Ultra-small NiO nanocrystals (2 nm mean diameter) with strong quantum confinement and superior material characteristics (Nanoscale Advances 1, 2019, 4915).

Advancing the knowledge of energy band levels is of paramount importance for exploiting novel properties of materials for many different applications (J Phys Chem Lett 11, 2020 1721).

Current progress in microplasma nanomaterials synthesis, spanning from high-throughput, printing technology-compatible synthesis of nanocrystalline particles of common materials types, to water purification and optoelectronic devices (Advanced Materials, 2019, 1905508)).

Current progress in nanoscale perovskites, such as low-dimensional perovskites,
perovskite quantum dots, and perovskite-nanocrystal hybrid solar cells are reviewed (Nanomaterials 9, 2019, 1481).

Microplasma-induced non-equlibrium electrochemistry is employed to prepare soluble and crystalline Mo species in a water-deficient and extraneous ionic-salt-free ethanol electrolyte. The anodization of Mo in absolute ethanol is found to produce Mo oxyethoxide in the liquid ethanol phase, along with a small montage of mixed hexagonal and orthorhombic MoO3 crystals. The evolution of Mo species in solid and liquid phases is characterized to study the crystallization of MoO3 crystal and the formation of blue spherical Mo polyoxometalates (POMs) after extended aging (Crystal Growth & Design 19, 2019, 5249).

Ti-containing species are grown-on-tip ZnO nanopyramids for surface functionalization. This yields a remarkable enhancement of photoactivated superhydrophilic behavior, self-cleaning ability, and photocatalytic performances in comparison to bare ZnO. The reasons accounting for such an improvement are unravelled by a multitechnique analysis, elucidating the interplay between material chemico-physical properties and the corresponding functional behavior (ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 11, 2019, 15881).

Nanocrystals sometimes adopt unusual crystal structure configurations in order to maintain structural stability with increasingly large surface-to-volume ratios. The understanding of these transformations is of great scientific interest and represents an opportunity to achieve beneficial materials properties resulting from different crystal arrangements. Here, the phase transformation from α to β phases of tin (Sn) nanocrystals is investigated in nanocrystals (Nature Communications 10, 2019, 817).

Supported MnO2-based nanomaterials were fabricated on fluorine-doped tin oxide substrates using plasma enhanced-chemical vapor deposition. A detailed and in-depth analysis was carried out to understand the intriguing band energy structure of this interesting material.(Nanoscale 11, 2019, 98).

Plasma at the gas/liquid interface can promote a complex mixture of reactions in solution and microplasma-assisted direct-current anodic oxidation is an efficient and green process in synthesising nanoscale materials for various applications. In this study, we demonstrated the direct synthesis of crystalline Co3O4 quantum dots, ca. 2–5 nm in diameter, by the direct anodization of Co foil with charge balanced by the microplasma at the flowing-helium/pure-ethanol interface under ambient conditions.(Green Chemistry 20, 2018, 2101).

Devices with Type-I alignment represent a novel photovoltaic architecture. A type-I alignment leads to the possibility of enhanced carrier extraction and in general synergies between the respective materials qualities (e.g. carrier multiplication for Si NCs and exceptional transport for perovskites). The atypical band alignment forming a type-I heterojunction has not been predominantly utilized and is believed to represent a novel approach to the wider family of QD solar cell device architectures.(Nano Energy 50, 2018, 245–255).