About Us

cfaed Chair for Molecular Functional Materials - Group Photo
Chair Group Photo, Juli 2022 (click to enlarge)

Welcome to the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials. This is a professorship in the context of the cluster of excellence cfaed – “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden”.

It is headed by Prof. Xinliang Feng.

Chair News

3rd Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures "Novel Chiral Nanocarbons"

December 3, 2024

Joint TUD-MPI Halle Workshop

Electronic and Quantum Properties of Organic Two-Dimensional Crystals

November 8, 2024

Summary: In a paper published in Nature Reviews Materials, scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and TUD share insights on exploring organic 2D crystals for electronic and quantum communities, aiming to bridge ideas from chemistry, materials science, and physics to inspire innovative concepts for future research.

Organic 2D crystals (O2DCs) are an emerging class of synthetic layered materials, composed of π-conjugated building blocks, that display extended π-conjugation in the 2D plane and/or interlayer electronic couplings. The π-conjugated building blocks are connected in-plane by strong linkages, typically covalent or coordination bonds, and layers are held together by non-covalent interactions. The out-of-plane couplings between layers, driven by ππ stacking interactions, influence the stability and electronic properties of the materials, a phenomenon termed the ‘proximity effect’. Like inorganic 2D crystals, O2DCs can be synthesized by exfoliation or directly on surfaces or at interfaces, yielding monolayer or few-layer nanosheets. Their modular nature and layer-dependent properties allow their structures and properties to be customized extensively at the molecular level. Advances in engineering the structural topology, building blocks and linkage chemistry of O2DCs, as well as in understanding their structure-property relationships, have aided the discovery of new materials that behave as insulators, semiconductors, semimetals or metals, with direct and indirect ranging from ultraviolet via the visible range and infrared into the radio frequencies region. In addition, theoretical and experimental studies have demonstrated the presence of unique quantum states in O2DCs. These characteristics position O2DCs as a a versatile toolkit for exploring fascinating electronic and quantum phenomena that are crucial for potential applications in electronics, optoelectronics, spintronics, quantum computing and quantum sensing.

A recent review by researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and TUD, published in Nature Reviews Materials, delves into the advances, challenges, and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field. In particular, the authors discussed the structure-property relationships and synthetic strategies of O2DCs, with particular emphasis on their unique electronic structures, charge transport properties and the emergence of quantum states, such as topological and superconducting phases, alongside different spin states. Furthermore, emerging device applications of O2DCs across electronics, optoelectronics and spintronics are highlighted, followed by a critical overview of future research and the persistent challenges in synthetic chemistry, physics and materials science that must be addressed to further advance this field. This work provides a foundational roadmap for developing O2DCs and their integration into advanced electronic, optoelectronic, and quantum technologies.

Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, no. 819698) and DFG projects (2D polyanilines, no. 426572620; GRK2861, no. 491865171; and CRC 1415, Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials, no. 417590517). The authors thank P. L. Koko and R. Zhao for providing the energy levels in Fig. 1b,f.

Reference: Zhiyong Wang, Mingchao Wang, Thomas Heine, and Xinliang Feng. Electronic and quantum properties of organic two-dimensional crystals. Nat. Rev. Mater. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00740-8

Research project 2DPolyMembrane receives 10 Million Euro

November 5, 2024

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle receive the prestigious Synergy Grant of the European Research Council to work jointly on 2DPolymembrane.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a prestigious €10 million Synergy Grant to 2DPolymembrane, a research project aiming to develop ultra-thin, high-precision two-dimensional polymer membranes with transformative applications in energy and environmental science.

Prof. Xinliang Feng, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle, acts as the corresponding Principal Investigator in this new research project, which unites research teams from the Technical University of Dresden and Leiden University in the Netherlands. “2DPolyMembrane” will be funded by the EU for six years, beginning in April 2025.

“This ERC Synergy Grant is a tremendous recognition of the collaborative work we’re doing to push the boundaries of 2D polymer membrane-based technologies. Our approach opens the door to breakthrough applications in energy storage and power generation. This research will push the boundaries of what’s possible, offering solutions that can lead to significant advancements in sustainability and performance across multiple sectors.”, said Feng looking into the future.

Xinliang Feng (MPI Halle), Grégory Schneider (Leiden University), and Thomas Heine (Technical University of Dresden) © MPI of Microstructure Physics

All team members from the Max Planck Institute in Halle, Technical University of Dresden, and Leiden University, Netherlands have profound expertise in the area of 2D polymer materials in physical chemistry and complement each other in this research project. Xinliang Feng will establish the novel synthesis of 2D polymer-based heterostructure membranes (2DHMs) with new design and synthetic strategies, and demonstrate the innovative integration of 2DHM membranes in aqueous battery devices. Thomas Heine, Principal Investigator from the Technical University of Dresden, will provide a detailed understanding of ion transport via a wide range of methods to enable the rational design of 2DHMs. Grégory Schneider from Leiden University, Netherlands, brings the surface chemistry component to tune ion flow and understand the ion transport phenomenon, as well as provide expertise across different aspects of the collaborative approach to maximize the success of this project.

2DPolymembrane will unlock the unique opportunities of 2DHMs for ion transport phenomenon and develop innovative energy device integrations (proton/aqueous metal batteries, fuel cells, and reverse osmotic power generators), where the merits of ultrathin precision 2DHMs will result in the highest selectivity and highest particle flow, and thus a fundamental device performance beyond the state-of-art. This project will achieve innovative 2DHMs for selective proton and ion transport with high permeance, laying the foundations for next-generation membrane technologies.

The majority of the grant will finance postdoctoral research fellows and Ph.D. students to collaborate at the participating institutions.

About the Synergy Grant

In the case of the ERC Synergy Grants, research projects are funded specifically for projects carried out by a group of two to four individual Principal Investigators (PIs) working together and bringing different skills and resources to tackle ambitious research problems. Synergy Grants can be up to a maximum of € 10 million for a period of 6 years. The grant scheme is designed to support ambitious research projects that require the collaborative efforts of two to four academic research groups. Grants are awarded based on the scientific excellence of the proposal and the anticipated intrinsic benefits of interdisciplinary synergy.

About the ERC

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organization for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept Grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialization. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Maria Leptin has been the President of the ERC since November 2021. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, under the responsibility of European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Iliana Ivanova.

Source: https://www.mpi-halle.mpg.de/research-project-2dpolymembrane-receives-10-million-euro?c=178485

Fundamental quantum model recreated from nanographenes

October 31, 2024

One step closer to quantum technologies

Quantum technologies exploit the unusual properties of the most fundamental building blocks of matter. They promise breakthroughs in communication, computing, sensors and much more. However, quantum states are fragile, and their effects are difficult to grasp, making research into real-world applications challenging. Empa researchers and their partners have now achieved a breakthrough: Using a kind of “quantum Lego”, they have been able to accurately realize a well-known theoretical quantum physics model in a synthetic material.

With utmost precision: Using special nanographene molecules, the researchers were able to realize a theoretical model from quantum physics. Image: Empa

With utmost precision: Using special nanographene molecules, the researchers were able to realize a theoretical model from quantum physics. Image: Empa

The smallest unit of information in a computer is the bit: on or off, 1 or 0. Today, the world's entire computing power is built on the combination and interconnection of countless ones and zeros. Quantum computers have their own version of the bit: the qubit. It, too, has two basic states. The main difference: Quantum effects allow a superposition of the two states, so that the qubit is not either 1 or 0, but both at the same time. With different proportions of 0 and 1, the qubit can theoretically assume an infinite number of states.

This ambiguity should give quantum computers true “superpowers”. At least in theory, quantum-based computers can perform calculations in fractions of a second that stump today's best supercomputers. However, quantum computing is not yet fully developed. One of the biggest challenges is linking the qubits – since one single (qu)bit is not much of a computer.

One way to realize the 0 and the 1 of the qubit is via the alignment of the so-called electron spin. The spin is a fundamental quantum mechanical property of electrons and other particles, a kind of torque that, put simply, can point “up” (1) or “down” (0). When two or more spins are quantum-mechanically linked, they influence each other's states: Change the orientation of one, and it will also change for all the others. This is therefore a good way to make qubits “talk” to each other. However, like so much in quantum physics, this “language”, i.e. the interaction between the spins, is enormously complex. Although it can be described mathematically, the relevant equations can hardly be solved exactly even for relatively simple chains of a just few spins. Not exactly the best conditions for putting theory into practice...

A model becomes reality

Researchers at Empa's nanotech@surfaces laboratory have now developed a method that allows many spins to “talk” to each other in a controlled manner – and that also enables the researchers to “listen” to them, i.e. to understand their interactions. Together with scientists from the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory and the Technical University of Dresden, they were able to precisely create an archetypal chain of electron spins and measure its properties in detail. Their results have now been published in the renowned journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The theory behind the chain is familiar to all physics students: Take a linear chain of spins in which each spin interacts strongly with one of its neighbors and weakly with the other. This so-called one-dimensional alternating Heisenberg model was described almost 100 years ago by physicist and later Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg, one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Although there are materials in nature that contain such spin chains, it has not yet been possible to deliberately incorporate the chains into a material. “Real materials are always much more complex than a theoretical model,” explains Roman Fasel, head of Empa's nanotech@surfaces laboratory and co-author of the study.

A “goblet” made of carbon

To create such an artificial quantum material, the Empa researchers used tiny pieces of the two-dimensional carbon material graphene. The shape of these nanographene molecules influences their physical properties, in particular their spin – a kind of nano-sized quantum Lego brick from which the scientists can assemble longer chains.

For their Heisenberg model, the researchers used the so-called Clar's Goblet molecule. This special nanographene molecule consists of eleven carbon rings arranged in an hourglass-like shape. Due to this shape, there is an unpaired electron at each end – each with an associated spin. Although predicted by chemist Erich Clar as early as 1972, Clar's Goblet was only produced in 2019 by Fasel's team at the nanotech@surfaces laboratory.

Left: High-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy image of Clar's Goblet. Right: Structural model of Clar's Goblet (blue: spin up, red: spin down). Image: Empa

The researchers have now linked the goblets on a gold surface to form chains. The two spins within a molecule are weakly linked, while the spins from molecule to molecule are strongly linked – a perfect realization of the alternating Heisenberg chain. The researchers were able to precisely manipulate the length of the chains, selectively switch individual spins on and off and “flip” them from one state to another, allowing them to investigate the complex physics of this novel quantum material in great detail.

