Low dimensional materials based sensors have improved the detection strategy for sensing complex substances present in environment and human body.

Similar to graphene and black phosphorus (BP), 2D transition metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes) are of great interest in a variety of fields, such as energy storage and conversion, sensors, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, and photothermal therapy due to their excellent conductivity and hydrophilicity, large specific capacitance, high photothermal effect, and superior electrochemical performance. To further broaden applicable ranges beyond their existing boundaries and fully exploit these potentials, functional 2D MXene nanostructures in recent years have been rationally designed and developed by various approaches, such as doping strategies, surface functionalization, and hybridization, for next-generation devices with the merits of low power consumption, intelligence, and high-integration chips. This review provides an overview of the synthetic routes and fundamental properties of functional 2D MXene nanostructures, including surfacemodified 2D MXenes and mixed-dimensional MXene-based heterostructures, highlights the state-of-the-art progress in the applications of functional 2D MXene nanostructures with regard to energy storage and conversion, catalysis, sensors, photodetectors, EMI shielding, degradation, and biomedical applications, and presents the challenges and perspectives in these burgeoning fields. It is hoped that this review will inspire more efforts toward fundamental research on new functional 2D MXene-based devices to satisfy the growing requirements for next-generation systems.

The effective non‐precious metal catalysts toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are highly desirable for electrochemical water splitting. Herein, we prepare a novel glass‐ceramic (Ni1.5Sn@triMPO4) by embedding crystalline Ni1.5Sn nanoparticles into amorphous trimetallic phosphate (triMPO4) matrix. This unique crystalline‐amorphous nanostructure synergistically accelerates the surface reconstruction to active Ni(Fe)OOH, due to the low vacancy formation energy of Sn in glass‐ceramic and high adsorption energy of PO43− at the VO sites. Compared to the control samples, this dual‐phase glass‐ceramic exhibits a remarkably lowered overpotential and boosted OER kinetics after surface reconstruction, rivaling most of state‐of‐the‐art electrocatalysts. The residual PO43− and intrinsic VO sites induce redistribution of electron states, thus optimizing the adsorption of OH* and OOH* intermediates on metal oxyhydroxides and promoting the OER activity.

Bismuth (Bi), as a nontoxic and inexpensive diamagnetic heavy metal, has recently been utilized for the preparation of a variety of nanomaterials, such as nanoparticles, nanowires, nanotubes, nanosheets, etc., with a tunable bandgap, unique structure, excellent physicochemical properties, and compositional features for versatile properties, such as near‐infrared absorbance, high X‐ray attenuation coefficient, excellent photothermal conversion efficiency, and a long circulation half‐life. These features have endowed mono‐elemental Bi nanomaterials with desirable performances for electronics/optoelectronics, energy storage and conversion, catalysis, nonlinear photonics, sensors, biomedical applications, etc. This review summarizes the controlled synthesis of mono‐elemental Bi nanomaterials with different shapes and sizes, highlights the state‐of‐the‐art progress of the desired applications of mono‐elemental Bi nanomaterials, and presents some personal insights on the challenges and future opportunities in this research area. It is hoped that the controllable manipulation techniques of Bi nanomaterials, along with their unique properties, can shed light on the next‐generation devices based on Bi nanostructures and Bi‐related nanomaterials.

Investigations into semiconductor nanomaterials from both an academic and industrial point of view are of great significance. Selenium (Se) nanostructures, as narrow bandgap semiconductors, have a variety of potential applications in the fabrication of many high-performance devices. The past decades have witnessed rapid development in new strategies for synthesizing Se nanostructures with controlled sizes, shapes, and structures, whose diverse structure-dependent nature enables functional Se nanomaterials to have great potentials for modern applications. This review focuses on the synthesis and morphology control of intriguing Se nanostructures, the latest progress in understanding the fundamental properties of Se nanostructures, and the recent advances in high-performance Se nanomaterial-based devices for diverse applications. Finally, the challenges and future opportunities for Se nanostructures and Se-related devices are also discussed.

In this review, the progress in photodetector devices focusing on inorganic and hybrid photo-active materials by low cost wet-chemistry methods, which will bring about the prospect of a new era, has been carefully summarized.

In recent years, two-dimensional (2D) black phosphorus (BP) has been widely applied in many fields, such as (opto)electronics, transistors, catalysis and biomedical applications due to its large surface area, tunable...

Black phosphorus analogues with excellent performance and high chemical stability hold great promise for practical applications.