The aluminum oxide (Al2O3) thin films with various thicknesses under 50 nm were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on silicon substrate. The surface topography investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed that the samples were smooth and crack-free. The ellipsometric spectra of Al2O3 thin films were measured and analyzed before and after annealing in nitrogen condition in the wavelength range from 250 to 1,000 nm, respectively. The refractive index of Al2O3 thin films was described by Cauchy model and the ellipsometric spectra data were fitted to a five-medium model consisting of Si substrate/SiO2 layer/Al2O3 layer/surface roughness/air ambient structure. It is found that the refractive index of Al2O3 thin films decrease with increasing film thickness and the changing trend revised after annealing. The phenomenon is believed to arise from the mechanical stress in ALD-Al2O3 thin films. A thickness transition is also found by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and SE after 900°C annealing.

Contacting interfaces with physical isolation and weak interactions usually act as barriers for electrical conduction. The electrical contact conductance across interfaces has long been correlated with the true contact area or the "contact quantity". Much of the physical understanding of the interfacial electrical contact quality was primarily based on Landauer's theory or Richardson formulation. However, a quantitative model directly connecting contact conductance to interfacial atomistic structures still remains absent. Here, we measure the atomic-scale local electrical contact conductance instead of local electronic surface states in graphene/Ru(0001) superstructure, via atomically resolved conductive atomic force microscopy. By defining the "quality" of individual atom−atom contact as the carrier tunneling probability along the interatomic electron transport pathways, we establish a relationship between the atomic-scale contact quality and local interfacial atomistic structure. This real-space model unravels the atomic-level spatial modulation of contact conductance, and the twist angle-dependent interlayer conductance between misoriented graphene layers.

A confined synthesis strategy is demonstrated for the fabrication of core–shell magnetic mesoporous carbon microspheres by solvent evaporation induced self-assembly of ethanolic solutions of precursors (containing resol as carbon source, Pluronic F127 as a structure directing agent) in the cavity of presynthesized 3-dimensional ordered macroporous silica materials with each macropore filled with a magnetite particle. The obtained magnetic mesoporous carbon (Fe3O4@FDU-15) microspheres possess uniform diameter of ∼460 nm, ultralarge mesopores of 13.8 nm, high surface area of ∼403 m2/g, and strong magnetization (20.7 emu/g). Sub-4 nm gold nanoparticles are loaded in the porous shell of the magnetic microspheres, resulting in a novel Fe3O4@FDU-15/Au nanocatalyst with an excellent performance in catalyzing the epoxidation of styrene with high conversion (72%) and selectivity (85%) toward styrene oxide in 12 h and a good magnetic field-assisted recyclability.

The single layer MoS2 is attractive for the use in the next-generation low power nanoelectronic devices because of its intrinsic bandgap compared to graphene. In this work, we investigated the transport property of a p-n junction based on two-dimensional MoS2. The n-type and p-type doping are realized through substituting sulfur with chlorine and phosphorus. The device exhibited backward diode-like behavior with large rectifying ratios. We attribute the observed current-voltage characteristics to different heavy doping effect caused by chlorine and phosphorus. Our results may throw light on the electronic modulation of MoS2 and realizations of complemented logics devices based on MoS2.