From theory to practice

Fasel is convinced that, just as the synthesis of Clar's Goblet enabled the production of Heisenberg chains, this study will in turn open new doors in quantum research. “We have shown that theoretical models of quantum physics can be realized with nanographenes in order to test their predictions experimentally,” says the researcher. “Nanographenes with other spin configurations can be linked to form other types of chains or even more complex systems.” The Empa researchers are leading by example: In a second study, which is about to be published, they were able to recreate a different type of Heisenberg chain in which all spins are equally linked.

A scanning tunneling microscopy image shows the spin chain made of individual Clar's Goblets. Image: Empa

To be at the forefront of applied quantum physics, theoretical and experimental scientists from different disciplines need to work together. Chemists at Dresden University of Technology provided Empa researchers with the starting molecules for their synthesis of Clar's Goblets. And researchers from the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal contributed their theoretical expertise to the project. The theory needed for such breakthroughs is not (just) what you find in physics textbooks, Fasel emphasizes, but a sophisticated transfer between the quantum physics model and the experimental measurements.

Credit: Empa

Successful PhD defence of Dongqi Li

October 29, 2024

Dongqi Li successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Controllable Synthesis of MXenes with Novel and Ordered Terminations" on October 22, 2024. Congratulations to Dongqi Li!

Dr. Wenhui Niu Receives the Arthur K. Doolittle Award from the American Chemical Society 2024 Fall Meeting

September 6, 2024

Dr. Wenhui Niu receives the 2024 Fall Arthur K. Doolittle Award from the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE), for the talk entitled “Topological Engineering of Graphene Nanoribbon for Next Generation Electronics”.

The Arthur K. Doolittle Award recognizes an outstanding talk presented during a PMSE symposium at each of the Fall and Spring ACS National Meetings. All oral PMSE presentations are eligible for nomination by symposium organizers on the basis of content with emphasis on originality, impact, and development of new concepts in polymeric materials. Recipients are selected by an anonymous panel of judges appointed by the PMSE Doolittle Award Committee.

About Dr. Wenhui Niu

Wenhui Niu was born in China in 1994. She obtained her B.Sc. in polymer engineering from Sichuan University in 2016 and her Ph.D. in chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Yiyong Mai at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2021. During her Ph.D. work, she pioneered the topological engineering of graphene nanoribbons with tailoring optoelectronics properties and excellent liquid-phase processability. After completing her PhD, Wenhui joined the Technische Universität Dresden as a postdoctoral fellow for one year, working with Prof. Xinliang Feng. After that, she joined the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics as a research group leader, where her research focused on the development of novel chiral nanographenes with exceptional chiroptical properties. In 2023, Wenhui Niu was selected as a Minerva Fast Track group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, and since April 2024, she has been leading the “Quantum Chiral Nanocarbons” group. Her current research interests lie heavily on the recognition of spin polarization behavior of chiral nanocarbons and their potential applications in chiral spintronics.

About the Arthur K. Doolittle Award

The Arthur K. Doolittle Award originally established by the Union Carbide Corporation as the Carbide Award, its name was later changed due to Arthur K. Dootlittle's contribution to the ACS Division of PMSE, the field of polymeric materials, and financial contributions from royalties of his book, Technology of Solvents and Plasticizers. As the recipient of the Arthur K. Doolittle Award, the winner will receive a prize of $1,000 and a plaque, which will be presented at the PMSE/POLY Plenary Lecture and Awards Reception tentatively scheduled for Wednesday evening of the Spring 2025 National Meeting in San Diego, California.

To learn more about the Award, visit the PMSE website (https://pmsedivision.org/doolittle-award/).

Congratulations to Sebastian Obermann for successfully defending his PhD

July 16, 2024

Sebastian Obermann successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Bottom-Up Synthesis and Characterization of Non-Planar Graphene Nanoribbons" on July 11, 2024. Congratulations Dr. Obermann!

Congratulations to Kamil Jastrzembski for successfully defending his PhD

June 21, 2024

Kamil Jastrzembski successfully defended his PhD thesis on "Two-Dimensional Conjugated Metal-Organic-Frameworks based on Contorted-Hexabenzocoronene" on June 3, 2024. Congratulations Dr. Jastrzembski!

Novel Triatomic-Layer Borate Polyanion Terminations for MXenes

June 7, 2024

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal carbides/nitrides, known as MXenes, have captured intensive attention owing to their promising applications in the areas of energy storage, (opto)electronics, environmental and future quantum technologies. Unlike other 2D materials, MXenes typically possess a layer of terminal groups capping the exposed surface metal atoms, which substantially influence the properties of MXenes. However, the terminations for hitherto developed MXenes are limited to monolayers or simple groups, showing disordered arrangements and inferior stability. The full potential of termination engineering in MXenes still calls for further investigation and exploration. Researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Minghao Yu, together with collaborators, show the synthesis of MXenes (Nb2C and Ti3C2) with ordered triatomic-layer borate polyanion terminations through a flux-assisted eutectic molten etching approach. Lewis acidic salts in the eutectic molten state act as the etching agent to obtain the MXene backbone. Meanwhile, borax, as the flux, undergoes thermal decomposition to generate anionic BO2 species, which cap the MXene surface with an O-B-O configuration (denoted OBO-terminations). Contrasting with conventional Cl/O-terminated Nb2C with strongly localized charge transport, OBO-terminated Nb2C features band transport properties described by the Drude model. This transition in the conduction mechanism is attributed to the surface structure ordering enabled by OBO-terminations, which effectively mitigates charge carrier backscattering and trapping. Consequently, it results in a notable 15-fold enhancement in electrical conductivity and a tenfold improvement in charge mobility at the dc limit. Furthermore, triatomic-layer OBO-terminations provide substantially enriched Li+-hosting sites, enabling a high charge storage capacity for Ti3C2 MXenes (420 mAh g−1), nearly double that of the Cl/O-terminated Ti3C2 (212 mAh g−1). This work not only illustrate the potential for intricate termination configurations in MXenes, but also provide inspiration for further advancements in their potential applications like (opto)electronics and energy storage.

Reference: Dongqi Li, Wenhao Zheng, Sai Manoj Gali, Kamil Sobczak, Michal Horák, Josef Polčák, Nikolaj Lopatik, Zichao Li, Jiaxu Zhang, Davood Sabaghi, Shengqiang Zhou, Paweł P. Michałowski, Ehrenfried Zschech, Eike Brunner, Mikołaj Donten, Tomáš Šikola, Mischa Bonn, Hai I. Wang*, David Beljonne*, Minghao Yu*. Xinliang Feng*, MXenes with ordered triatomic-layer borate polyanion terminations, Nat. Mater. (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-024-01911-2.

Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GrapheneCore3 881603, LIGHT-CAP 101017821, GREENCAP 101091572), M-ERA.NET and Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HYSUCAP 100478697), and German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence, CRC 1415 (Grant No. 417590517). TAČR EPSILON project (Nr. TH71020004), GAČR project (Nr. 23-07617S) and CzechNanoLab project (LM2023051) funded by MEYS CR are gratefully acknowledged for the financial support of the measurements in CEITEC Nano Research Infrastructure. The computational resources in Mons were supported by the FNRS “Consortium des Equipements de Calcul Intensif−CECI” program (Grant No. 2.5020.11) and by the Walloon Region (ZENOBE Tier-1 supercomputer, 1117545). D.L. was funded by China Scholarships Council (CSC). P.P.M. was supported by the National Science Centre (Project No. 2018/31/D/ST5/00399) and National Centre for Research and Development (Project No. LIDER/8/0055/L-12/20/NCBR/2021). The authors acknowledge the use of the facilities in the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at Technische Universität Dresden, the GWK support for providing computing time through the Center for Information Services and High-Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden, and beam time allocation at beamline P65 at the PETRA III synchrotron (DESY, Hamburg, Germany) and beamline BL04 at ALBA synchrotron (Barcelona, Spain).

2nd Funding Phase CRC 1415 "Chemistry of Synthetic 2D Materials"

May 31, 2024

Exciting news! On Friday, 31 May 2024, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) officially announced the continuation of the interdisciplinary research project “Chemistry of Synthetic 2D Materials”. Starting 1st July 2024, the CRC 1415 will pursue its research activities in the areas of synthesis, characterization and theoretical modeling of novel 2D materials. Based on the substantial progress made during the last 4 years, the CRC will shift its scientific focus towards understanding and tailoring the functional properties of synthetic 2DMs (e.g., (opto)electronic properties, topological and magnetic properties, catalysis, as well as ion transport and ion storage properties) and will address how these properties evolve in 2D heterostructures.

We deeply thank everyone for making the interdisciplinary research program possible!

Further news:  Technische Universität Dresden, School of Science

Congratulations to Davood Sabaghi for successfully defending his PhD

April 4, 2024

Davood Sabaghi successfully defended his PhD on "High Energy and Power Density Dual-ion Batteries with Graphite as Cathode: Key Challenges and Strategies" on March 28, 2024. Congratulations Dr. Sabaghi!

Unlocking Four-Electron Conversion in Tellurium Cathodes for Advanced Magnesium-Based Dual-Ion Batteries

April 2, 2024

Magnesium (Mg) batteries hold promise as a large-scale energy storage solution, but their progress has been hindered by the lack of high-performance cathodes. Here, we address this challenge by unlocking the reversible four-electron Te0/Te4+ conversion in elemental Te, enabling the demonstration of superior Mg//Te dual-ion batteries. Specifically, the classic magnesium aluminum chloride complex (MACC) electrolyte is tailored by introducing Mg bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (Mg(TFSI)2), which initiates the Te0/Te4+ conversion with two distinct charge-storage steps. Te cathode undergoes Te/TeCl4 conversion involving Cl as charge carriers, during which a tellurium subchloride phase is presented as an intermediate. Significantly, the Te cathode achieves a high specific capacity of 543 mAh gTe–1 and an outstanding energy density of 850 Wh kgTe–1, outperforming most of the previously reported cathodes. Our electrolyte analysis indicates that the addition of Mg(TFSI)2 reduces the overall ion-molecule interaction and mitigates the strength of ion-solvent aggregation within the MACC electrolyte, which implies the facilized Cl dissociation from the electrolyte. Besides, Mg(TFSI)2 is verified as an essential buffer to mitigate the corrosion and passivation of Mg anodes caused by the consumption of the electrolyte MgCl2 in Mg//Te dual-ion cells. These findings provide crucial insights into the development of advanced Mg-based dual-ion batteries.

