Diamond is a promising material for wear-resistant medical coatings. Here we report a remarkable increase in the melting point of ice resting on a diamond (111) surface modified with a submonolayer of Na+. Our molecular dynamics simulations show that the interfacial ice bilayer melts at a temperature 130 K higher than in free ice, and relatively thick ice films (2.6 nm at 298 K and 2.2 nm at 31...

This overview aims to summarize the existing potential of "Ionogels" as a platform to develop stimuli responsive materials. Ionogels are a class of materials that contain an Ionic Liquid (IL) confined within a polymer matrix. Recently defined as "a solid interconnected network spreading throughout a liquid phase", the ionogel therefore combines the properties of both its solid and liquid compon...

Although it has long been recognized that dynamics in supercooled liquids might be spatially heterogeneous, only in the past few years has clear evidence emerged to support this view. As a liquid is cooled far below its melting point, dynamics in some regions of the sample can be orders of magnitude faster than dynamics in other regions only a few nanometers away. In this review, the experiment...

The effects of Ru and Ag cap layers on the microstructure and magnetic properties of the FePt ultrathin films have been investigated. The results indicate that i) The Ag cap layer segregates from the FePt/Ag bilayer, lowers the FePt ordering temperature, promotes the FePt thin films to form island structure, and enhances the coercivity; ii) The Ru cap layer increases the FePt ordering temperatu...

Enjoying great safety, high power, and high energy densities, all-solid-state batteries play a key role in the next generation energy storage devices. However, their development is limited by the lack of solid electrolyte materials that can reach the practically useful conductivities of 10-2 S/cm at room temperature (RT). Here, by exploring a set of lithium-rich antiperovskites composed of clus...

A dose-limiting component of a proton accelerator-based source of epithermal neutrons is the neutron production target. Possible targets are lithium, producing high yield but having low melting point and thermal conductivity, and beryllium, presenting less engineering problems but a much smaller neutron yield. We propose that a hybrid Be-Li target would provide the best of both worlds, with the...

This paper presents the synthesis of some new theophylline derivatives with potential bronchodilatatory properties. The compounds were synthesized starting from theophylline and 8-R-theophyllines (R=Br, NO2, pyrrolidinyl, piperidinyl, morpholinyl, imidazolyl) that were reacted with 4-(2,3-epoxy-propyloxy)-acetanilide. The new compounds, which have not been mentioned in the literature concerning...

In a search for new leads towards potent antimicrobial agents, an array of novel (2E)-ethyl-2-(2-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)hydrazono)-4-(naphthalen-2-yl)-6-arylcyclohex-3-ene carboxylates 17-24 were synthesized and characterized through their melting point, elemental analysis, MS, FT-IR, one-dimensional NMR ((1)H, D2O exchanged (1)H and (13)C), two dimensional HOMOCOR and HSQC spectroscopic data. In-v...

We show that the solid-solid friction between bulk chiral molecular solids can depend on the relative chirality of the two materials. In menthol and 1-phenyl-1-butanol, heterochiral friction is smaller than homochiral friction, while in ibuprofen, heterochiral friction is larger. Chiral asymmetries in the coefficient of sliding friction vary with temperature and can be as large as 30%. In the t...

We describe a strategy to construct three-dimensional (3D) containers with nanoporous walls by the self-assembly of lithographically patterned two-dimensional cruciforms with solder hinges. The first step involves fabricating two-dimensional (2D) cruciforms composed of six unlinked patterns: each pattern has an open window. The second step entails photolithographic patterning of solder hinges t...