Enthused by the fascinating properties of graphene, we have prepared graphene analogues of BN by a chemical method with a control on the number of layers. The method involves the reaction of boric acid with urea, wherein the relative proportions of the two have been varied over a wide range. Synthesis with a high proportion of urea yields a product with a majority of 1-4 layers. The surface area of BN increases progressively with the decreasing number of layers, and the high surface area BN exhibits high CO(2) adsorption, but negligible H(2) adsorption. Few-layer BN has been solubilized by interaction with Lewis bases. We have used first-principles simulations to determine structure, phonon dispersion, and elastic properties of BN with planar honeycomb lattice-based n-layer forms. We find that the mechanical stability of BN with respect to out-of-plane deformation is quite different from that of graphene, as evident in the dispersion of their flexural modes. BN is softer than graphene and exhibits signatures of long-range ionic interactions in its optical phonons. Finally, structures with different stacking sequences of BN have comparable energies, suggesting relative abundance of slip faults, stacking faults, and structural inhomogeneities in multilayer BN.

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High thermoelectric figure of merit, zT, of ~1.85 at 725 K along with significant cyclable temperature stability was achieved in Pb-free p-type Ge 1-x Sb x Te samples through simultaneous enhancement in Seebeck coefficient and reduction of thermal conductivity. Sb doping in GeTe decreases the carrier concentration due to the donor dopant nature of Sb and enhances the valence band degeneracy by increasing the cubic nature of the sample, which collectively boost Seebeck coefficient in the temperature range of 300-773 K.Significant thermal conductivity reduction was achieved due to collective phonon scattering from various meso-structured domain variants, twin and inversion boundaries, nanostructured defect layers, and solid solution point defects. The high performance Ge 0.9 Sb 0.1 Te sample shows mechanical stability (Vickers microhardness) of ~206 H v , which is significantly higher compared to other popular thermoelectric materials such as Bi 2 Te 3 , PbTe, PbSe, Cu 2 Se and TAGS.

Two sorts of MoS2 : A single-layer, metallic form of MoS2 (1T-MoS2 ) and a nanocomposite of a second form of MoS2 (few-layer 2H-MoS2 ) with heavily nitrogenated reduced graphene oxide (NRGO; N content ca. 15 %) show outstanding performance in the production of H2 under visible-light illumination.

Anorganische Schichten: Graphenartiges MoS2 und WS2 wurde durch drei verschiedene chemische Methoden hergestellt. Mikroskopische Untersuchungen offenbarten, dass die Strukturen aus einer oder wenigen Schichten aufgebaut sind (siehe TEM‐Aufnahme von WS2‐Schichten), und ein atomar aufgelöstes TEM‐Bild zeigt, dass schichtförmiges MoS2 eine hexagonale Anordnung von Mo‐ und S‐Atomen aufweist (siehe Einschub).