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The impact ofin situelectrooxidation in a Ni₃N electrocatalyst on its hydrogen evolution activity and electrochemical stability was investigated in alkaline media. 

The rate at which graphene is used in different fields of science and engineering has only increased over the past decade and shows no indication of saturating. At the same time, the most common source of high-quality graphene is through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth on copper foils with subsequent wet transfer steps that bring environmental problems and technical challenges due to the compliance of copper foils. To overcome these issues, thin copper films deposited on silicon wafers have been used, but the high temperatures required for graphene growth can cause dewetting of the copper film and consequent challenges in obtaining uniform growth. In this work, we explore sapphire as a substrate for the direct growth of graphene without any metal catalyst at conventional metal CVD temperatures. First, we found that annealing the substrate prior to growth was a crucial step to improve the quality of graphene that can be grown directly on such substrates. The graphene grown on annealed sapphire was uniformly bilayer and had some of the lowest Raman D/G ratios found in the literature. In addition, dry transfer experiments have been performed that have provided a direct measure of the adhesion energy, strength, and range of interactions at the sapphire/graphene interface. The adhesion energy of graphene to sapphire is lower than that of graphene grown on copper, but the strength of the graphene–sapphire interaction is higher. The quality of the several centimeter scale transfer was evaluated using Raman, SEM, and AFM as well as fracture mechanics concepts. Based on the evaluation of the electrical characteristics of the graphene synthesized in this work, this work has implications for several potential electronic applications. 

As a branch of laser powder bed fusion, selective laser sintering (SLS) with femtosecond (fs) lasers and metal nanoparticles (NPs) can achieve high precision and dense submicron features with reduced residual stress, due to the extremely short pulse duration. Successful sintering of metal NPs with fs laser is challenging due to the ablation caused by hot electron effects. In this study, a double-pulse sintering strategy with a pair of time- delayed fs-laser pulses is proposed for controlling the electron temperature while still maintaining a high enough lattice temperature. We demonstrate that when delay time is slightly longer than the electron-phonon coupling time of Cu NPs, the ablation area was drastically reduced and the power window for successful sintering was extended by about two times. Simultaneously, the heat-affected zone can be reduced by 66% (area). This new strategy can be adopted for all the SLS processes with fs laser and unlock the power of SLS with fs lasers for future applications. 

Trace metal cations dissolved in alkaline electrolytes incorporate into nickel hydroxide/oxyhydroxide throughin situcation exchange, creating an interstratified structure near the surface of the material that impacts the electrochemical performance. 

A general method is developed for removal of native nonpolar oleate ligands from colloidal metal oxide nanocrystals of varying morphologies and compositions. Ligand stripping occurs by phase transfer into potassium hydroxide solution, yielding stable aqueous dispersions with little nanocrystal aggregation and without significant changes to the nanomaterials’ physical or chemical properties. This method enables facile fabrication of conductive films of ligand-free nanocrystals.