Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

In this Feature Article, Hongtao Liu, Yunqi Liu and Daoben Zhu present a summary of chemical doping of graphene aimed at tuning the electronic properties.  The authors, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, focus on p-type and n-type doping of graphene and band gap tuning in graphene.

Recently, a lot of effort has been focused on improving the performance and exploring the electric properties of graphene with the aim of designing high performance electronic devices based on chemically doped graphene.

Interested in knowing more? Read for free until 4th January 2011

Chemical doping of graphene
Hongtao Liu, Yunqi Liu and Daoben Zhu
J. Mater. Chem., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM02922J, Feature Article

This highlight article by Petra Cameron and co-workers at the University of Bath and the University of Liverpool describes recent activity in the area of peptide self-assembly, with a particular focus on tri-peptides, dipeptides and protected amino acids.

Low molecular weight gelators (LMWGs) are small molecules that self-assemble under the right conditions to form fibrous nanostructures, which can further associate into higher order structures. Of particular interest are LMW peptide hydrogelators which are biomimetic and form translucent hydrogels when added to water.  The gels typically contain >99% water and have been suggested for applications in regenerative tissue engineering, 3-D cell culturing, bio-templating, drug delivery, enzyme immobilisation and biosensing.

Interested in knowing more?  Read for free until December 23^rd.

Peptide based low molecular weight gelators
Eleanor K. Johnson, Dave J. Adams and Petra J. Cameron
J. Mater. Chem., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM03099F, Highlight

A team from Zhejiang University have fabricated a novel luminescent sheet by deposition of cadmium selenide nanoparticles onto cellulose nanofibres of commercial filter paper.

Semi-conductor nanocrystals, particularly cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots (QDs), have triggered intensive research interest because of their fascinating luminescent properties.  A key step in broadening the practical applications is to stabilize the nanocrystals into matrices to get bulk solid state materials.

Jianguo Huang and co-workers in China fabricated a hierarchical luminescent cellulose sheet via self-assembly of cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanoparticles capped with trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) and 1-hexadecylamine (HDA) onto ultrathin titania film pre-coated cellulose nanofibres of bulk natural cellulose substance (common commercial filter paper).

This approach provides a facile shortcut to fabricate bulk luminescent materials that inherit the mechanical behaviour of cellulose substances and simultaneously possess designed luminescent properties.

Interested in knowing more? Read for free until December 21^st.

Luminescent cellulose sheet fabricated by facile self-assembly of cadmium selenide nanoparticles on cellulose nanofibres
Tao Niu, Yuanqing Gu and Jianguo Huang
J. Mater. Chem., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM02356F, Paper

This Feature article, by Jurriaan Huskens, Aldrik Velders and co-workers gives an overview of the recent literature regarding lateral molecular interactions in monolayers, covering fundamental science to applications, with a focus on systems with additional electron or energy transfer.

The authors, from the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands present the literature in three sections covering self-assembled monolayers on metal surfaces, monolayers on silicon and metal oxide surfaces and finally, lateral interactions on receptor surfaces.

Interested in knowing more?  Read for free until December 20^th.

Lateral interactions at functional monolayers
Shu-Han Hsu, David N. Reinhoudt, Jurriaan Huskens and Aldrik H. Velders
J. Mater. Chem., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0JM02696D, Feature Article