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Carbon based structures have been widely studied by X-ray absorption (XAS), also called NEXAFS, which is a very useful bulk probing method that allows examining the unoccupied density of states (DOS) and the site selective bonding environment. Two very well known spectral features in the XAS core level spectrum are the σ* and π* bands, and both have been analyzed in several studies for graphitic-like systems. However, among all the carbon materials, the unique one-dimensional electronic properties attributed to single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) exhibit features that reveal clearly their electronic structure in the core level XAS spectrum. In this article, we outline the C1s response in XAS, which is related to the DOS of the conduction band in SWCNTs and its fine structure, revealed by experiments performed on metallicity-sorted SWCNT material. The progress in the identification of changes in the site selective conduction band electronic structure with XAS is discussed in detail.

Starting from the two binary bulk glass formers in the Cu–Zr system, we systematically investigated the compositional dependence of glass formation, thermal, elastic, and mechanical properties in the Cu–Zr–Ag ternary bulk glassy alloys. Both Cu(50−x)Zr50Agx and Cu(64−x)Zr36Agx series show a good combination of high glass-forming ability and high Poisson’s ratio. However, compressive plastic deformation was only observed in Cu(50−x)Zr50Agx series and the possible underlying mechanism is discussed.

A foam synthesis method that takes advantage of the viscous high-temperature liquid state of Fe-based bulk glass-forming alloys to produce amorphous steel foam is introduced. Zirconium hydride is utilized as a foaming agent taking advantage of the low hydrogen solubility of these glass-forming alloys. Amorphous foams with porosities up to 65% were produced having homogenous cellular morphologies that exhibit cell-size uniformity. Even though intracellular solid regions as thin as a few micrometers are detected, on a global scale the cellular structure is determined to be incapable of alleviating the foam from the brittle nature of the monolithic glass.