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We report the experimental results of CeRu 2 Al 10 by means of transport, thermal, as well as 27 Al nuclear magnetic resonance ͑NMR͒ measurements. This material has been of current interest due to indications of heavy-fermion behavior accompanied by the presence of an anomalous phase transition at T o ϳ 27 K. The phase transition has been characterized by marked features near T o in all measured physical quantities. The NMR observations clearly indicated the nonmagnetic ground state in CeRu 2 Al 10 . Furthermore, the opening of an energy gap of about 100 K over the Fermi surfaces was obtained from the analysis of low-temperature specific-heat and Knight-shift data. Above T o , the transport and thermoelectric properties can be well described by a two-band model with reliable physical parameters. Remarkably, the extracted value of quasielastic linewidth q f ϳ 55 K is found to agree well with that observed in the recent neutron-scattering measurement.

BACKGROUND: Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) is considered as one of the most potential photocatalysts among various oxide semiconductor photocatalysts. In order to improve the photocatalytic performance of TiO 2 -based photocatalysts, it is pivotal to explore an efficient method to promote the separation of photoexcited charges, accelerate the carrier transmission efficiency and enhance visible-light absorption.RESULTS: In this study, heterostructured Ag/g-C 3 N 4 /TiO 2 ternary photocatalysts were successfully constructed using a facile accessible route. The structures, morphologies, chemical compositions and optical properties of the obtained composites were characterized by various analytical methods. The performance of the ternary photocatalysts was then tested for degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light irradiation. The specimen prepared by loading 2% silver (Ag) nanoparticles onto the composites showed the best photocatalytic activity towards RhB degradation (99.7%) with satisfactory stability. The degradation rate using ternary photocatalyst reached 0.0179 min −1 , almost 20-and 2.3-folds higher than those of pure TiO 2 and binary sample. To gain better insights, a possible photocatalytic enhancement mechanism was also proposed. CONCLUSION: The improved photocatalytic properties were attributed to the heterostructure between TiO 2 and graphite carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4 ) as well as the loading Ag nanoparticles. The formation of the heterostructure between TiO 2 and g-C 3 N 4 , combined with the load of Ag nanoparticles created a synergistic effect, leading to the enhanced photocatalytic performance. Overall, these findings look promising for future photodegradation of organic pollutants. Photocatalytic activity testingThe photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared samples were evaluated through degradation of RhB (10 mg L −1 ) in aqueous solution under simulated visible light. A 300 W xenon arc lamp with UV cut-off filter ( > 400 nm) was used as visible light irradiation source. Briefly, 20 mg photocatalyst was dispersed in

Electronic phase transition in strongly correlated materials is extremely sensitive to the dimensionality and crystallographic orientations. Transition metal nitrides (TMNs) are seldom investigated due to the difficulty in fabricating high-quality and stoichiometric single crystals. In this Letter, we report the epitaxial growth and electronic properties of CrN films grown on different-oriented NdGaO3 (NGO) substrates. Astonishingly, CrN films grown on (110)-oriented NGO substrates maintain a metallic phase, whereas the CrN films grown on (010)-oriented NGO substrates are semiconducting. We attribute the unconventional electronic phase transitions in CrN films to the strain effects. The effective modulation of bandgap by the anisotropic strain triggers the metal-to-insulator transition consequently. This work provides a convenient approach to modify the electronic ground states of functional materials using anisotropic strain and further stimulates the investigations of TMNs.

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