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Zero-dimensional perovskite-related structures (0D-PRS) are a new frontier of perovskite-based materials. 0D-PRS, commonly synthesized in powder form, manifest distinctive optical properties such as strong photoluminescence (PL), narrow emission line width, and high exciton binding energy. These properties make 0D-PRS compelling for several types of optoelectronic applications, including phosphor screens and electroluminescent devices. However, it would not be possible to rationally design the chemistry and structure of these materials, without revealing the origins of their optical behavior, which is contradictory to the well-studied APbX3 perovskites. In this work, we synthesize single crystals of Cs4PbBr6 0D-PRS, and investigated the origins of their unique optical and electronic properties. The crystals exhibit a PL quantum yield higher than 40%, the highest reported for perovskite-based single crystals. Time-resolved and temperature dependent PL studies, supported by DFT calculations, and structural ...

While theoretical simulations predict contradictory results about how the intercalation of foreign metal atoms affects the order of atomic layers in black phosphorus (BP), no direct experimental visualization work has yet clarified this ambiguity. By in situ electrochemical sodiation of BP inside a high-resolution transmission electron microscope and first-principles calculations, we found that sodium intercalation induces a relative glide of 1/2 ⟨010⟩ {001}, resulting in reordering of atomic stacks from AB to AC in BP. The observed local amorphization in our experiments is triggered by lattice constraints. We predict that intercalation of sodium or other metal atoms introduces n-type carriers in BP. This potentially opens a new field for two-dimensional electronics based on BP.

The determination of the atomic structure of a functional material is crucial to understanding its “structure-to-property” relationship (e.g., the active sites in a catalyst), which is however challenging if the structure possesses complex inhomogeneities. Here, we report an atomic structure study of an important MoVTeO complex metal oxide catalyst that is potentially useful for the industrially relevant propane-based BP/SOHIO process. We combined aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy with synchrotron powder X-ray crystallography to explore the structure at both nanoscopic and macroscopic scales. At the nanoscopic scale, this material exhibits structural and compositional order within nanosized “domains”, while the domains show disordered distribution at the macroscopic scale. We proposed that the intradomain compositional ordering and the interdomain electric dipolar interaction synergistically induce the displacement of Te atoms in the Mo–V–O channels, which determines the geome...

Controlled synthesis of mesoporous materials with ultracomplicated pore configurations is of great importance for both fundamental research of nanostructures and the development of novel applicatio ...