A new metallic glass, which was created by vapour deposition at an appropriately high substrate temperature, shows exceptional thermal stability, and enhanced glass transition temperature and elastic modulus. Comparing this new material with other organic glasses prepared by similar routes and known as ultrastable glasses demonstrates the formation of ultrastable glassy materials correlates to the important concept of fragility.

Oily wastewater and oil spill caused by oil leakage accidents pose an extremely harmful to human health and environment. Thus, it is very important to exploit superhydrophobic separation materials and...

We investigate the Johari-Goldstein (JG) b-relaxation process in a model metallic glass-forming (GF) material (Al90Sm10), previously studied extensively by both frequency-dependent mechanical measurements and simulation studies devoted to equilibrium properties, by molecular dynamics simulations based on validated and optimized interatomic potentials with the primary aim of better understanding the nature of this universal relaxation process from a dynamic heterogeneity (DH) perspective. The present relatively low temperature and long-time simulations reveal a direct correspondence between the JG b-relaxation time tJG and the lifetime of the mobile particle clusters tM, defined as in previous DH studies, a relationship dual to the corresponding previously observed relationship between the a-relaxation time ta and the lifetime of immobile particle clusters tIM. Moreover, we find that the average diffusion coefficient D nearly coincides with DAl, of the smaller atomic species (Al), and that the hopping time associated with D coincides with tJG to within numerical uncertainty, both trends being in accord with experimental studies indicating that the JG b-relaxation is dominated by the smaller atomic species and the observation of a direct relation between this relaxation process and rate of molecular diffusion in GF materials at low temperatures where the JG b-relaxation becomes the prevalent mode of structural relaxation. As an unanticipated aspect of our study, we find that Al90Sm10 exhibits fragile-to-strong (FS) glassformation, as found in measurements of many other metallic GF liquids, but this fact does not greatly alter the nature of DH in this material and the relation of DH to dynamical properties. 10

One important goal of the current electrocatalysis is to develop integrated electrodes from the atomic level design to multilevel structural engineering in simple ways and low prices. Here, a series of oxygen micro‐alloyed high‐entropy alloys (O‐HEAs) is developed via a metallurgy approach. A (CrFeCoNi)97O3 bulk O‐HEA shows exceptional electrocatalytic performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), reaching an overpotential as low as 196 mV and a Tafel slope of 29 mV dec−1, and with stability longer than 120 h in 1 m KOH solution at a current density of 10 mA cm−2. It is shown that the enhanced OER performance can be attributed to the formation of island‐like Cr2O3 microdomains, the leaching of Cr3+ ions, and structural amorphization at the interfaces of the domains. These findings offer a technological‐orientated strategy to integrated electrodes.

Relaxation processes are decisive for many physical properties of amorphous materials. For amorphous phasechange materials (PCMs) used in nonvolatile memories, relaxation processes are, however, difficult to characterize because of the lack of bulk samples. Here, instead of bulk samples, we use powder mechanical spectroscopy for powder samples to detect the prominent excess wings-a characteristic feature of -relaxations-in a series of amorphous PCMs at temperatures below glass transitions. By contrast, -relaxations are vanishingly small in amorphous chalcogenides of similar composition, which lack the characteristic features of PCMs. This conclusion is corroborated upon crossing the border from PCMs to non-PCMs, where -relaxations drop substantially. Such a distinction implies that amorphous PCMs belong to a special kind of covalent glasses whose locally fast atomic motions are preserved even below the glass transitions. These findings suggest a correlation between -relaxation and crystallization kinetics of PCMs, which have technological implications for phase-change memory functionalities.

This study demonstrates a simple and fast method to integrate superhydrophobicity, UV protection, and photothermal effect onto PET fabrics. The surface of PET fabric forms a hierarchical rough structure through in situ oxidative polymerization of the pyrrole (Py). The 1,4conjugate addition reaction between pentaerythritol tetraacrylate, 3aminopropyltriethoxysilane, and octadecyl acrylate not only endows the PET fabric with superhydrophobicity but also forms a cross-linked network structure which improves the stability of multifunctional coatings on the surface of the PET fabric. In addition, the wettability of the prepared PET fabric is investigated by adjusting the Py monomer and octadecyl acrylate concentration. The results reveal that the prepared PET fabrics exhibit obviously superhydrophobic behavior with a contact angle of 155.8°. The surface temperature of the superhydrophobic PPy/PET fabric can rise to 91 °C under a simulated sunlight which is much higher than the pristine PET fabric, while reaching basically the same steady-state in five heating/cooling cycles. The prepared PET fabric also possesses excellent self-cleaning, UV shielding, and solar light absorption performances. Furthermore, the superhydrophobic PET fabric exhibited excellent stability against 180 °C high temperature, strong UV radiation, different pH solutions and organic solvent erosion, 8 h washing tests, and 25 sandpaper abrasion cycles. These findings provide a path for the future development of multifunctional fabrics using fluorine-free environmentally friendly materials.

Thrombin is an important biomarker for various diseases and biochemical reactions. Rapid and real-time detection of thrombin that quickly neutralizes in early coagulation in the body has gained significant attention for its practical applications. Solution-gated graphene transistors (SGGTs) have been widely studied due to their higher sensitivity and low-cost fabrication for chemical and biological sensing applications. In this paper, the ssDNA aptamer with 29 bases was immobilized on the surface of the gate electrode to specifically recognize thrombin. The SGGT sensor achieved high sensitivity with a limit of detection (LOD) up to fM. The LOD was attributed to the amplification function of SGGTs and the suitable aptamer choice. The ssDNA configuration folding induced by thrombin molecules and the electropositivity of thrombin molecules could arouse the same electrical response of SGGTs, helping the device obtain a high sensitivity. The channel current variation of sensors had a good linear relationship with the logarithm of thrombin concentration in the range of 1 fM to 10 nM. The fabricated device also demonstrated a short response time to thrombin molecules, and the response time to the 1 fM thrombin molecules was about 150 s. In summary, the sensing strategy of aptamer-based SGGTs with high sensitivity and high selectivity has a good prospect in medical diagnosis.

Inorganic-based micro light-emitting diodes (microLEDs) offer more fascinating properties and unique demands in next-generation displays. However, the small size of microLED chip (1~100 µm) makes it extremely challenging for high efficiency and low cost to accurately, selectively integrate millions of microLED chips. Recent impressive technological advances have overcome the drawbacks of traditional pick-and-place techniques when they were utilized in the assembly of microLED display, including the most broadly recognized laser lift-off technique, contact µTP technique, laser non-contact µTP technique, and self-assembly technique. Herein, we firstly review the key developments in mass transfer technique and highlight their potential value, covering both the state-of-the-art devices and requirements for mass transfer in the assembly of the ultra-large-area display and virtual reality glasses. We begin with the significant challenges and the brief history of mass transfer technique, and expand that mass transfer technique is composed of two major techniques, namely, epitaxial Lift-off technique and pick-and-place technique. The basic concept and transfer effects for each representative epitaxial Lift-off and pick-and-place technique in mass transfer are then overviewed separately. Finally, the potential challenges and future research directions of mass transfer are discussed.