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Amid the burgeoning demand for electrochemical energy storage and neuromorphic computing, fast ion transport behavior has attracted widespread attention at both fundamental and practical levels. Here, based on the nanoconfined channel of graphene oxide laminar membranes (GOLMs), the lithium ionic conductivity typically exceeding 10 2 mS cm -1 is realized, one to three orders of magnitude higher than traditional liquid or solid lithium-ion electrolyte. Specifically, the nanoconfined lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF 6 )-ethylene carbonate (EC)/ dimethyl carbonate (DMC) electrolyte demonstrates the ionic conductivity of 170 mS cm -1 , outperforming the bulk counterpart by ≈16 fold. At the ultralow temperature of -60 °C, the nanoconfined electrolyte also maintains a practically useful conductivity of 11 mS cm -1 . Furthermore, the in situ experimental and theoretical framework enables to attribute the enhanced ionic conductivity to the layer-by-layer cations and anions distribution induced by high surface charge and nanoconfinement effects in GO nanochannels. More importantly, integrating such rapid lithium-ion transport nanochannel into the LiFePO 4 (LFP) cathode significantly improves the high-rate and long-cycle performance of lithium batteries. These results exhibit the convention-breaking ionic conductivity of nanoconfined electrolytes, inspiring the development of ultrafast ion diffusion pathways based on 2D nanoconfined channels for efficient energy storage applications., (© 2025 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Low-dielectric-constant materials such as silicon dioxide serving as interconnect insulators in current integrated circuit face a great challenge due to their relatively high dielectric constant of ≈4, twice that of the recommended value by the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, causing severe parasitic capacitance and associated response delay. Here, novel atomic layers of amorphous carbon nitride (a-CN) are prepared via a topological conversion of MXene-Ti 3 CNT x under bromine vapor. Remarkably, the assembled a-CN film exhibits an ultralow dielectric constant of 1.69 at 100 kHz, much lower than the previously reported dielectric materials such as amorphous carbon (2.2) and fluorinated-doped SiO 2 (3.6), ascribed to the low density of 0.55 g cm -3 and high sp 3 C level of 35.7%. Moreover, the a-CN film has a breakdown strength of 5.6 MV cm -1 , showing great potential in integrated circuit application., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Lithium (Li)-metal batteries (LMBs) with stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) and dendrite-free formation have great potential in next-generation energy storage devices. Here, vertically aligned 3D Cu 2 S nanosheet arrays are fabricated on the surface of commercial Cu foils, which in situ generate ultrathin Cu nanosheet arrays to reduce local current density and Li 2 S layers on the surfaces to work as an excellent artificial SEI. It is found that Li presents a 3D-to-planar deposition model, and Li 2 S layers are reversibly movable between the 3D nanosheet surface and 2D planar surface of Li during long-term cycling. This enables ultrasmooth and dense Li deposition at 1 mA cm -2 , presenting an average thickness of ≈53.0 µm at 10 mAh cm -2 , which is close to the theoretical Li foil thickness and is highly reversible at different cycles. Thus, 1150 stable cycles with high Coulombic efficiency (CE, 99.1%) at ether-based electrolytes and 300 stable cycles with high CE (98.8%) at carbonate electrolytes are realized in half-cell with a capacity of 1 mAh cm -2 at 1 mA cm -2 . When coupled with commercial cathodes (LiFePO 4 or LiNi 0.8 Co 0.1 Mn 0.1 O 2 ), the full cells present substantially enhanced cyclability under high cathode loading, limited (or zero) Li excess, and lean electrolyte conditions, even at -20 °C., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Despite considerable efforts to prevent lithium (Li) dendrite growth, stable cycling of Li metal anodes with various structures remains extremely difficult due to the direct contact of the liquid electrolyte with Li. Rational design of solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) for 3D electrodes is a promising but still challenging strategy for preventing Li dendrite growth and avoiding lithium-electrolyte side reactions in Li-metal batteries. Here, a 3D architecture is constructed with g-C 3 N 4 /graphene/g-C 3 N 4 insulator-metal-insulator sandwiched nanosheets to guide uniform Li plating/stripping in the van der Waals gap between the graphene and the g-C 3 N 4 , and the function of which can be regarded as a 3D artificial SEI. Li deposition on the surface of g-C 3 N 4 is suppressed due to its insulating nature. However, its uniform lithiophilic sites and nanopore channels enable homogeneous lithium plating between the graphene and the g-C 3 N 4 , prohibiting the direct contact of the electrolyte with the Li metal. The use of the g-C 3 N 4 -layer-modified 3D anode enables long-term Li deposition with a high Coulombic efficiency and stable cycling of full cells under high cathode loading, limited Li excess, and lean electrolyte conditions. The concept of a 3D artificial SEI will shed light on developing safe and stable Li-metal anodes., (© 2021 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