Reference: Ahiud Morag, Xingyuan Chu, Maciej Marczewski, Jonas Kunigkeit, Christof Neumann, Davood Sabaghi, Grażyna Zofia Żukowska, Jingwei Du, Xiaodong Li, Andrey Turchanin, Eike Brunner, Xinliang Feng,* Minghao Yu* Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024, e202401818

Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (ERC Starting Grant, BattSkin, 101116722), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (LIGHT-CAP 101017821), German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence, CRC 1415 (Grant No. 417590517), and the European Fonds for Regional Development (Europäischer Fonds für Regionale Entwicklung; EFRE-OP 2014-2020; Project No. 2021 FGI 0035, NanoLabXPS) as part of the REACT-EU program. The authors also acknowledge the use of the facilities in the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at Technische Universität Dresden, the GWK support for providing computing time through the Center for Information Services and High-Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden. We acknowledge DESY (Hamburg, Germany), a member of the Helmholtz Association HGF, for the provision of experimental facilities. Parts of this research were carried out at PETRA III, and we would like to thank Edmund Welter and Dr. Andre L. C Conceição for assistance in using beamlines P65 and P62, respectively. WAXS experiments were also performed at BL11 beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of Dr. Cristián Huck Iriart. We acknowledge the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) for the provision of synchrotron radiation facilities, and we would like to thank Dr. Cesare Atzorifor's assistance and support in using beamline BM23.

Proton-Selective Coating Enables Fast-Kinetics High-Mass-Loading Cathodes for Sustainable Zinc Batteries

March 29, 2024

2D polyimine nanomembrane with high ion selectivity enables a high-kinetics electrochemistry transition for aqueous zinc batteries

Research:

The pressing need for sustainable and scalable energy storage solutions has spurred the burgeoning development of aqueous zinc batteries (AZBs). However, the presence of kinetics-sluggish Zn2+ as the dominant charge carriers in AZB cathodes leads to suboptimal charge-storage capacity and durability, which poses a significant hurdle in the practical implementation of AZBs.

The scientists from TU Dresden and MPI Halle, together with collaborators, discover that an ultrathin 2D polyimine membrane (2DPM) featured by dual ion-transport nanochannels and densely distributed proton-conduction groups facilitates rapid and selective proton passing within the typical AZB electrolyte medium. Permeation measurements reveal 2DPM with a high H+ flux exceeding 0.9 mol m2 h1 and an excellent H+/Zn2+ transport selectivity of 140.7. Consequently, we achieve a distinctive electrochemistry transition shifting from sluggish Zn2+-dominated to fast-kinetics H+-dominated Faradic reactions within high-mass-loading AZB cathodes by using 2DPM as an interfacial coating. Combining 2DPM with a NaV3O8·1.5H2O cathode (10 mg cm−2) maximizes the realization of theoretical capacity (increasing from 288.8 to 450.5 mAh g1). More importantly, the electrode shows an exceptionally high areal capacity of 4.5 mAh cm−2 and state-of-the-art energy density of 33.8 Wh m−2, along with enhanced cycling stability (68.6% vs. 87.8% after 1,000 cycles). Using the 2DPM coating, they further demonstrate the interfacial proton-selective transport for different cathodes (e.g., ε-MnO2 and α-MoO3) and varying aqueous electrolytes (e.g., 2 M ZnSO4 and 20 m ZnCl2), validating its universality for developing reliable aqueous batteries.

Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (ERC Starting Grant, BattSkin, 101116722), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (LIGHT-CAP 101017821), the ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, NO. 819698), German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence, CRC 1415 (Grant No. 417590517), and Polymer-based Batteries (SPP 2248, RACOF-MMIS). The authors acknowledge the use of the facilities in the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at the Technische Universität Dresden, the GWK support for providing computing time through the Center for Information Services and High-Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden, beam time allocation at beamline P02.1 and P65 at the PETRA III synchrotron (DESY, Hamburg, Germany), and beam time allocation at beamline 3C SAXS-I and 9A U-SAXS at the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PLS-II).

Reference: Guo, Q., Li, W., Li, X. et al. Proton-selective coating enables fast-kinetics high-mass-loading cathodes for sustainable zinc batteries. Nat. Commun. 15, 2139 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46464-9.

On-liquid-gallium surface synthesis of ultra-smooth thin films of conductive metal-organic frameworks

March 28, 2024

Two-dimensional conjugated metal-organic frameworks (2D c-MOFs) refer to a class of layer-stacked conductive MOFs linked by square-planar complexes with in-plane π-extended conjugation and out-of-plane van der Waals interaction. The unique charge transport properties and the structural/compositional diversity result in 2D c-MOFs with numerous intriguing physical properties, further enabling them for broad (opto-)electronic applications. However, the currently synthesized 2D c-MOF films suffer from rough film surface (root-mean-square roughness (Rq) ranges from 20 to 103 Å) owing to the poor controllability of precursor nucleation. Researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng and collaborators a general chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method based on an on-liquid-gallium surface synthesis (OLGSS) strategy for the growth of nine representative ultra-smooth 2D c-MOF thin films with the Rq down to ~2 Å, signifying at least ten-fold improvement in surface flatness compared to the reported works. As proposed by the theoretical calculations, the surpassing adsorption capacity of the adsorbed aromatic ligands with face-on orientation on the Ga surface ensures the formation of the initial flat 2D c-MOF layer. Furthermore, the high adhesion energy between 2D c-MOF layers and Ga permits the film growth following the layer-by-layer mode, thereby yielding a uniform thin film with ultra-smooth surface. Owing to the highly improved interface contact, the contact resistance in the integrated devices of OLGSS films can be reduced by more than 10 times compared to that of the samples synthesized by reported method. In addition, the van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) constructed by few-layer OLGSS 2D c-MOF layer and monolayer MoS2 reveal large modulations of the photoluminescence (PL) properties and work function (WF), which highlights the potential of OLGSS films as building blocks for creating unique vdWHs and uncovering novel interfacial phenomena. This work develops a robust OLGSS strategy that affords a feasible access to versatile operable 2D c-MOF films with ultra-smooth surfaces as well as their vdWHs and breaks one synthetic bottleneck of conductive MOFs for (opto-)electronic devices.

Reference: Jinxin Liu, Yunxu Chen, Xing Huang, Yanhan Ren, Mike Hambsch, David Bodesheim, Darius Pohl, Xiaodong Li, Marielle Deconinck, Bowen Zhang, Markus Löffler, Zhongquan Liao, Fengxiang Zhao, Arezoo Dianat, Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Yana Vaynzof, Junfeng Gao*, Jingcheng Hao, Stefan C. B. Mannsfeld, Xinliang Feng*, Renhao Dong*. On-liquid-gallium surface synthesis of ultrasmooth thin films of conductive metal–organic frameworks. Nat. Synth. (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s44160-024-00513-9.

Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (22272092), ERC starting grant (FC2DMOF, number 852909), ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP), SFB-1415 (number 417590517), GRK2861 (number 491865171), EMPIR-20FUN03-COMET, and by the German Science Council, Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (CFAED). This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (ERC grant agreement number 714067, ENERGYMAPS). We acknowledge the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) for provision of synchrotron radiation facilities and we thank O. Konovalov for assistance and support in using beamline ID10. We acknowledge Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste for providing access to its synchrotron radiation facilities and for financial support under the IUS internal project. We thank L. Barba for assistance in using beamline XRD1. We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD. R.D. thanks the Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (tsqn201909047) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2023JQ005). We thank Z. Wang for his help with TEM measurements. J.L. gratefully acknowledges funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Prof. Xinliang Feng is elected as a member of the Leopoldina

March 6, 2024

Prof. Xinliang Feng, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle Halle and Professor at the Technical University of Dresden, has been elected as an ordinary member of the Chemistry Division of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Xinliang Feng was elected as a new member by the Division and the Presidium of the Leopoldina in a multi-stage process. Feng's future tasks will include providing scientific policy advice and contributing to politically and socially relevant issues.

“It is an immense honor to have been elected as a member of a distinguished academy such as Leopoldina. I am humbled to be included among the ranks of so many esteemed figures from scientific history. This membership opens up wonderful opportunities for collaboration with my esteemed colleagues in the academy, and I am eager to contribute to the advancement of science alongside them in the future.“, said the newly appointed member.  

Feng's research focuses on exploring precision chemistry and synthesis to discover new materials, including organic 2D crystals, carbon nanostructures, and graphene nanoribbons with emergent phenomena and properties to address global challenges.

New materials play a key role in addressing society's challenges and providing new opportunities. For instance, clean energy, clear water, environmental protection, and sustainable development require breakthrough discovery and application of exotic materials. In addition, new materials provide unique opportunities for emerging information technology, and artificial intelligence, among others.

About Prof. Xinliang Feng

Prof. Xinliang Feng is a chemist and professor at the Technical University of Dresden specializing in 2D materials and functional devices, especially graphene. Since 2014, as part of the Cluster of Excellence Centre for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) he has been Professor of Molecular Functional Materials. Since 2021 he has been a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and Director of the Department of Synthetic Materials and Functional Devices (SMFD) at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle. He is one of the most cited researchers in chemistry and materials science, Clarivate Analytics. Feng has received many awards and has published more than 700 research articles, which attracted more than 109,000 citations and an H-index of 164 (Google Scholar).

About the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

The Leopoldina originated in 1652 as a classical scholarly society and now has 1,600 members from almost all branches of science. In 2008, Leopoldina was appointed as the German National Academy of Sciences and, in this capacity, was invested with two major objectives: representing the German scientific community internationally, and providing policymakers and the public with science-based advice. The Leopoldina champions the freedom and appreciation of science. It promotes a scientifically enlightened society and the responsible application of scientific insight for the benefit of humankind and the natural world. In its interdisciplinary discourse, the Academy transcends thematic, political, and cultural boundaries.

