The recent discovery of layered transition metal carbides (MXenes) is one of the most important developments in two-dimensional (2D) materials. Preliminary theoretical and experimental studies suggest a wide range of potential applications for MXenes. The MXenes are prepared by chemically etching ‘A’-layer element from layered ternary metal carbides, nitrides and carbonitrides (MAX phases) through aqueous acid treatment, which results in various surface terminations such as hydroxyl, oxygen or fluorine. It has been found that surface terminations play a critical role in defining MXene properties and affects MXene performance in different applications such as electrochemical energy storage, electromagnetic interference shielding, water purification, sensors and catalysis. Also, the electronic, thermoelectric, structural, plasmonic and optical properties of MXenes largely depend upon surface terminations. Thus, controlling the surface chemistry if MXenes can be an efficient way to improve their properties. This research mainly aims to perform surface modifications of two commonly studied MXenes; Ti2C and Ti3C2, via chemical, thermal or physical processes to enhance electrochemical energy storage properties. The as-prepared and surface modified MXenes have been studied as electrode materials in Li-ion batteries (LIBs) and supercapacitors (SCs). In pursuit of desirable MXene surface, we have developed an in-situ room temperature oxidation process, which resulted in TiO2/MXene nanocomposite and enhanced Li-ion storage. The idea of making metal oxide and MXene nanocomposites was taken to the next level by combining a high capacity anode materials – SnO2 – and MXene. By taking advantage of already existing surface functional groups (–OH), we have developed a composite of SnO2/MXene by atomic layer deposition (ALD) which showed enhanced capacity and excellent cyclic stability. Thermal annealing of MXene at elevated temperature under different atmospheres was carried out and detailed surface chemistry was studied to analyze the change in surface functional groups and its effect on electrochemical performance. Also, we could replace surface functional groups with desirable heteroatoms (e.g., nitrogen) by plasma processing and studied their effect on energy storage properties. This work provides an experimental baseline for surface modification of MXene and helps to understand the role of various surface functional groups in MXene electrode electrochemical performance.

Conditions under which various skyrmion objects emerge in experiments on thin magnetic films remain largely unexplained. We investigate numerically centrosymmetric spin lattices in films of finite thickness with ferromagnetic exchange, magnetic anisotropy, and dipole-dipole interaction. Evolution of labyrinth domains into compact topological structures on application of the magnetic field is found to be governed by the configuration of Bloch lines inside domain walls. Depending on the combination of Bloch lines, the magnetic domains evolve into individual skyrmions, biskyrmions, or more complex topological objects. While the geometry of such objects is sensitive to the parameters, their topological charge is uniquely determined by the topological charge of Bloch lines inside the magnetic domain from which the object emerges.

A novel fused heterocycle-flanked diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) monomer, thieno[2,3-b]pyridine diketopyrrolopyrrole (TPDPP), was designed and synthesized. When copolymerized with 3,4-difluorothiophene using Stille coupling polymerization, the new polymer pTPDPP-TF possesses a highly planar conjugated polymer backbone due to the fused thieno[2,3-b]pyridine flanking unit that effectively alleviates the steric hindrance with both the central DPP core and the 3,4-difluorothiophene repeat unit. This new polymer exhibits a high electron affinity (EA) of −4.1 eV and was successfully utilized as an n-type polymer semiconductor for applications in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and all polymer solar cells. A promising n-type charge carrier mobility of 0.1 cm2 V–1 s–1 was obtained in bottom-contact, top-gate OFETs, and a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.72% with a high open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 1.04 V was achieved for all polymer solar cells using PTB7-Th as the polymer donor.

Molecular doping is a powerful tool with the potential to resolve many of the issues currently preventing organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) commercialization. However, the addition of dopant molecules into organic semiconductors often disrupts the host lattice, introducing defects and harming electrical transport. New dopant-based systems that overcome practical utilization issues, while still reaping the electrical performance benefits, would therefore be extremely valuable. Here, the impact of p-doping on the charge transport in blends consisting of the small-molecule 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene (C8-BTBT), the polymer indacenodithiophene-benzothiadiazole (C16IDT-BT), and the molecular dopant C60F48 is investigated. Electrical field-effect measurements indicate that p-doping not only enhances the average saturation mobility from 1.4 to 7.8 cm2 V−1 s−1 over 50 devices (maximum values from around 4 to 13 cm2 V−1 s−1), but also improves bias–stress stability, contact resistance, threshold voltage, and the overall device-to-device performance variation. Importantly, materials characterization using X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy, and ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy, combined with charge transport modeling, reveal that effective doping is achieved without perturbing the microstructure of the polycrystalline semiconductor film. This work highlights the remarkable potential of ternary organic blends as a simple platform for OTFTs to achieve all the benefits of doping, with none of the drawbacks.