Lack of effective strategies to regulate the internal activity of MoS 2 limits its practical application for hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs). Doping of heteroatoms without forming aggregation or an edge enrichment is still challenging, and its effect on the HER needs to be further explored. Herein, a two-step method is developed to obtain multi-metal-doped H-MoS 2 , which includes intercalation of the layered MoO 3 precursor with a following sulfurization. Benefiting from the capability of the intercalation method to uniformly and simultaneously introduce different elements into the van der Waals gap, this method is universal to obtain multi-heteroatoms co-doped MoS 2 without forming clusters, phase separation, and an edge enrichment. It is demonstrated that the doping of adjacent cobalt and palladium monomers on MoS 2 greatly enhances the HER catalytic activity. The overpotential at 10 mA cm -2 and Tafel slope of Co and Pd co-doped MoS 2 is found to be 49.3 mV and 43.2 mV dec -1 , respectively, representing a superior acidic HER catalytic activity. This intercalation-assisted method also provides a new and general strategy to synthesize uniformly doped transition metal dichalcogenides for various applications., (© 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Owing to the intense charge repulsion of multivalent ions and intrinsic slugggish kenetics, vast and fast storage of zinc ions into electrode materials has remained unattainable. Here, an efficient strategy to unlock the electrochemical activity of rocksalt vanadium oxynitride is developed via the substitution of low-valent oxygen for high-valent nitrogen, forming disordered rocksalt with abundant vacancies/defects due to the charge-compensating function. Unexpectedly, the disordered rocksalt not only provides plentiful active sites for zinc ions but is also beneficial for the rapid diffusion of zinc ions, owing to the large presence of vacancies/defects in the matrix. Hence, a very high reversible capacity (603 mAh g -1 , 0.2C) and high rate capability (124 mAh g -1 at 600C) are achieved for zinc storage. This should open a new and efficient avenue for the design of electrode materials with both high energy and power densities for aqueous zinc-ion batteries., (© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Although metallic lithium is an extremely promising anode for lithium-based batteries due to its high theoretical capacity, the uncontrollable growth of lithium dendrites, in particular under deep stripping and plating, have stagnated its application. It is demonstrated that parallelly aligned MXene (Ti 3 C 2 T x ) layers enable the efficient guiding of lithium nucleation and growth on the surface of 2D MXene nanosheets, giving rise to horizontal-growth lithium anodes. Moreover, the inherent fluorine terminations in MXene afford a uniform and durable solid electrolyte interface with lithium fluoride at the anode/electrolyte interface, efficiently regulating electromigration of lithium ions. Thus, a dendrite-free lithium anode with a long cycle life up to 900 h and excellent deep stripping-plating capabilities up to 35 mAh cm -2 is achieved, which can further serve as an anode for a lithium metal battery, exhibiting high cycle stability up to 1000 cycles., (© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The development of stable and efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts is essential for the production of hydrogen as a clean energy resource. A combination of experiment and theory demonstrates that the normally inert basal planes of 2D layers of MoS 2 can be made highly catalytically active for the HER when alloyed with rhenium (Re). The presence of Re at the ≈50% level converts the material to a stable distorted tetragonal (DT) structure that shows enhanced HER activity as compared to most of the MoS 2 -based catalysts reported in the literature. More importantly, this new alloy catalyst shows much better stability over time and cycling than lithiated 1T-MoS 2 . Density functional theory calculations find that the role of Re is only to stabilize the DT structure, while catalysis occurs primarily in local Mo-rich DT configurations, where the HER catalytic activity is very close to that in Pt. The study provides a new strategy to improve the overall HER performance of MoS 2 -based materials via chemical doping., (© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Transition metal dichalcogenides with intrinsic spin-valley degrees of freedom hold great potentials for applications in spintronic and valleytronic devices. MoS 2 monolayer possesses two inequivalent valleys in the Brillouin zone, with each valley coupling selectively with circularly polarized photons. The degree of valley polarization (DVP) is a parameter to characterize the purity of valley-polarized photoluminescence (PL) of MoS 2 monolayer. Usually, the detected values of DVP in MoS 2 monolayer show achiral property under optical excitation of opposite helicities due to reciprocal phonon-assisted intervalley scattering process. Here, it is reported that valley-polarized PL of MoS 2 can be tailored through near-field interaction with plasmonic chiral metasurface. The resonant field of the chiral metasurface couples with valley-polarized excitons, and tailors the measured PL spectra in the far-field, resulting in observation of chiral DVP of MoS 2 -metasurface under opposite helicities excitations. Valley-contrast PL in the chiral heterostructure is also observed when illuminated by linearly polarized light. The manipulation of valley-polarized PL in 2D materials using chiral metasurface represents a viable route toward valley-polaritonic devices., (© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Although rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries have attracted extensive interest due to their environmental friendliness and low cost, they still lack suitable cathodes with high rate capabilities, which are hampered by the intense charge repulsion of bivalent Zn 2+ . Here, a novel intercalation pseudocapacitance behavior and ultrafast kinetics of Zn 2+ into the unique tunnels of VO 2 (B) nanofibers in aqueous electrolyte are demonstrated via in situ X-ray diffraction and various electrochemical measurements. Because VO 2 (B) nanofibers possess unique tunnel transport pathways with big sizes (0.82 and 0.5 nm 2 along the b- and c-axes) and little structural change on Zn 2+ intercalation, the limitation from solid-state diffusion in the vanadium dioxide electrode is eliminated. Thus, VO 2 (B) nanofibers exhibit a high reversible capacity of 357 mAh g -1 , excellent rate capability (171 mAh g -1 at 300 C), and high energy and power densities as applied for zinc-ion storage., (© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

