Electron-electron interactions play a critical role in many condensed matter phenomena, and it is tempting to find a way to control them by changing the interactions' strength. One possible approach is to place a studied system in proximity of a metal, which induces additional screening and hence suppresses electron interactions. Here, using devices with atomically-thin gate dielectrics and atomically-flat metallic gates, we measure the electronelectron scattering length in graphene and report qualitative deviations from the standard behavior. The changes induced by screening become important only at gate dielectric thicknesses of a few nm, much smaller than a typical separation between electrons. Our theoretical analysis agrees well with the scattering rates extracted from measurements of electron viscosity in monolayer graphene and of umklapp electron-electron scattering in graphene superlattices. The results provide a guidance for future attempts to achieve proximity screening of many-body phenomena in two-dimensional systems.

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The realization of artificial photosynthesis in the photocatalytic CO 2 transformation into valuable chemicals or solar fuels, such as CO, CH 4 , HCOOH, and CH 3 OH, by solar-light harvesting is a promising solution to both global-warming and energy-supply issues. Recently, zinc oxide (ZnO) has emerged as an excellent oxidative photocatalyst among non-titanium metal oxides due to its availability, outstanding semiconducting and optical properties, non-toxicity, affordability, and ease of synthesis. However, ZnO wide bandgap and inability to absorb in the visible region has demanded particular modification for its practical use as a sustainable photocatalyst. This review provides a panorama of the latest advancement on ZnO photocatalysis for CO 2 reduction with an overview of fundamental aspects. Various modification strategies such as transition metal and non-metal doping, loading of plasmonic metals, and surface vacancy engineering for tunning the properties and improving the performance of ZnO are elaborated. Composites or hetero-structuralization-based Z-scheme formation is also presented along with a detailed photocatalytic reduction mechanism. Moreover, a new novel Step-scheme (Sscheme) heterostructure modification with a charge transfer pathway mechanism is also highlighted. Finally, the key challenges and new directions in this field are proposed to provide a new vision for further improvement for ZnO-based photocatalytic CO 2 conversion.

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