Source: https://www.mpi-halle.mpg.de/xinliang-feng-elected-as-a-leopoldina-member?c=178485

Dr. Minghao Yu receives the status of TUD Young Investigator

February 26, 2024

On February 13, 2024, the Rectorate based on the support of the Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry has approved Dr. Minghao Yu’s status of TUD Young Investigator. Congratulations!

The “TUD Young Investigator” status strengthens excellent, independent junior research group leaders by fostering their integration into the faculties and offering a qualification program FAST FORWARD tailored to their particular needs. This scheme aims to counteract the structural disadvantages sometimes experienced by this group of researchers due to their lack of defined status and inadequate or nonexistent connection to a faculty.

For more information, please refer to: https://tu-dresden.de/forschung-transfer/wissenschaftlicher-nachwuchs/nach-der-promotion/tud-young-investigators

Dr. Muhammad Imran, hailing from Pakistan, has been honored with the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

February 14, 2024

Dr. Imran's academic journey has been marked by notable achievements. In 2017, he was awarded the esteemed Fulbright Fellowship to pursue his PhD studies in the United States. He successfully completed PhD in Chemistry from Lehigh University, PA. His doctoral research primarily focused on the synthesis and device applications of open-shell molecular materials.

Following his PhD, Dr. Imran embarked on his postdoctoral endeavors, joining SFMD at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in 2023. His research interests revolve around the synthesis of non-Kekulé hydrocarbons, with a keen focus on exploring their intrinsic spin properties for quantum applications, including quantum computing.

Dr. Imran's dedication and scholarly pursuits exemplify a commitment to advancing the frontiers of scientific knowledge and innovation. His contributions are poised to make significant impact in the field of materials science and quantum technologies.

Dr. Wenhui Niu receives a Minerva Fast-Track Fellowship

January 30, 2024

Dr. Wenhui Niu was awarded a Minerva Fast Track position by the Max Planck Society to establish her first research group “Quantum Chiral Nanocarbons” at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle.

Chiral nanocarbons have attracted growing attention due to their exotic 3D structure, inherent chirality, and intriguing optoelectronic properties, in particular, their unique chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect. Due to the unique structural tunability and the specificity of quantum sensing, chiral nanocarbons have the potential to be a transformative tool in the next generation of quantum applications.

Within the Minerva Fast-Track Fellowship, the research interests of Wenhui and her team will focus on (1) discovery of the chiral structure-CISS effect relationship; A series of novel chiral nanocarbons will be synthesized as the molecular platform and their individual spin polarization will be discovered where we will gain valuable insights of how the chiral structure will affect the CISS effect. As a result, design principle of chiral nanocarbons for the CISS effect will be established aiming to achieve high spin polarization. (2) Development of chiral spintronics based on helical carbon nanostructures; Based on CISS effect, the chiral spintronics devices can control the overall electrical resistance by applying magnetic field to manipulate the electron’s spin and spin polarized current. Utilizing chiral molecules with high spin polarization, one highly interesting target is developing the high-performance chiral spintronics with large spin polarized current and good spin current manipulation. (3) Exploitation of Spin-controlled chemistry; For chiral molecules, the electron spin is strongly coupled to the molecular frame. Therefore, electron transfer and electron rearrangement of chiral reactants (and intermediates) might be affected during the reaction based on CISS effect, which can be used to provide spin control over chemical reactions, enabling to control the reaction path and achieve enantioselective synthesis.

Dr. Wenhui Niu comes from Liaoning, China. She studied polymer engineering at Sichuan University and obtained her Bachelor’s degree in 2016. From 2016, she started her PhD in chemistry from Shanghai Jiao Tong University under the supervision of Prof. Yiyong Mai. Between 2017 and 2020, she joined Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group as an exchange PhD student. In 2021, she received her PhD degree and joined the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng and continued her academic research as a postdoctoral fellow at Technische Universität Dresden for one year. After that, she joined the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics as a research group leader, where she focuses on the exploitation of novel chiral nanographenes with excellent chiroptical properties and distinct spin polarizability. Since January 2024, Wenhui is leading the “Quantum Chiral Nanocarbons” group as Minerva Fast-Track fellow.

Workshop on Two Dimensional Conjugated MOFs (2D c-MOFs) and Coordination Nanosheets

December 13, 2023

Our onsite workshop on Two Dimensional Conjugated MOFs (2D c-MOFs) and Coordination Nanosheets brought together an esteemed gathering of over 40 researchers from around the world on December 11th and 12th, 2023.

Esteemed speakers hailing from prestigious research institutions in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Korea, and Japan shared groundbreaking insights spanning a wide spectrum of disciplines. The symposium delved into the realms of coordination chemistry, organic and inorganic synthesis, nanoscience, electronics, and the condensed physics of 2D c-MOFs and coordination nanosheets. The 21 invited speakers enriched the event with their expertise, engaging in vibrant discussions and presenting the very latest developments in their respective fields.

The masterful coordination of this symposium was orchestrated by the adept Prof. Xinliang Feng, whose affiliations include TU Dresden and MPI of Microstructure Physics, Halle, and the accomplished Dr. Yang from the University of Strasbourg and TU Dresden.

Beyond being a platform for the dissemination of cutting-edge research, this symposium underscored the collective pursuit of knowledge and innovation within the global scientific community. The collaborative spirit that permeated the event not only showcased the most recent advancements in organic 2D materials but also served as a beacon for future collaborative endeavors that transcend geographical boundaries. The symposium stands as a testament to the shared commitment to advancing our understanding of 2D c-MOFs and coordination nanosheets.

Dr. Minghao Yu has been admitted as the Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe

December 8, 2023

On 21st November 2023, the Selection Committee and the Board of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) have unanimously decided to admit Dr. Minghao Yu as a new YAE member.

The Young Academy of Europe is organized as a bottom-up initiative of a dynamic and innovative group of recognized European young scholars with outspoken views about science and science policy. It is a pan-European initiative of young scientists for networking, scientific exchange, and science policy.

For more information, please refer to: https://yacadeuro.org/

Congratulations to Lin Yang for successfully defending his PhD

November 28, 2023

Lin Yang successfully defended his PhD on "Precision Synthesis of Helical Non-Benzenoid Nanographenes and Magnetic Nanographenes" on November 27, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Yang!

Workshop of the second "Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures" (2nd PCNano)

November 23, 2023

On November 22nd, an enlightening workshop on the 2nd “Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures (PCNano)” took place in Dresden, showcasing the forefront of research in this research field. The event featured four distinguished speakers from around the globe, each delivering outstanding presentations:

  • Michael Haley, University of Oregon (USA): The Interplay Between Antiaromaticity and Diradical Character in Diarenoindacenes and Diindenoarenes
  • Konstantin Amsharov, Halle University (DE): Towards direct synthesis of carbon based nanostructures on metal oxide surfaces
  • Michal Juríček, University of Zurich (CH): Taming and unleashing the reactivity of nanographene π-radicals
  • Milan Kivala, Heidelberg University (DE): Alkynes as a Versatile Entry into Fascinating Polycyclic Landscapes

Additionally, local representative speakers (Dr. Ji Ma, Mr. Sebastian Obermann, Dr. Wenhui Niu, Dr. Jin-Jiang Zhang) shared the latest achievements from the chair. Their presentations covered the topics of magnetic nanocarbons, precision graphene nanoribbons, and boron-doped nanographene.

Organized by Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Ji Ma at TU Dresden & MPI of Microstructure Physics, Halle, the 1st PCNano was made online on January 20th and 21st, 2022 in honor of Prof. Klaus Müllen’s 75th birthday. Plans are underway to organize the 3rd edition in the near future, promising continued exploration and dissemination of groundbreaking advancements in precision carbon nanostructures.

For the detailed program, please click here.

HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHER 2023

November 21, 2023

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has been listed as highly cited researcher in 2023 - in the categories Chemistry and Material Science.

Dr. Minghao Yu, research group leader in Prof. Feng's group, has been listed as well as highly cited researcher in 2023 in the category Materials Science.

Dr. Renhao Dong, research group leader in Prof. Feng's group, has been listed as well as highly cited researcher in 2023 in the Cross-Field category.

Former colleague in the group of Prof. Feng, Dr. Xiaodong Zhuang, is also among the highly cited researchers in 2023 in the Cross-Field category.

News on TUD Newsportal:
https://News on TUD Newsportal: https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/newsportal/news/elf-forscher-der-tu-dresden-unter-den-weltweit-meistzitierten-wissenschaftler-innen

Further information regarding ranking:
Highly Cited Researchers 2023 list: https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/
Analysis: https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/analysis/
Evaluation & selection: https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/evaluation-and-selection/
FAQ: https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/faq/

Mingchao Wang received the ACS Rising Talents Prize

November 9, 2023

Dr. Mingchao Wang receives the American Chemical Society (ACS) Rising Talents Prize at the Smart Engineering & Materials International Summit 2023. Congratulations.

Prof. Jong-Beom Baek - Guest Professor/Mercator Fellow at TU Dresden

September 22, 2023

Jong-Beom Baek is a distinguished professor/director of the Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering/Center for Dimension-Controllable Organic Frameworks, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea. His current research interests include the syntheses of two- and three-dimensional high-performance organic network structures and the chemical modifications of carbon-based materials for multifunctional applications, including energy conversion and storage.

Prof. Baek will be a guest professor at TUD from September 2023 to August 2024.

Source: https://tu-dresden.de/mn/chemie/sfb1415/forschung/gastwissenschaftler?set_language=en

Dr. Minghao Yu receives ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 Million EUR to advance sustainable batteries

September 5, 2023

With his "BattSkin” project (Practical Magnesium Batteries Enabled by 2D Crystalline Polymer-Based Artificial Electrode Skins), chemist Dr. Minghao Yu aims to advance research into a new and more sustainable battery technology over the next five years. The focus will be on advancing the promising magnesium batteries, using precise polymer chemistry to govern the interfacial ion dynamics. Magnesium batteries are considered top candidates in the race for the next generation of battery technologies due to their low cost, high efficiency, sustainability, and safety. So far, they are still the subject of fundamental research, since charge transfers at the interface in particular still pose problems in practical implementation.

