Hybrid nanomaterials and their structure-property-performance relations for catalysis, green energy and nanoelectronics applications

在过去的五年里，我们在(A)生物/有机分子在硅单晶表面的界面化学，以及(B)过渡金属(及其氧化物)和透明导电氧化物在硅和其他(模板)衬底上的纳米结构方面取得了许多重要的研究成果。由于材料和结构缺陷已成为整个材料中往往不可避免但又极其重要的一部分，我们将在未来五年内将重点放在这些杂化纳米材料中的缺陷驱动现象上。虽然缺陷的存在通常被认为对某些材料的性能有害，但对这些缺陷的控制也可以对一些重要的材料性能非常有利，特别是当材料尺寸接近纳米级时。我们最近在富缺陷的二氧化钛中发现了非凡的光催化能力，这就证明了这一点

In the past five years, we have achieved a number of important studies on the interfacial chemistry of (a) bio/organic molecules on Si single-crystal surfaces, and (b) nanostructures of transition metals (and their oxides) and transparent conductive oxides on Si and other (templated) substrates. As material and structural imperfections have become an often unavoidable yet extremely important part of the entire material, we will focus, in the next five years, on defects-driven phenomena in these hybrid nanomaterials. While the presence of defects is often viewed as detrimental to some material properties, control of these defects can also be highly beneficial to a number of important material properties, especially when the material size approaches the nanoscale. This has been demonstrated by our recent discovery of extraordinary photocatalytic power in defect-rich TiO