An in situ quantitative tensile testing platform is developed to enable the uniform in-plane loading of a freestanding membrane of 2D materials inside a scanning electron microscope. The in situ tensile testing reveals the brittle fracture of large-area MoSe 2 crystals and measures their fracture strength for the first time., (© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

A new concept for junction fabrication by connecting multiple regions with varying layer thicknesses, based on the thickness dependence, is demonstrated. This type of junction is only possible in super-thin-layered 2D materials, and exhibits similar characteristics as p-n junctions. Rectification and photovoltaic effects are observed in chemically homogeneous MoSe2 junctions between domains of different thicknesses., (© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

The direct synthesis of monolayer and multilayer ReS2 by chemical vapor deposition at a low temperature of 450 °C is reported. Detailed characterization of this material is performed using various spectroscopy and microscopy methods. Furthermore initial field-effect transistor characteristics are evaluated, which highlight the potential in being used as an n-type semiconductor., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

An efficient hydrothermal approach is demonstrated to fabricate a series of graphene-network-backboned hybrid architectures such as MoS₂/graphene and FeOx/graphene, showing high specific surface area, porous structure, and continuous graphene networks. Such unique architectures exhibit a high reversible capacity (about 1100 mA h g⁻¹) for lithium ion batteries. High-rate capabilities of full charge to discharge in 25-45 s with a long cycle life (1500 cycles) are achieved at different rates., (Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets are extracted, produced via simple liquid-phase exfoliation of a layered bulk material, g-C3N4. The resulting nanosheets, having ≈2 nm thickness and N/C atomic ratio of 1.31, show an optical bandgap of 2.65 eV. The carbon nitride nanosheets are demonstrated to exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution under visible light., (Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)