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While it is well established that nanoparticle shape can depend on equilibrium thermodynamics or growth kinetics, recent computational work has suggested the importance of thermal energy in controlling the distribution of shapes in populations of nanoparticles. Here, we used transmission electron microscopy to characterize the shapes of bare platinum nanoparticles and observed a strong dependence of shape distribution on particle size. Specifically, the smallest nanoparticles (

Recent increasing uses of ceria in research and industrial applications have fostered continuing developments of efficient routes to synthesize the material. Here we report our investigation of the effects and the mechanistic roles of lithium acetate to accelerate the growth of crystalline ceria nanoparticles in ozone-mediated synthesis. By increasing the mole ratio of the acetate to cerium nitrate in the reactions, the reaction yields of ceria nanoparticles were observed to increase from ca. 10% to up to over 90% by cerium content in 30 min reactions. Microscopy images and Raman spectra of the as-synthesized nanoparticles revealed that increasing the acetate additions led to a decrease in average particle size and size range but an increase in crystallinity. Through analyzing the organic by-products in the reaction mixtures, the acetate was inferred to base-catalyze the formation of acetals and cerium complexes and accelerate the formation of Ce–O–Ce bonds and hence the growth of ceria nanoparticles through alcohol-like condensation reactions.

Laser processing of metal surfaces by ultrafast pulse lasers is a developing technology with many potential uses including applications in heat transfer, medical implants, and tribology. Laser processed silver surfaces has several potential applications such as biomedical devices, antibacterial surfaces, and chemical sensors. However, there is a lack of previous research on laser processing of silver is more difficult to process compared with other metals. A newly investigated dual-pulse femtosecond laser surface processing technique was capable of producing self-organized, micro/nanoscale surface features on silver where single-pulse techniques had previously failed. Three-dimensional (3D) scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to examine mound-like structures produced by this new method to determine their composition and formation processes. The interior microstructure revealed that the mounds were comprised mostly of resolidified Ag grains with approximately 1% porosity. Hydrodynamically-driven fluid flow was the primary process that forms these surface structures without significant oxidation.

Owing to their low density and high strength-to-weight ratio, Mg alloys are attractive for automotive and aerospace applications. However, the current use of magnesium in the industry is limited due to the low strength and poor formability at ambient temperatures. Two-phase nanostructured materials are a promising solution to improve the mechanical properties of Mg alloys. Depending on processing parameters, either fibrous or lamellar morphologies can be formed via the eutectic transformation. In this work, the mechanical behavior of these two different morphologies were examined by in-situ SEM microcompression tests. The lamellar morphology exhibited a superior combination of strength and plasticity with respect to the fibrous morphology, and both showed superior strength relative to pure Mg, up to five-fold in the former and 12-fold in the latter. However, the higher strength in the fibrous eutectic was obtained at the expense of a low plasticity. According to the HR/TEM analyses of the deformed micropillars, the relatively high plasticity of the lamellar morphology was attributed to the two reasons; on the one hand, high dislocation activity was observed in both α and β phases and resulted in plastic co-deformation of the layers. On the other hand, the α layers played a significant role in restricting the shear instabilities that initiated in the β layers. Such an effect was not observed with the fibrous morphologies, and thus, they failed by cleavage along the closest-packed planes in the β crystal.

Mg-33.3 wt.%Al eutectic alloys were fabricated by melt spinning at wheel speeds from 5 to 50 ms−1. SEM and S/TEM analyses showed the formation of anomalous eutectic structures at all wheel speeds. Four distinctive eutectic microstructures were observed, depending on the wheel speed, each with a unique formation mechanism. At low wheel speeds, solute trapping and high interfacial energy resulted in the remelting of primarily grown regular eutectic microstructures and was responsible for the formation of the anomalous eutectic Type A. A coupled-to-decoupled-growth transition occurred at intermediate wheel speeds giving rise to the anomalous eutectic Type B. The decoupled nucleation and growth of the eutectic phases followed by a coupled dendritic growth lead to the formation of flower-like microstructures at anomalous eutectic Type C. At sufficiently high wheel speed, no sign of regular eutectic was found and a unique cellular microstructure of ϒ phase along with inter- or intragranular α phase grains was formed, anomalous eutectic Type D, as a result of the decoupled nucleation and growth of the eutectic phases. The observed microstructures were examined thoroughly, and the correlated formation mechanisms were discussed on the basis of the SEM images and S/TEM and EDS analysis.