Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
We have developed a simple, effective, one-step, catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition method for the synthesis of high-quality LaB6 nanostructure nanowire arrays. Field-emission (FE) measurements at room temperature (RT) show that LaB6 nanowire arrays possess the best FE characteristics among all one-dimensional LaB6 nanostructures, exhibiting with a low turn-on electric field, a low threshold electric field, a high current and a good stability. Temperature-dependent FE on the nanowire arrays shows that the turn-on and threshold electric fields decreased rapidly whereas the emission current density increases significantly in the ambient temperature from RT to 723 K.
The influence of hydrophilic additives on the underlying factors and mechanisms that govern the release of the hydrophobic drug PCTX from a blended system was investigated. The incorporation of hydrophilic PEG additives resulted in a phase-separated system with randomly distributed PCTX–PEG-rich domains in the continuous PLGA matrix. Owing to their preferential association in these domains, the enhanced release of PCTX can be controlled and modulated by varying the concentration and MW of PEG additives. The extensive porosity due to the dissolution of PCTX–PEG domains created a significant reduction in the tensile strength of these films as evaluated under constant aqueous conditions.
In this article, we propose several kinds of simple nano-structures constructed by BP and SiC nanoribbons, which show peculiar electronic properties and might have promising applications in nano-electronics. SiC-BP-SiC nanoribbons are found to exhibit not only significant field-effect characteristics but also tunable negative differential resistance. ‘Y’- and ‘Δ’-shaped SiC-BP structures show significant spin polarization at their edges. Under the transverse electric field, the non-magnetic direct bandgap zigzag BP nanoribbons can change to non-magnetic indirect bandgap semiconductors, ferrimagnetic semiconductors or half-metals depending on the field strength and direction. These findings reveal the possibility of using SiC-BP nano-structures to construct multi-functional electronics.
Over the last decade, metal oxides have proven to be important materials for organic electronics. Oxides are often used as charge-injection and charge-selective interlayers to engineer the electrical resistance at electrode/organic interfaces in organic devices. An oxide’s behavior as an interlayer depends strongly on the oxide’s electronic properties—such as its band structure and work function. The numerous degrees of freedom in an oxide’s electronic properties allow these characteristics to be easily modified. The present review outlines the use of metal oxides in organic electronics, and discusses the factors that affect the oxide’s properties that are relevant to oxide/organic interfaces.
