An innovative approach for efficient synthesis of petal-like molybdenum disulfide nanosheets inside hollow mesoporous carbon spheres (HMCSs), the yolk-shell structured MoS@C, has been developed. HMCSs effectively control and confine in situ growth of MoS nanosheets and significantly improve the conductivity and structural stability of the hybrid material. The yolk-shell structured MoS@C is proven to achieve high reversible capacity (993 mA h g at 1 A g after 200 cycles), superior rate capability (595 mA h g at a current density of 10 A g), and excellent cycle performance (962 mA h g at 1 A g after 1000 cycles and 624 mA h g at 5 A g after 400 cycles) when evaluated as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries. This superior performance is attributed to the yolk-shell structure with conductive mesoporous carbon as the shell and the stack of two-dimensional MoS nanosheets as the yolk.

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Bimetallic gold core−silver shell (Au@Ag) surfaceenhanced Raman scattering (SERS) tags draw broad interest in the fields of biological and environmental analysis. In reported tags, silver coating tended to smooth the surface and merge the original hotspot of Au cores, which was disadvantageous to signal enhancement from the aspect of surface topography. Herein, we developed gold nanorod (AuNR)-bridged Au@Ag SERS tags with uniform three-dimensional (3D) topography for the first time. This unique structure was achieved by selecting waxberry-like Au nanoparticles (NPs) as cores, which were capped by vertically oriented AuNR arrays. Upon selective surface blocking with thiol− ligands, Ag NPs were controlled to anisotropically grow on the tips of the AuNRs, producing high-density homo-(Ag−Ag) and hetero-(Au−Ag) hotspots in a single NP. The 3D hotspots rendered this NP extraordinary SERS enhancement ability (an analytical enhancement factor of 3.4 × 10 6) 30 times higher than the counterpart with a smooth surface, realizing signal detection from a single NP. More importantly, multiplexing signals ("blank" or multiplex "internal standard") can be achieved by simply changing thiol−ligands, as exemplified in the synthesis of NPs with 8 signatures. Furthermore, the multifunctionality has been demonstrated in living cell/in vivo imaging, photothermal therapy, and SERS substrates for ratiometric quantitative analysis, relying on the inherent internal standard signal. The prepared Au@Ag NPs have great potential as standard tools in many SERS-related fields.

HTSHNs WS2/C with ultrathin WS2 nanosheets vertically embedded in HMCSs provide abundant active sites, high conductivity and superior structural stability.

Metal phosphide-carbon nanocomposites with unique hollow structures are highly attractive in energy storage and conversion fields.

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A self-assembly nanoplatform of HSA@Cy-HPT for targeted near-infrared emission fluorescence imaging and effective phototherapy of cancer.