Offering a unique suite of mechanical, physical, and chemical properties, bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) show significant promise as engineering materials. Unfortunately, most BMGs exhibit low tensile ductility at ambient temperature that limits their use as structural (load-bearing) materials. To overcome this problem, BMG composites (BMGCs) containing a second phase are being developed for improving ductility by controlling the mechanics of shear band nucleation and growth in the glassy matrix, which is the primary mode of failure in these materials. This review describes some recent developments in BMGCs and discusses the influence of the type of second phase on mechanical behavior.

Over the past three decades, the combination of inorganic-nanoparticles and organic-polymers has led to a wide variety of advanced materials, including polymer nanocomposites (PNCs). Recently, synthetic innovations for attaching polymers to nanoparticles to create “hairy nanoparticles” (HNPs) has expanded opportunities in this field. In addition to nanoparticle compatibilization for traditional particle–matrix blending, neat-HNPs afford one-component hybrids, both in composition and properties, which avoids issues of mixing that plague traditional PNCs. Continuous improvements in purity, scalability, and theoretical foundations of structure–performance relationships are critical to achieving design control of neat-HNPs necessary for future applications, ranging from optical, energy, and sensor devices to lubricants, green-bodies, and structures.

We study the temperature dependence of thermoelectric transport properties of four FeSb2 nanocomposite samples with different grain sizes. The comparison of the single crystals and nanocomposites of varying grain sizes indicates the presence of substantial phonon drag effects in this system contributing to a large Seebeck coefficient at low temperature. As the grain size decreases, the increased phonon scattering at the grain boundaries leads to a suppression of the phonon-drag effect, resulting in a much smaller peak value of the Seebeck coefficient in the nanostructured bulk materials. As a consequence, the ZT values are not improved significantly even though the thermal conductivity is drastically reduced.

Two new organic dyes, WS-2.1 and WS-2.2—derivatives of the known dye WS-2—are computationally designed using a recently developed approach with a broad absorption peak at around 775 nm in acetonitrile for WS-2.2 versus 610 nm for WS-2. The red shift includes a significant contribution due to vibrations and is not reproduced by standard computational methods. The oxidation and reduction potentials of the dye render it well suited for use in dye-sensitized solar cells.

THz-range dielectric spectroscopy and first-principle-based effective-Hamiltonian molecular dynamics simulations were used to elucidate the dielectric response in the paraelectric phase of (Ba, Sr)TiO3 solid solutions. Our analysis suggests a crossover between two regimes: a higher-temperature regime governed by the soft mode only versus a lower-temperature regime exhibiting a coupled soft mode/central mode dynamics. Interestingly, a single model can be used to adjust the THz dielectric response in the entire range of the paraelectric phase. The central peak cannot be discerned anymore in the dielectric spectra when the rate of underlying thermally activated processes exceeds certain characteristic frequency of the system.

Rare earth Pr-doped cadmium oxide (CdO) powders with various Pr contents (0–2.0 at.%) were synthesized by a coprecipitation process and characterized by x-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and UV-vis spectrophotometry. The experimental results indicate that Pr doping led to a decrease of average particle size and change of optical property. The CdO powder with Pr content 0.5 at.% show a maximum Eg decrease of about 3.6% and an absorbance increase of about 8.26%. This variation is explained by the available band gap narrowing models and variations in lattice parameter and density with Pr content.

We report for the first time the hydrothermal growth of radially aligned ZnO nanorods on electrospun polyamide nanofibers, paving the way to the development of transparent, flexible, portable, solution processable, and low-cost thin-film photovoltaics. Polyamide nanofibers with mean diameters of 100 nm were prepared by electrospinning followed by a two-step hydrothermal growth method for fabricating ZnO nanorods. The loading ratio of ZnO nanorods were found to be 66 wt% by thermogravimetric analysis, significantly higher than the ZnO grown on cotton and nylon fabrics previously. A significant increase of UV absorption was observed. Superhydrophobicity, which is a desirable feature of self-cleaning photovoltaic devices, was achieved using 1-dodecanethiol modification.

We have investigated the feasibility of aerosol spray pyrolysis for the synthesis of copper sulfide nanocrystals, which are promising candidates for the development of low-cost, printable photovoltaic devices. A solution of copper diethyldithiocarbamate in toluene is aerosolized and aerodynamically dragged through a tube furnace, where the droplets are dried and nanocrystals are formed. Particles smaller than 20 nm are produced. The particles are preferentially formed as digenite (Cu1.8S), although we show that with low furnace temperature it is possible to produce chalcocite (Cu2S) nanocrystals.

Many studies have been carried out to thoroughly understand the colorization mechanisms of bird feathers. However, most of the methods used so far are time-consuming (in days) and involve rather complicated steps (5 to 12). Here, we report a rapid way of producing ‘PbS bird feathers’; this method is inspired by a hair-dyeing method used in ancient Egypt 4000 years ago. The complete synthesis route comprises only two steps and can be completed within 2 h, with the original morphologies of bird feathers well preserved. This method has potential to be extended to the fast fabrication of other functional sulfides which are too complicated to fabricate otherwise.

It is important to understand the electrolyte–electrode interactions for fabricating graphene oxide (GO)- and ionic liquid (IL)-based ultracapacitors. Therefore, we explored how the type and size of the cations in various ILs determine the nature of processed materials. In all cases, the ILs intercalate into the graphitic structure but marked differences are observed during exfoliation via thermal reduction. The combination of a long alkyl chain ammonium-based cation and a large-volume anion leads to strong interactions and defect formation, as evidenced by CO2 production during annealing. In contrast, using the same anions but different cations stabilize the GO functional groups below 400 °C.

Four acrylate-based networks were developed such that they possessed similar glass transition temperature (~− 37 °C) but varied in material stiffness at room temperature by an order of magnitude (2–12 MPa). Thermo-mechanical and adhesion testing were performed to investigate the effect of elastic modulus on adhesion profiles of the developed samples. Adhesion experiments with a spherical probe revealed no dependency of the pull-off force on material modulus as predicted by the Johnson, Kendall, and Roberts theory. Results obtained using a flat probe showed that the pull-off force increases linearly with an increase in the material modulus, which matches very well with Kendall's theory.