In his ERC project, Dr. Minghao Yu will work on a groundbreaking concept in which molecule-specific customizable 2D crystalline polymers (2DCPs) serve as artificial electrode 'skins', a kind of interphase, to regulate interfacial ion transport and make magnesium batteries ready for application. “With the project, I expect to strengthen my research independence by assembling a skilled and competitive research team with diverse expertise. Meanwhile, the scientific outcomes will earn me a unique academic reputation in the field of next-generation sustainable batteries,”Yu is convinced.

The Chinese-born chemist has been leading a research group at cfaed (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden) since March 2019 and works at the Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry at TU Dresden. He has already been listed several times in Clarivate Analytics’ list of Highly Cited Researchers and has received numerous other awards.

Source TUD Public Relations Office : https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/newsportal/news/erc-starting-grants-drei-junge-tud-wissenschaftler-unter-den-ausgezeichneten?set_language=de

Website of Dr. Minghao Yu

Thiophene Backbone Enables Two-Dimensional Poly(arylene vinylene)s with High Charge Carrier Mobility

August 17, 2023

Prof. Jayasundera Bandara received the prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship

August 7, 2023

Bottom-up solution synthesis of graphene nanoribbons with precisely engineered nanopores

June 28, 2023

Exceptionally high charge mobility in phthalocyanine-based poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline)-ladder-type two-dimensional conjugated polymers

June 28, 2023

Near IR bandgap semiconducting 2D conjugated metal-organic framework with rhombic lattice and high mobility

March 8, 2023

Ion-selective 2D polymer membrane works as the battery electrode skin

March 8, 2023

Exceptionally clean single-electron transistors from solutions of molecular graphene nanoribbons

February 3, 2023

Congratulations to Fupeng Wu for successfully defending his PhD

January 10, 2023

Fupeng Wu successfully defended his PhD on "Precision Synthesis of Nanographenes with Intrinsic π-Magnetism" on January 6, 2023. Congratulations Dr. Wu!

Precise tuning of interlayer electronic coupling in layered conductive metal-organic frameworks

December 2, 2022

Electrically conductive metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), such as two-dimensional conjugated MOFs (2D c-MOFs), have attracted increasing interests for (opto)-electronics and spintronics. They generally consist of van der Waals stacked layers and exhibit layer-depended electronic properties. While considerable efforts have been made to regulate the charge transport within a layer, precise control of electronic coupling between layers has not yet been achieved. The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng report a novel strategy to precisely tune interlayer charge transport in 2D c-MOFs via side-chain induced control of the layer spacing. They design hexaiminotriindole ligands allowing programmed functionalization with tailored alkyl chains (HATI_CX, X = 1,3,4; X refers to the carbon numbers of the alkyl chains) for the synthesis of semiconducting Ni3(HATI_CX)2. The layer spacing of these MOFs can be precisely varied from 3.40 to 3.70 Å, leading to the widened band gap, suppressed carrier mobilities, and significant improvement of the Seebeck coefficient. With this demonstration, we further achieve a record-high thermoelectric power factor of 68 ± 3 nW m−1 K−2 in Ni3(HATI_C3)2, superior to the reported holes-dominated MOFs.

Reference: Yang Lu, Yingying Zhang, Chi-Yuan Yang, Sergio Revuelta, Haoyuan Qi, Chuanhui Huang, Wenlong Jin, Zichao Li, Victor Vega, Yannan Liu, Xing Huang, Darius Pohl, Miroslav Polozǐj, Shengqiang Zhou, Enrique Canovas, Thomas Heine, Simone Fabiano, Xinliang Feng, Renhao Dong. Nature Communications, 2022, 13, 7240.

Acknowledgements: We acknowledge cfaed and Dresden Center for Nano- analysis (DCN) at TUD. We acknowledge the financial support from ERC starting grant (FC2DMOF, No. 852909), EU Graphene Flagship (Core3, No. 881603), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP), DFG projects (CRC-1415, No. 417590517; SPP-1928, COORNET), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), EMPIR-20FUN03-COMET, H2020-FETOPEN (PROGENY, 899205) as well as the German Science Council and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed). R.D. thanks Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (tsqn201909047). S.F. acknowledges support from the Swedish Research Council (2020-03243) and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU 2009-00971). Y. Z. acknowledges China Scholarship Council. Y. L. and Y. Z. acknowledge ZIH Dresden for computer time.

Highly Cited Researcher 2022

November 18, 2022

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has been listed as highly cited researcher in 2022 - in the categories Chemistry and Material Science.

Dr. Minghao Yu, research group leader in Prof. Feng's group, has been listed as well as highly cited researcher in 2022 in the category Materials Science.

Dr. Renhao Dong, research group leader in Prof. Feng's group, has been listed as well as highly cited researcher in 2022 in the Cross-Field category.

Former colleagues in the group of Prof. Feng, Dr. Jian Zhang and Dr. Faxing Wang, are also among the highly cited researchers in 2022 in the Cross-Field category.

Link: Highly cited researcher 2022

Selective activation of four quasi-equivalent C–H bonds yields N-doped graphene nanoribbons with partial corannulene motifs

November 2, 2022

Selective C–H bond activation is one of the most challenging topics for organic reactions, which has been referred to as “chemistry’s ultimate prize”. Introducing heteroatoms, such as nitrogen and sulfur atoms into the organic skeleton, is an established approach to activate vicinal C atoms such as ortho C atoms. However, this strategy lacks selectivity among equivalent/quasi-equivalent ortho C atoms in heterocycles. In this regard, the step-wise, kinetic activation of equivalent/quasi-equivalent of ortho C(sp3) atoms would be a major achievement in the field. The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng in collaboration with the group of Prof. Hong-Jun Gao and Prof. Shixuan Du (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China) successfully achieve the selective activation of four quasi-equivalent C–H bonds in a specially designed nitrogen-containing polycyclic hydrocarbon (N-PH). Density functional theory calculations reveal that the adsorption of N-PH on Ag(100) differentiates the activity of the four ortho C(sp3) atoms in the N-heterocycles into two groups, suggesting a selective dehydrogenation, which is demonstrated by sequential-annealing experiments of N-PH/Ag(100). Further annealing leads to the formation of N-doped graphene nanoribbons with partial corannulene motifs, realized by the C–H bond activation process. This work provides a route of designing precursor molecules with ortho C(sp3) atom in an N-heterocycle to realize surface-induced selective dehydrogenation in quasi-equivalent sites.

This article featured in a Nature Communications Editors’ Highlights webpage of recent research called “Materials science and chemistry”, see https://www.nature.com/collections/wtpqpqpgwd

Reference: Yixuan Gao, Li Huang, Yun Cao, Marcus Richter, Jing Qi, Qi Zheng, Huan Yang, Ji Ma, Xiao Chang, Xiaoshuai Fu, Carlos-Andres Palma, Hongliang Lu, Yu-Yang Zhang, Zhihai Cheng, Xiao Lin, Min Ouyang, Xinliang Feng, Shixuan Du, Hong-Jun Gao. Nature Communications, 2022, 13, 6146.

Acknowledgments: We acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61888102, 61622116 and 11974403), National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0305800 and 2019YFA0308500), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB30000000), the German Research Foundation (DFG) with EnhanceNano (No. 391979941), the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (YSBR-003), the CAS Frontier Sciences and Education grant (No. QYZDBSSW-SLH038), the K. C. Wong Education Foundation and the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program. Z.H. Cheng was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China (No. 18XNLG01). Part of the research was performed in the Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Computational resources were provided by the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin Municipality, China.

Congratulations to Adrián Romani Vazquez for successfully defending his PhD

October 17, 2022

Adrián Romani Vazquez successfully defended his PhD on "Scaling up electrochemical exfoliation: In-situ functionalization and processing of graphene materials" on October 17, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Romani Vazquez!

CGCA Young Researchers Award goes to Dr. Zhiyong Wang

October 11, 2022

This year, the CGCA Young Researchers Award goes to Dr. Zhiyong Wang. He is honoured for his excellent work in the synthesis of organic two-dimensional (2D) materials during his PhD studies at Prof. Feng’s group. Congratulations!

Zhiyong joined our research group as a PhD student in October 2017 at TU Dresden. His major academic contribution lies in the design and synthesis of 2D polymer and 2D conjugated metal-organic framework thin films based on novel on-water surface synthesis strategies. After graduation, he was appointed as a research group leader at TU Dresden and Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, being responsible for the 2D polymer and interfacial synthesis group.

Congratulations to Jinjiang Zhang for successfully defending his PhD

September 30, 2022

Jinjiang Zhang successfully defended his PhD on "Bottom-up Synthesis of Boron-Doped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Graphene Nanoribbons" on September 30, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Zhang!

CSC-Award granted to M.S. Jinjiang Zhang

September 6, 2022

Jinjiang Zhang, PhD student in the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials at TU Dresden, was selected to receive the "2021 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad" by the China Scholarship Council. Congratulations!

M.S Jinjiang Zhang joined Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group at TU Dresden as a PhD student from August 2018. His PhD study focused on the “Bottom up synthesis of boron-doped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and graphene nanoribbons”. This award recognizes his work during his PhD studies at Prof. Feng’s group.

The Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad was established by the China Scholarship Council in 2003 and aims at rewarding the academic excellence of self-financed Chinese students studying overseas. It is considered to be the highest award given by the Chinese government to graduate students studying aboard. Only those with outstanding performance in their PhD studies will be considered by the award panel and no more than 500 young talents will be granted the award each year all over the world.

WP13 Progress Meeting at TU Dresden

May 13, 2022

On April 25th & 26th, 2022, the Progress Meeting of the Working Package of Environmental Foams and Coatings of the Graphene Flagship project took place at TU Dresden. The meeting was organized by Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Ali Shaygan Nia from the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials.

In this meeting, different EU partners from academia and industry share their latest developments on environmental applications of Two-Dimensional (2D) Materials like Water/Air Purification, Anticorrosion Coating, and Health Monitoring Devices.

HYSUCAP Progress Meeting at TU Dresden

May 13, 2022

On April 11, 2022, the HYSUCAP Progress Meeting took place on-site at TU Dresden, organized by Dr. Minghao Yu from the chair for Molecular Functional Materials.

