by increasing the power factor (PF = S 2 σ) together with suppressing the sum of thermal conductivity (κ L + κ e ).Currently, the TE efficiency can be improved by two approaches: i) Tuning effective mass to improve the electronic transport and ii) increasing phonon scattering to suppress the lattice thermal transport. [8][9][10][11] For a given carrier concentration, a large carrier effective mass (m*) contributes to a large S, and the m* is proportional to the band effective mass (m b *) according to m* = N V 2/3 m b *, where N V refers to the band degeneracy. [10,12] A large m b *, however, will reduce the carrier mobility μ since m b 1/ * 2 µ ∝ (2D systems). [13][14][15][16] Hence, to optimize S 2 σ, it is important to attain high N V and moderate m b * simultaneously. A high N V can be achieved either by mixing two types of low-symmetric compounds into a reconstructed highly symmetric structure or by alloying/doping to converge different bands in the Brillouin zone. [8,[17][18][19] For electronic bands at the band edge, a moderate m b * can be realized in principle through element doping or strain engineering. [20] However, in practice, many compounds have limited doping capability and are easily damaged by strain; and the crystal symmetry of the reconstructed structure is uncontrollable. Regarding increasing phonon scattering, intro...

The last two decades have seen tremendous progress in quantitative understanding of several major phonon scattering mechanisms (phonon-phonon, phonon-boundary, phonon-defects), as they are the determinant factors in lattice thermal transport, which is critical for the proper functioning of various electronic and energy conversion devices. However, the roles of another major scattering mechanism, electron-phonon (e-ph) interactions, remain elusive. This is largely due to the lack of solid experimental evidence for the effects of e-ph scattering in the lattice thermal conductivity for the material systems studied thus far. Here we show distinct signatures in the lattice thermal conductivity observed below the charge density wave transition temperatures in NbSe3 nanowires, which cannot be recaptured without considering e-ph scattering. Our findings can serve as the cornerstone for quantitative understanding of the e-ph scattering effects on lattice thermal transport in many technologically important materials.

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Graphene, as atomic layer structure, has the highest room temperature thermal conductivity k for all known materials. Thus, it is expected that graphene based materials are the best candidates for...

Unlike the wide range control of electrical conductivity, the tuning of thermal conductivity is difficult especially for the increase or bidirectional tuning. Traditional methods typically only decrease the thermal conductivity by increasing the phonon scattering. In this work, through first-principles calculations, the E-field-controlled hysteresis characteristic of ferroelectric materials is utilized to realize the bidirectional tuning of thermal conductivity. Under the electric field, the structure, i.e., the lattice constants and atomic coordinates, has an opposite response depending on the direction of the E-field, leading to the opposite change of thermal conductivity. Moreover, the electric field can also induce the domain wall response, i.e., the change of domain size or domain wall density, which can be combined with structure response to increase the range of bidirectional tuning. The tuning range for structure response has a weak dependence on temperature, while for domain wall response, it increases significantly with decreasing temperature since phonon transport at low temperature is sensitive to the domain wall scattering. The dimensionality effects (bulk, thin films, and nanowires) on the tuning range are also investigated. The calculation results show that bulk PTO and cross-plane direction of PTO thin film have a larger tuning range, while the in-plane directions of thin film and nanowire have a smaller value. The results in this work give a new guideline to search for bidirectional tuning of thermal conductivity.

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