We have demonstrated a method to disperse and exfoliate graphite to give graphene suspended in water-surfactant solutions. Optical characterisation of these suspensions allowed the partial optimisation of the dispersion process. Transmission electron microscopy showed the dispersed phase to consist of small graphitic flakes. More than 40% of these flakes had <5 layers with ~3% of flakes consisting of monolayers. These flakes are stabilised against reaggregation by Coulomb repulsion due to the adsorbed surfactant. However, the larger flakes tend to sediment out over ~6 weeks, leaving only small flakes dispersed. It is possible to form thin films by vacuum filtration of these dispersions. Raman and IR spectroscopic analysis of these films suggests the flakes to be largely free of defects and oxides. The deposited films are reasonably conductive and are semi-transparent. Further improvements may result in the development of cheap transparent conductors.

Controlled growth of nanowires is an important, emerging research field with many applications in, for example, electronics, photonics, and life sciences. Nanowires of zinc blende crystal structure, grown in the <111>B direction, which is the favoured direction of growth, usually have a large number of twin-plane defects. Such defects limit the performance of optoelectronic nanowire-based devices. To investigate this defect formation, we examine GaP nanowires grown by metal-organic vapour-phase epitaxy. We show that the nanowire segments between the twin planes are of octahedral shape and are terminated by {111} facets, resulting in a microfaceting of the nanowires. We discuss these findings in a nucleation context, where we present an idea on how the twin planes form. This investigation contributes to the understanding of defect formation in nanowires. One future prospect of such knowledge is to determine strategies on how to control the crystallinity of nanowires.

Silicate glasses are durable solids, and yet they are chemically unstable in contact with aqueous fluids-this has important implications for numerous industrial applications related to the corrosion resistance of glasses, or the biogeochemical weathering of volcanic glasses in seawater. The aqueous dissolution of synthetic and natural glasses results in the formation of a hydrated, cation-depleted near-surface alteration zone and, depending on alteration conditions, secondary crystalline phases on the surface. The long-standing accepted model of glass corrosion is based on diffusion-coupled hydration and selective cation release, producing a surface-altered zone. However, using a combination of advanced atomic-resolution analytical techniques, our data for the first time reveal that the structural and chemical interface between the pristine glass and altered zone is always extremely sharp, with gradients in the nanometre to sub-nanometre range. These findings support a new corrosion mechanism, interfacial dissolution-reprecipitation. Moreover, they also highlight the importance of using analytical methods with very high spatial and mass resolution for deciphering the nanometre-scale processes controlling corrosion. Our findings provide evidence that interfacial dissolution-reprecipitation may be a universal reaction mechanism that controls both silicate glass corrosion and mineral weathering.

III-V nanowires have been fabricated by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy without using Au or other metal particles as a catalyst. Instead, prior to growth, a thin SiOx layer is deposited on the substrates. Wires form on various III-V substrates as well as on Si. They are nontapered in thickness and exhibit a hexagonal cross-section. From high-resolution X-ray diffraction, the epitaxial relation between wires and substrates is demonstrated and their crystal structure is determined.

We present results that provide fundamental insights on how to experimentally tailor the planar defect density and even the crystal structure in III−V metal particle seeded nanowires, where zinc blende is the stable bulk crystal structure. We have grown GaP nanowires with metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy under different conditions: pulsing of the Ga source, and continuous growth with and without In background. The dominant crystal structure of the nanowires is zinc blende, which when grown under continuous conditions has a high density of twin planes perpendicular to the growth direction. Using pulsed growth, we observed that the twin plane separations were much longer than those observed for continuous growth with an In background. On the other hand, during continuous growth, under In-free conditions, a considerable amount of the wurtzite phase forms. We explain the importance of the In background during growth. With classical nucleation modeling we qualitatively relate the density of planar defects in a nanowire to the growth conditions. For low supersaturations, we predict a low twin plane density, consistent with our experimental observations of pulsed nanowire growth. In addition, we suggest that under certain conditions, it might be possible to grow wires with almost perfect wurtzite structure.