The HYSUCAP project is funded under the network of M-ERA.NET 2, and explores the development of novel 2D hybrids based on MXenes and black phosphorus for advanced supercapacitors. The purpose of the progress meeting was to exchange the collaborative achievement of three international partners, namely teams from TU Dresden, TU Brno, and University of Warsaw. The team members also discussed the future strategies regarding the project activities.

Prof. Hongjie Dai has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt research prize

May 5, 2022

Prof. Hongjie Dai is an international authority in the field of materials chemistry, physics and nanoscience. His pioneering work has promoted basic research in chemistry and physics of quasi-1D carbon nanomaterials. He has made a great contribution to the development of single-wall carbon nanotubes, graphene nanoribbons, renewable energy storage, and nanomedicine. During his stay in Germany, he continues his research on carbon-based materials for electrocatalysis, batteries and nanomedicine.

Professor Dai is hosted by Prof. Xinliang Feng at the Dresden University of Technology and Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics.

The Humboldt research prize is awarded annually to up to 100 internationally renowned scientists worldwide for their outstanding research and lifetime achievements. For more information go to: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/bewerben/foerderprogramme/humboldt-forschungspreis

Prof. Donglin Jiang has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt research prize

May 5, 2022

Professor Donglin Jiang is internationally recognized for his outstanding research in polymer materials. He has made significant contributions to the development of covalent organic frameworks. Prof. Jiang has developed various design principles and synthetic strategies for covalent organic frameworks, which provide a fundamental material platform for exploring unique properties and functional applications. During his stay in Germany, he intends to elaborate the important parameters that control the crystal formation in both bulk powders and thin films of covalent organic frameworks and 2D polymers, as well as the underlying physical properties involving photons, electrons and spins.

Professor Jiang is hosted by Prof. Xinliang Feng and Prof. Thomas Heine at the Dresden University of Technology.

The Humboldt research prize is awarded annually to up to 100 internationally renowned scientists worldwide for their outstanding research and lifetime achievements. For more information go to: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/bewerben/foerderprogramme/humboldt-forschungspreis

CRC 1415 Guest Lecture Prof. Andrey Turchanin

April 28, 2022

The consortium of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1415 would like to thank Prof. Dr. Andrey Turchanin, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, for his guest lecture on 28th Ap-ril 2022. In his scientific talk "Heterostructures of Organic & Inorganic 2D Materials: Engineering & Device Applications" Prof. Andrey Turchanin reported on the recent progress in the synthesis, characterization, engineering, and device applications of heterostructures composed of various 2D materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and molecular nanosheets.

CRC 1415 Guest Lecture Prof. Francesco Bonaccorso

March 24, 2022

The consortium of the CRC 1415 is pleased to invite Prof. Dr. Francesco Bonaccorso, Institute Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy, for the CRC seminar talk on March 24, 2022. Within the frame of his virtual presentation “Large-Scale Production of 2D Crystals for Energy Applications“, he discussed the key properties of graphene and related two-dimensional materials (GRMs) and he presented the strategy of BeDimensional in the production of GRMs by wet-jet milling and the industrial scale up. Moreover, he provided a brief overview on some key applications of the as-produced GRMs, for anticorrosion coatings and energy conversion and storage devices.

CRC 1415 Guest Lecture Prof. Mischa Bonn

February 17, 2022

The CRC consortium is delighted to welcome Prof. Mischa Bonn and guests at the Technische Universität Dresden. Prof. Mischa Bonn, Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung, reported in his scientific talk "Optical Characterization of Electro-Optic Materials (Synthesis)" on the synthesis of novel 2D materials at the water surface and the factors determining the crystallinity of the resulting product. Moreover, Prof. Bonn demonstrated how non-invasive optical methods can provide fundamental insights into new materials and their synthesis.

Congratulations to Dominik Pastötter for successfully defending his PhD

February 11, 2021

Dominik Pastötter successfully defended his PhD on "Synthesis of Vinylene-Linked Two-Dimensional Conjugated Polymers" on February 10, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Pastötter!

CRC 1415 Guest Lecture Prof. Petko Petkov

January 27, 2022

The CRC 1415’s consortium was pleased to invite Prof. Petko Petkov, University of Sofia, for the CRC seminar talk on January 27, 2022. Within the frame of his presentation on “Electronic Properties of 2D Conjugated Metal-Organic Frameworks Based on Phthalocynine fragments“, he explained in a vivid manner that metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer an attractive platform for addressing charge conductivity, which may enable them to become active elements in optoelectronic devices.

CRC 1415 Guest Lecture Prof. Ron Naaman

January 24, 2022

The CRC 1415’s consortium was pleased to invite Prof. Ron Naaman, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel, for the CRC seminar talk on January 20, 2022. Within the frame of his presentation “Chiral Material and the Electrons’ Spin – A Miraculous Match“, he explained that chiral molecules, crystals and films act as spin filters for photoelectrons transmission, in electron transfer, and in electron transport.

Virtual Workshop "Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures" in honor of Prof. Klaus Müllen's 75th Birthday

January 21, 2021

Virtual Workshop Attracts 300 Attendees Worldwide

On January 20th and 21st, 2022 about 300 researchers from all over the world gathered online to participate in our virtual workshop on Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures. Four sections gave sufficient room to approach the topic from various sides. A total of 20 invited speakers, coming from research institutions in Germany, China, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Switzerland, reported about the latest developments in their fields - discussing such issues like applicability, synthesis, nanoscience, precision, and non-natural materials.

But the aim of this workshop was also to celebrate the contributions of Prof. Klaus Müllen to this field. His ground-breaking research, for example, paved the way for synthetic light-emitting organic materials, such as OLEDs.

Most of the speakers have been long-time collaborators of Prof. Müllen and expanded his research into new directions or even new fields. To name a few from the workshop agenda:

  • Sonopharmacology: How to active drugs by ultrasound
  • Precisely controlled self-organization of molecular carbon nanostructures
  • Nanodiamonds – From synthesis to quantum sensing in biology
  • On-surface synthesis of atomically precise carbon nanostructures

Hence, this workshop could also be called a gathering of the “Müllen family,” to quote the guest of honor.

In his summary, Prof. Müllen pointed out the ongoing importance of fundamental research, the need for an open mind when material scientists rooted in chemistry define their synthetic toolbox, and the chances his field offers to provide solutions for major societal needs. Finally, he also encouraged the audience to “employ concepts of artificial intelligence which will help us to fill gaps of knowledge of materials science much faster and more comprehensively than by performing one experiment after the other.”

The meeting was organized by Prof. Xinliang Feng, TU Dresden and MPI of Microstructure Physics, Halle, and Dr. Ji Ma, TU Dresden. Both Prof. Müllen and Prof. Feng received in 2017 the Hamburg Science Award for their ground-breaking work on graphene nanostructures.

Congratulations to Huanhuan Shi for successfully defending her PhD

January 10, 2021

Huanhuan Shi successfully defended her PhD on "Exfoliation and Functionalization of Emerging 2D Semiconductors via Wet Chemistry” on January 10, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Shi!

Innovation Group wins the 1st place award of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf Innovation Contest 2021

December 17, 2021

Payam Hashemi (on behalf of the Innovation Group of the Chair of Molecular Functional Material, cfaed), Carolin Heller (University Hospital Dresden) and Ehsan Mohseni (Institute of Fluid Dynamics, HZDR), as an interdisciplinary research team, won the 1st place award of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf Innovation Contest 2021 for a self-regulated electronic bioimplant device that recognises an important malfunction in the body and automatically corrects it.

Dr. Minghao Yu receives the EnSM Young Scientist Award 2021

December 16, 2021

Dr. Minghao Yu was announced as one of three winners of the Energy Storage Materials (EnSM) Young Scientist Award 2021. Congratulations. The purpose of the EnSM Young Scientist Award is to recognize three very promising young scientists (less than 40 years old) in the field of energy storage materials and devices who have shown great potential from their work with significant innovation in the field. The winners are invited to write a paper for the journal Energy Storage Materials, and to join the Editorial Board of the journal. The award EnSM Young Scientist Award includes a certificate and an award of 500 USD.

Boosting the Electrocatalytic Conversion of Nitrogen to Ammonia on Metal-Phthalocyanine-Based Two-Dimensional Conjugated Covalent Organic Frameworks

December 13, 2021

Electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR), particularly in conjunction with renewable energy, is regarded as a promising and sustainable alternative to the current high temperature/pressure Harber-Bosch process for the production of ammonia under ambient conditions. The current electrochemical NRR process suffers from extremely sluggish kinetics and low selectivity due to the high energy barriers of N2 activation and the faster kinetics of the competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in the similar potential ranges, respectively. Thus, extensive efforts have been devoted to explore highly active and selective electrocatalysts for boosting NRR. Thereinto, heterogeneous metal-heteroatom-doped carbon-rich electrocatalyst represents one attractive alternative because of its high durability and recyclability, as well as its ease of integration into the electrode. Nevertheless, the inhomogeneity and ambiguity of the catalytic structure of metal-nitrogen-doped carbon posed major challenges in synergistically improving their activity and selectivity toward high NRR efficiency. Moreover, their inherently less defined catalytic environment hinders the fundamental studies on the reaction mechanism.

In order to address these challenges, researchers from Technical University of Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have presented the first case of two-dimensional conjugated covalent organic frameworks (2D c-COFs) incorporated with M-N4-C centers as sufficient catalysts, achieving simultaneously enhanced activity and selectivity of electrocatalytic NRR to ammonia. Such 2D c-COFs are synthesized based on metal-phthalocyanine (M = Fe, Co, Ni, Mn, Zn and Cu) and pyrene units bonded by pyrazine linkages. The 2D c-COFs with Fe-N4-C center exhibit higher ammonia yield rate (33.6 mg h-1mg-1cat) and Faradaic efficiency (FE, 31.9 %) at -0.1 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode than those with other M-N4-C centers, making them among the best NRR electrocatalysts (yield rate >30 mg h-1mg-1cat and FE >30 %). In-situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy, Raman spectroelectrochemistry and theoretical calculations unveil that Fe-N4-C centers act as catalytic sites. They show unique electronic structure with localized electronic states at Fermi level, allowing for the stronger interaction with N2, thus faster N2 activation and NRR kinetics than other M-N4-C centers. Our work opens the possibility of developing metal-nitrogen-doped carbon-rich 2D c-COFs as superior NRR electrocatalyst and provides an atomic understanding of NRR process on M-Nx-C based electrocatalysts for designing high-performance NRR catalysts

Reference: Haixia Zhong, Mingchao Wang, Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl, Jichao Zhang, Khoa Hoang Ly, Zhongquan Liao, Guangbo Chen, Yidan Wei, Bishnu P. Biswal, Ehrenfried Zschech, Inez M. Weidinger, Arkady V. Krasheninnikov, Renhao Dong,and Xinliang Feng. Boosting the Electrocatalytic Conversion of Nitrogen to Ammonia on Metal-Phthalocyanine-Based Two-Dimensional Conjugated Covalent Organic Frameworks. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 47, 19992–20000.

