Usual heat transfer fluids with suspended ultra fine particles of nanometer size are named as nanofluids, which have opened a new dimension in heat transfer processes. The recent investigations confirm the potential of nanofluids in enhancing heat transfer required for present age technology. The present investigation goes detailed into investigating the increase of thermal conductivity with temperature for nano fluids with water as base fluid and particles of Al2O3 or CuO as suspension material. A temperature oscillation technique is utilized for the measurement of thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity is calculated from it. The results indicate an increase of enhancement characteristics with temperature, which makes the nanofluids even more attractive for applications with high energy density than usual room temperature measurements reported earlier.

*contributed equally to the work Micromechanically exfoliated mono-and multilayers of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) are investigated by spectroscopic imaging ellipsometry. In combination with knife edge illumination, MoS2 flakes can be detected and classified on arbitrary flat and also transparent substrates with a lateral resolution down to 1 to 2 µm. The complex dielectric functions from mono-and trilayer MoS2 are presented. They are extracted from a multilayer model to fit the measured ellipsometric angles employing an anisotropic and an isotropic fit approach. We find that the energies of the critical points of the optical constants can be treated to be independent of the utilized model, whereas the magnitude of the optical constants varies with the used model. The anisotropic model suggests a maximum absorbance for a MoS2 sheet supported by sapphire of about 14 % for monolayer and of 10 % for trilayer MoS2. Furthermore, the lateral homogeneity of the complex dielectric function for monolayer MoS2 is investigated with a spatial resolution of 2 µm. Only minor fluctuations are observed. No evidence for strain, for a significant amount of disorder or lattice defects can be found in the wrinkle-free regions of the MoS2 monolayer from complementary µ-Raman spectroscopy measurements. We assume that the minor lateral variation in the optical constants are caused by lateral modification in the van der Waals interaction presumably caused by the preparation using micromechanical exfoliation and viscoelastic stamping.

Imaging ellipsometry studies of graphene on SiO 2 / Si and crystalline GaAs are presented. We demonstrate that imaging ellipsometry is a powerful tool to detect and characterize graphene on any flat substrate. Variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry is used to explore the dispersion of the optical constants of graphene in the visible range with high lateral resolution. In this way, the influence of the substrate on graphene's optical properties can be investigated.

Sodium, in contrast to other metals, cannot intercalate in graphite, hindering the use of this cheap, abundant element in rechargeable batteries. Here, we report a nanometric graphite-like anode for Na+ storage, formed by stacked graphene sheets functionalized only on one side, termed Janus graphene. The asymmetric functionalization allows reversible intercalation of Na+, as monitored by operando Raman spectroelectrochemistry and visualized by imaging ellipsometry. Our Janus graphene has uniform pore size, controllable functionalization density, and few edges; it can store Na+ differently from graphite and stacked graphene. Density functional theory calculations demonstrate that Na+ preferably rests close to -NH2 group forming synergic ionic bonds to graphene, making the interaction process energetically favorable. The estimated sodium storage up to C6.9Na is comparable to graphite for standard lithium ion batteries. Given such encouraging Na+ reversible intercalation behavior, our approach provides a way to design carbon-based materials for sodium ion batteries.