Structural, elastic, electronic, optical and anisotropy properties of newly quaternary Tl2HgGeSe4 via DFPT predictions associated to XPES and RS experiments.

In the present work, we report on theoretical studies of thermodynamic properties, structural and dynamic stabilities, dependence of unit-cell parameters and elastic constants upon hydrostatic pressure, charge carrier effective masses, electronic and optical properties, contributions of interband transitions in the Brillouin zone of the novel Tl2HgGeSe4 crystal. The theoretical calculations within the framework of the density-functional perturbation theory (DFPT) are carried out employing different approaches to gain the best correspondence to the experimental data. The present theoretical data indicate the dynamical stability of the title crystal and they reveal that, under hydrostatic pressure, it is much more compressible along the a-axis than along the c-axis. Strikingly, the charge effective mass values ( m e ∗ and m h ∗ ) vary considerably when the high symmetry direction changes indicating a relative anisotropy of the charge-carrier's mobility. Furthermore, the Young modulus and compressibility are characterized by the maximum and minimum values ( E max and E min ) and ( ß max and ß min ) that are equal to (62.032 and 28.812) GPa and (13.672 and 6.7175) TPa-1, respectively. Additionally, we have performed calculations of the Raman spectra (RS) and reached a good correspondence with the experimental RS spectra of the Tl2HgGeSe4 crystal. The XPES associated to RS constitutes powerful techniques to explore the oxidized states of Se and Ge in Tl2HgGeSe4 system.

Insight into the photophysics of strong dual emission (blue & green) producing graphene quantum dot clusters and their application towards selective and sensitive detection of trace level Fe3+ and Cr6+ ions.

Graphene-nanostructured systems, such as graphene quantum dots (GQDs), are well known for their interesting light-emitting characteristics and are being applied to a variety of luminescence-based applications. The emission properties of GQDs are complex. Therefore, understanding the science of the photophysics of coupled quantum systems (like quantum clusters) is still challenging. In this regard, we have successfully prepared two different types of GQD clusters, and explored their photophysical properties in detail. By co-relating the structure and photophysics, it was possible to understand the emission behavior of the cluster in detail. This gave new insight into understanding the clustering effect on the emission behaviour. The results clearly indicated that although GQDs are well connected, the local discontinuity in the structure prohibits the dynamics of photoexcited charge carriers going from one domain to another. Therefore, an excitation-sensitive dual emission was possible. Emission yield values of about 18% each were recorded at the blue and green emission wavelengths at a particular excitation energy. This meant that the choice of emission color was decided by the excitation energy. Through systematic analysis, it was found that both intrinsic and extrinsic effects contributed to the blue emission, whereas only the intrinsic effect contributed to the green emission. These excitation-sensitive dual emissive GQD clusters were then used to sense Fe3+ and Cr6+ ions in the nanomolar range. While the Cr6+ ions were able to quench both blue and green emissions, the Fe3+ ions quenched blue emission only. The insensitivity of the Fe3+ ions in the quenching of the green emission was also understood through quantum chemical calculations.

Low-Temperature Reduction of Graphene Oxide: Electrical Conductance and Scanning Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy.

Graphene oxide (GO) films were formed by drop-casting method and were studied by FTIR spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy (mRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), four-points probe method, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning Kelvin probe force (SKPFM) microscopy after low-temperature annealing at ambient conditions. It was shown that in temperature range from 50 to 250 °C the electrical resistivity of the GO films decreases by seven orders of magnitude and is governed by two processes with activation energies of 6.22 and 1.65 eV, respectively. It was shown that the first process is mainly associated with water and OH groups desorption reducing the thickness of the film by 35% and causing the resistivity decrease by five orders of magnitude. The corresponding activation energy is the effective value determined by desorption and electrical connection of GO flakes from different layers. The second process is mainly associated with desorption of oxygen epoxy and alkoxy groups connected with carbon located in the basal plane of GO. AFM and SKPFM methods showed that during the second process, first, the surface of GO plane is destroyed forming nanostructured surface with low work function and then at higher temperature a flat carbon plane is formed that results in an increase of the work function of reduced GO.

Graphene Quantum Dot Solid Sheets: Strong blue-light-emitting & photocurrent-producing band-gap-opened nanostructures.

Graphene has been studied intensively in opto-electronics, and its transport properties are well established. However, efforts to induce intrinsic optical properties are still in progress. Herein, we report the production of micron-sized sheets by interconnecting graphene quantum dots (GQDs), which are termed 'GQD solid sheets', with intrinsic absorption and emission properties. Since a GQD solid sheet is an interconnected QD system, it possesses the optical properties of GQDs. Metal atoms that interconnect the GQDs in the bottom-up hydrothermal growth process, induce the semiconducting behaviour in the GQD solid sheets. X-ray absorption measurements and quantum chemical calculations provide clear evidence for the metal-mediated growth process. The as-grown graphene quantum dot solids undergo a Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) interaction with GQDs to exhibit an unconventional 36% photoluminescence (PL) quantum yield in the blue region at 440 nm. A high-magnitude photocurrent was also induced in graphene quantum dot solid sheets by the energy transfer process.