This work is financially supported by EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore3, No. 881603), ERC starting grant (FC2DMOF, No. 852909), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP), Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNETs), and CRC 1415 (Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials, No. 417590517), as well as the German Science Council and Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed). R.D. thanks Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (tsqn201909047). H.Z. gratefully acknowledges funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. I.M.W. acknowledges the Cluster of Excellence UniSysCat (EXC 2008/1-390540038). We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD and Dr. Petr Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) for the use of facilities. We thank the scientists at beamline BL14W1 and BL15U1 of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for the XAFS measurements. We appreciate Prof. Thomas Heine and Hung-Hsuan Lin for providing the structural model. We also appreciate Na Zhou for IC measurement from Changchun institute of applied chemistry (CIAC). We thank Prof. Xiaodong Zhuang for the in-situ XAS electrochemical cell setup. The computational support from the HZDR computing cluster, Technical University of Dresden cluster (TAURUS), High Performance Computing Center (HLRS) in Stuttgart, Germany, and CSC Finland, is gratefully appreciated.

Prof. Xinliang Feng elected as new acatech Member

December 9, 2021

Prof. Xinliang Feng was elected as a new Member of Germany's National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) on October 19, 2021. The election is an award for outstanding achievements in science and technology and at the same time an honorary mandate: acatech advises policymakers and society on strategic engineering and technology policy issues.

As the national academy and voice of the engineering sciences in Germany and abroad, acatech brings together more than 600 personalities from science and industry. Members from the fields of engineering and natural sciences, medicine, the humanities and social sciences are admitted to the academy on the basis of their scientific achievements and reputation.

Members deal with topics such as biotechnology, energy and resources, healthcare technologies, or mobility. Positions, studies, discussions and other writings on socially and economically relevant topics are published. The results are made available to politicians, industry and interested members of the public.

Link: https://en.acatech.de/person/xinliang-feng-technische-universitat-dresden

On-water surface synthesis of charged 2D polymer single crystals via the irreversible Katritzky reaction

December 7, 2021

The exploration of kinetically irreversible bond formation for the synthesis of two-dimensional polymers (2DPs) and their layer-stacked 2D covalent organic frameworks (2D COFs) has remained scarce, mostly due to the incomplete reactions or polymorphism, as well as the lack of error-correction. By far, only the recent achievements using Knoevenagel (Polym. Chem. 7, 4176-4181 (2016), Science 357, 673-676 (2017)), Aldol-type (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 6848-6852 (2019)) and Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons condensation reactions (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 59, 23620-23625 (2020)) have demonstrated the possibility of synthesizing crystalline 2D COFs from solution syntheses. To access single-layer 2DPs via aryl-aryl coupling, the on-surface assisted Ullmann-type coupling under ultrahigh vacuum conditions has received much attention in the last decade (Nat. Chem. 9, 563-570 (2017), Nat. Mater. 19, 874-880 (2020)). Nevertheless, these approaches have remained limited to making microcrystalline products with domain sizes up to dozens of nanometers. Therefore, the synthesis of single-crystalline 2DPs and 2D COFs via irreversible reactions constitutes an immense challenge.

Figure (a) Structure of C2DP with a square lattice (a = b = 30.5 Å). Inset, Optical microscopy image of C2DP film. (b) Aberration Corrected High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (AC-HRTEM) image of C2DP acquired with a total electron dose of 70 e- Å-2. (c) C2DP-based osmotic power generation under salinity gradient.

The researchers from Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Renhao Dong’s group recently reported the synthesis of few-layer, large-area, single-crystalline cationic 2DPs (C2DPs) through an irreversible Katritzky reaction on the water surface. Probing the interfacial ring-transmutation polymerization mechanism by theoretical calculation and model reaction, unveils that manipulating pH in ring opening and ring closure steps controls the reaction kinetics toward the C2DP structures. As a consequence, the researchers demonstrate the synthesis of C2DP single crystals by irreversible reactions under kinetic control. Representatively, the C2DP single crystals display a tunable thickness of ~ 2-30 nm, and a lateral size up to 120 µm2, which is far beyond the thus-far reported 2DPs and 2D COFs synthesized by the irreversible bonds. The crystal structure with the atomic precision is resolved by imaging and diffraction methods, revealing a highly uniform square-patterned structure with the in-plane lattice of a = b = 30.5 Å. The positively-charged framework is counterbalanced by BF4- ions and is characterized by spectroscopy and single-crystal analysis of a representative example.

Significantly, the C2DP crystals with cationic polymer skeleton and columnar-like pore arrays offer a high chloride ion selectivity with a coefficient up to 0.9, thus ensuring the integration as the anion-selective membrane for the osmotic energy generation. As a result, an output power density as high as 4.0 W m-2 is achieved which outperforms the state-of-art 2D materials such as graphene and boron nitride. These achievements reveal a route for synthesizing 2DP and 2D COF single crystals using a kinetically-controlled irreversible reaction, and will spark further efforts to rationally design crystalline 2DPs with charged backbones towards osmotic power generation.

Reference: Zhiyong Wang, Zhen Zhang, Haoyuan Qi, Andres Ortega-Guerrero, Lihuan Wang, Kun Xu, Mingchao Wang, SangWook Park, Felix Hennersdorf, Arezoo Dianat, Alexander Croy, Hartmut Komber, Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Jan J. Weigand, Ute Kaiser, Renhao Dong, and Xinliang Feng, On-water surface synthesis of charged two-dimensional polymer single crystals via the irreversible Katritzky reaction, Nature Synthesis, 2022, DOI: 10.1038/s44160-021-00001-4.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-021-00001-4

Acknowledgments: This work is financially supported by EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore3, No. 881603), ERC starting grant (FC2DMOF, No. 852909), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP), DFG project (2D polyanilines, No. 426572620), Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), H2020-FETOPEN (PROGENY, 899205), CRC 1415 (Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials, No. 417590517), SPP 2244 (2DMP), as well as the German Science Council and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden. Z. W. gratefully acknowledges funding from China Scholarship Council. The authors acknowledge Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden and Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis at TUD and Dr. Petr Formanek, Prof. Andreas Fery for the use of TEM facility at IPF.

Virtual Workshop on Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures on January 20 - 21, 2022 / Celebration of the 75th Birthday of Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen

December 6, 2021

The chair of Prof. Xinliang Feng at TU Dresden is organizing a virtual workshop on Advances in Precision Carbon Nanostructures from January 20 - 21, 2022. The workshop is being organized to celebrate the 75th Birthday of Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen.

For further information go to: Workshop Announcement.

Congratulations to Xia Wang for successfully defending her PhD

December 4, 2021

Xia Wang successfully defended her PhD on "Developing Advanced Oxygen Electrocatalysts for Zinc-Air Batteries: from Morphology Control to Electronic Structure Manipulation” on December 2, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Wang!

Dr. Jinxin Liu received the prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers

December 4, 2021

The Humboldt Research Fellowship is awarded to researchers from abroad with above average qualifications and who are at the beginning of their career. By being granted this fellowship, Dr. Jinxin Liu, will receive financial support for two years to carry out his research in the research group of Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Renhao Dong at Technische Universität Dresden.

2021 USERN Prize awarded to Dr. Minghao Yu at USERN Congress in Istanbul

December 3, 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Minghao Yu for the honor to be selected as the 2021 USERN Laureate in the field of physical and chemical sciences for his outstanding and innovative research ‘Developing sustainable energy storage devices with resource-abundant raw materials’.

Purposing on acknowledging junior scientists for all their efforts and achievements and encouraging them to proceed with their goals, the Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN) was established in 2015. The USERN Prize is awarded to junior scientists and researchers less than 40 years of age who has conducted novel research, educational, or humanity service program or proposed a novel theory proceeded with a scientific approach. Over 10,000 eligible candidates have been nominated for USERN Prize 2021 in 5 major fields of science: Formal Sciences, Physical and Chemical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences. The applications have been carefully reviewed and scored by more than 100 top 1% well-known scientists. Finally, five USERN Laureates have been selected. The USERN Award includes USERN Prize Statuette, USERN Medal, 2,000 USD cash award, up to 1,000 USD Travel Grant, an honorary advisory board of USERN for 3 years, and 2,000 USD USERN Grant for the establishment of an active interest group in USERN. The prize-awarding festival took place on November 10, 2021, in Istanbul, Turkey.

A special collection on 2D Congratulations to Zhiyong Wang for successfully defending his PhD

November 30, 2021

The guest editors Dan Zhao and Xinliang Feng provided a brief overview of the field and highlight the state-of-the-art contributions featured in this special collection. The field of 2D materials and their applications has exploded since 2004, when graphene was successfully prepared by Geim, Novoselov and co-workers.1 In the subsequent decade-and-a-half, the scientific community has shown great enthusiasm for studying graphene and graphene-analogous 2D materials, including the transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), black phosphorus (BP), MXenes, silicene, etc.2 Very recently, organic 2D crystalline materials such as single- to few-layer 2D metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)3, 2D polymers4 and 2D covalent organic frameworks (COFs)5 with large surface areas, diverse functionalities, and high chemical stabilities have been regarded as an emerging member of the family of 2D materials. The availability of these 2D materials has also experienced an impressive growth over the past decade that finds a prolific manifestation in numerous applications, including sensors, opto-electronics, chemical separations, drug-delivery systems, and other energy and environmentally related applications.