A simple one-pot solvothermal method is reported to synthesize VS2 nanosheets featuring rich defects and an expanded (001) interlayer spacing as large as 1.00 nm, which is a ≈74% expansion as relative to that (0.575 nm) of the pristine counterpart. The interlayer-expanded VS2 nanosheets show extraordinary kinetic metrics for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), exhibiting a low overpotential of 43 mV at a geometric current density of 10 mA cm-2 , a small Tafel slope of 36 mV dec-1 , and long-term stability of 60 h without any current fading. The performance is much better than that of the pristine VS2 with a normal interlayer spacing, and even comparable to that of the commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst. The outstanding electrocatalytic activity is attributed to the expanded interlayer distance and the generated rich defects. Increased numbers of exposed active sites and modified electronic structures are achieved, resulting in an optimal free energy of hydrogen adsorption (∆GH ) from density functional theory calculations. This work opens up a new door for developing transition-metal dichalcogenide nanosheets as high active HER electrocatalysts by interlayer and defect engineering.

The anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) near the Verwey temperature (T-V) is investigated in charge ordered Fe3O4 epitaxial films. When the temperature continuously decreases below T-V, the symmetry of AMR in Fe3O4(100) film evolves from twofold to fourfold at a magnetic field of 50 kOe, where the magnetic field is parallel to the film surface, whereas AMR in Fe3O4(111) film maintains twofold symmetry. By analyzing AMR below T-V, it is found that the Verwey transition contains two steps, including a fast charge ordering process and a continuous formation process of trimeron, which is comfirmed by the temperature-dependent Raman spectra. Just below T-V, the twofold AMR in Fe3O4(100) film originates from uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. The fourfold AMR at a lower temperature can be ascribed to the in-plane trimerons. By comparing the AMR in the films with two orientations, it is found that the trimeron shows a smaller resistivity in a parallel magnetic field. The field-dependent AMR results show that the trimeron-sensitive field has a minimum threshold of about 2 kOe.

We have characterized the local electronic structure of a porphyrin-containing single-layer covalent organic framework (COF) exhibiting a square lattice. The COF monolayer was obtained by the deposition of 2,5-dimethoxybenzene-1,4-dicarboxaldehyde (DMA) and 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-aminophenyl) porphyrin (TAPP) onto a Au(111) surface in ultrahigh vacuum followed by annealing to facilitate Schiff-base condensations between monomers. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) experiments conducted on isolated TAPP precursor molecules and the covalently linked COF networks yield similar transport (HOMO-LUMO) gaps of 1.85 ± 0.05 eV and 1.98 ± 0.04 eV, respectively. The COF orbital energy alignment, however, undergoes a significant downward shift compared to isolated TAPP molecules due to the electron-withdrawing nature of the imine bond formed during COF synthesis. Direct imaging of the COF local density of states (LDOS) via dI/dV mapping reveals that the COF HOMO and LUMO states are localized mainly on the porphyrin cores and that the HOMO displays reduced symmetry. DFT calculations reproduce the imine-induced negative shift in orbital energies and reveal that the origin of the reduced COF wave function symmetry is a saddle-like structure adopted by the porphyrin macrocycle due to its interactions with the Au(111) substrate.

The effect of interfacial scattering on anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) and anomalous Hall effect (AHE) was studied in the (Ta12n/Fe36n)n multilayers, where the numbers give the thickness in nanometer and n is an integer from 1 to 12. The multilayer structure has been confirmed by the XRR spectra and STEM images of cross-sections. The magneto-transport properties were measured by four-point probe method in Hall bar shaped samples in the temperature range of 5 - 300 K. The AMR increases with n, which could be ascribed to the interfacial spin-orbit scattering. At 5 K, the longitudinal resistivity (ρ) increases by 6.4 times and the anomalous Hall resistivity (ρ) increases by 49.4 times from n =1 to n =12, indicative of the interfacial scattering effect. The skew-scattering, side-jump and intrinsic contributions to the AHE were separated successfully. As n increases from 1 to 12, the intrinsic contribution decreases because of the decaying crystallinity or finite size effect and the intrinsic contribution dominated the AHE for all samples. The side jump changes from negative to positive because the interfacial scattering and intralayer scattering in Fe layers both contribute to side jump in the AHE but with opposite sign.

This chapter focuses on the theory of current-driven Rashba torque, a special type of spin-orbit mediated spin torque that requires broken spatial-inversion symmetry. This specific form of spin-orbit interaction enables the electrical generation of a non-equilibrium spin density that yields both damping-like and field-like torques on the local magnetic moments. We review the recent results obtained in (ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic) two-dimensional electron gases, bulk magnetic semiconductors, and at the surface of topological insulators. We conclude by summarizing recent experimental results that support the emergence of Rashba torques in magnets lacking inversion symmetry.

Gallium nitride (GaN), a wide-bandgap III-V semiconductor material with a bandgap wavelength λ = 366 nm (for Wurtzite GaN) and transparency window covering the visible spectrum, has a large number of applications for photonics and optoelectronics. However, the optical quality of this material suffers from growth imperfections due to the lack of a suitable substrate. Recent studies have shown that GaN grown on (-201) β - GaO (gallium oxide) has better lattice matching and hence superior optical quality as compared to GaN grown traditionally on AlO (sapphire). In this work, we report on the fabrication of GaN waveguides on GaO substrate, followed by a wet-etch process aimed at the reduction of waveguide surface roughness and improvement of side-wall verticality in these waveguides. The propagation loss in the resulting waveguides has been experimentally determined to be 7.5 dB/cm.