Guest editors Prof. Dan Zhao and Prof. Xinliang Feng @Chemistry-An Asian Journal

Despite the exciting achievements in the field of 2D materials and their applications, challenges still exist. The studies on emerging 2D materials and their van der Waals layer-stacked structures such as graphdiyne, 2D MOFs, 2D COFs, and their applications are still in the infant stage. Large-scale production of 2D materials with high quality and controlled structures has yet to be realized for ultimate industrialization. Furthermore, the precise manipulation of thicknesses, functionalities, topologies, crystal phases, and lateral sizes of 2D materials is still challenging. Commercializing 2D materials will be a major milestone, and we still need to contribute ongoing efforts to achieve this goal. Targeting at these goals, here, we are greatly honored to assemble a compendium of the latest studies on 2D materials and their applications, covering a wide array of topics.

The articles selected in this collection have a multidisciplinary nature and include contributions of more than twenty research groups, whose research ranges from the design, synthesis, and characterization of advanced 2D materials to their applications in various directions. Eight Minireviews present overviews on 2D graphdiyne, 2D MOFs, 2D COFs, silicate materials, and g-C3N4 in fascinating applications, including electrochemistry, electromagnetic shielding/absorbing, catalysis, supercapacitors, sensors, gas adsorption/separation, water pollution removal, energy conversion, and electrochromic switching. One Communication and twelve Full Papers report new research results on synthesizing advanced 2D MOFs, COFs, layered double hydroxides, MXenes, perovskites, and graphene oxide materials for membrane separations, adsorption, electrocatalysis, sodium-ion batteries, etc.

In summary, this special collection aims to provide the recent state-of-the-art progress in 2D materials and their applications. We strongly believe that the compilation of these excellent review and research articles covering broad topics related to 2D materials and their applications could benefit researchers in diverse fields. We hope this collection could provide the readers with some representative and exciting views regarding the new developments and applications of 2D materials. Toward this end, we would like to express our sincere gratitude toward the authors and the editorial staff for their great contributions to this special collection.

Reference: [1] K. S. Novoselov, A. K. Geim, S. V. Morozov, D. Jiang, Y. Zhang, S. V.Dubonos, I. V. Grigorieva, A. A. Firsov, Science 2004, 306, 666–669. [2] H. Zhang, Chem. Rev. 2018, 118, 6089–6090. [3] M. T. Zhao, Y. Huang, Y. W. Peng, Z. Q. Huang, Q. L. Ma, H. Zhang, Chem. Soc. Rev. 2018, 47, 6267–6295. [4] K. J. Liu, H. Y. Qi, R. H. Dong, R. Shivhare, M. Addicoat, T. Zhang, H. Sahabudeen, T. Heine, S. Mannsfeld, U. Kaiser, Z. K. Zheng, X. L. Feng, Nat. Chem. 2019, 11, 994–1000. [5] D. Rodriguez-San-Miguel, C. Montoro, F. Zamora, Chem. Soc. Rev. 2020, 49, 2291–2302.  doi.org/10.1002/asia.202101283

Congratulations to Zhiyong Wang for successfully defending his PhD

November 26, 2021

Zhiyong Wang successfully defended his PhD on “On-Water Surface Synthesis of Two-Dimensional Organic Framework Films Enabling Effective Ion/Charge Transport” on November 25, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Wang!

Highly Cited Researcher 2021

November 23, 2021

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has been listed as highly cited researcher in 2021 - in the categories Chemistry and Material Science.

Dr. Minghao Yu, research group leader in Prof. Feng's group, has been listed as well as highly cited researcher in 2021 in the category Materials Science.

Former colleagues in the group of Prof. Feng, Dr. Yang Hou and Dr. Xiaodong Zhuang, are also among the highly cited researchers in 2021 in the Cross-Field category.

https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/

Renhao Dong has been invited to become a member of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE)

November 8, 2021

The Board of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) has unanimously agreed to invite Dr. Renhao Dong to become a member.

The YAE is a pan-European initiative which supports outstanding young scientists and scholars in regards to e.g. networking and scientific exchange. Since 2019 it is a registered charity organization.

Fore more information go to: https://yacadeuro.org/

Chemist Lei Fang from Texax A&M University received the Humboldt Research Fellowship and plans to visit TU Dresden in 2022

October 27, 2021

Associate Professor Lei Fang from Texax A&M University received the prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers in support of his research on conjugated polymers and novel organic materials with unprecedented electronic or optical properties and application.

Lei Fang plans to visit TU Dresden and the chair of Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng in February 2022. During his visit he will collaborate with Prof. Feng and his group on the synthesis and application of graphene nanoribbons and porous graphitic carbon.

Fore more information on Lei Fang and his Humboldt Research Fellowship, go to https://science.tamu.edu/news/2021/05/texas-am-chemist-lei-fang-honored-with-humboldt-research-fellowship/.

Viologen-Immobilized 2D Polymer Film Enabling Highly Efficient Electrochromic Device for Solar-Powered Smart Window

October 27, 2021

Two-dimensional polymers (2DPs) and their layer-stacked 2D covalent organic frameworks (2D COFs) are an emerging class of organic layered materials with well-defined permanent porosity. Thanks to their tailor-made structures and properties, these porous crystalline polymers have exhibited the potential for broad functions in optoelectronics, membrane, catalysis, and energy storage and conversion. Recent advances have demonstrated that 2D COFs integrated with color-switching, redox-active units such as triphenylamine in the backbones could present reversible color switching and are, therefore, excellent candidates for electrochromic devices (ECDs). Nevertheless, these 2D COF-based ECDs have not unleashed their full potential to display high coloration efficiency (CE) (while few examples could reach over 800 cm2 C−1) due to the random stacking of crystallites and the presence of amorphous defects that lead to restricted ion diffusion. In this regard, achieving related materials with highly ordered and oriented columnar-like pores could provide a large interface area with the electrolyte, high utilization of built-in color-switching components, and fast ion diffusion, which are crucial for realizing a quick and efficient EC switching.

The researchers from Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group recently demonstrated the high-performance ECDs with a fully crystalline viologen-immobilized 2D polymer (V2DP) thin film as the color-switching layer. The high density of vertically oriented pore channels (pore size ≈ 4.5 nm; pore density ≈ 5.8 × 1016 m-2) in the synthetic V2DP film enables high utilization of redox-active viologen moieties and benefits for Li+ ion diffusion/transport. As a result, the as-fabricated ECDs achieve a rapid switching speed (coloration, 2.8 s; bleaching, 1.2 s), and a high CE (989 cm2 C-1), and low energy consumption (21.1 µW cm-2). Moreover, it is managed to fabricate transmission-tunable, self-sustainable EC window prototypes by vertically integrating the V2DP ECDs with transparent solar cells. This work sheds light on designing electroactive 2D polymers with molecular precision for optoelectronics and paves a practical route toward developing self-powered EC windows to offset the electricity consumption of buildings.

Reference: Zhiyong Wang, Xiangkun Jia, Panpan Zhang, Yannan Liu, Haoyuan Qi, Peng Zhang, Ute Kaiser, Sebastian Reineke, Renhao Dong, Xinliang Feng, Viologen-Immobilized 2D Polymer Film Enabling Highly Efficient Electrochromic Device for Solar-Powered Smart Window, Adv. Mater. 2021, 2106073. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202106073

Acknowledgments: This work was financially supported by EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore3, No. 881603), ERC starting grant (FC2DMOF, No. 852909), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP), Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), H2020-FETOPEN (PROGENY, 899205), CRC 1415 (Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials, No. 417590517), as well as the German Science Council and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed). R.D. thanks Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province (tsqn201909047). Z.W. and X.J. gratefully acknowledge funding from China Scholarship Council. The authors acknowledge the Centre for High Performance Computing (ZIH) in Dresden, Germany, and the support of computational calculation from Chenghao Liu in Mcgill University, Canada.

A Modular Cascade Synthetic Strategy Toward Structurally Constrained Boron-doped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

October 15, 2021

Boron incorporation has attracted great interest in the last decade due to its excellent ability to modify the optoelectronic properties of PAHs, e.g., to provide the resulting systems with intense luminescence, high electron deficiency, strong Lewis acidity, and bestowing the resultant compounds with unique supramolecular behavior. Compared with the benchtop-stable boron doped PAHs (B-PAHs) obtained by applying electronic/kinetic stabilization approach, structurally constrained B-PAHs (sc-B-PAHs) stabilized by chelating effect are expected to enable tight intermolecular packing and enhance the intermolecular interaction in the solid state, therefore improving the charge carrier transport properties. Moreover, sc-B-PAHs are capable of forming Lewis acid-base complexes which can undergo photodissociation in the excited state, giving a dual fluorescence emission. Nevertheless, the related studies on sc-B-PAHs are relatively rare due to the limited synthetic approaches.

The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng recently developed a novel synthetic strategy for the construction of difficult-to-access sc-B-PAHs via a cascade reaction from the readily available ortho-aryl-substituted diarylalkynes. This domino process features simplicity and a broad substrate scope. Not only sc-B-PAHs with B-doped [4]helicene structure but also specific BN-doped [4]helicene/double-[4]helicene can be constructed by this approach. Noteworthily, the resultant BN-doped [4]helicene demonstrate distinct supramolecular behavior in the solid state, e.g. mono [4]helicene 1o forms a unique π-stacked dimer and adopts helical columnar stacking, while double [4]helicene 1u establishes an unprecedented π-stacked trimeric structure with a 2D lamellar π-stacking. The presented strategy thus provides a new pathway for the development of novel sc-B-PAHs and expanded B-doped graphene nanostructures.

Reference: Jin-Jiang Zhang, Lin Yang, Fupin Liu, Yubin Fu, Junzhi Liu, Alexey A. Popov, Ji Ma, Xinliang Feng. A Modular Cascade Synthetic Strategy Toward Structurally Constrained Boron-doped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202109840.

Acknowledgments: This research was financially supported by the EU Graphene Flagship (Graphene Core 3, 881603), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, 819698), the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and DFG-NSFC Joint Sino-German Research Project (EnhanceNano, No. 391979941), as well as the DFG-SNSF Joint Switzerland-German Research Project (EnhanTopo, No. 429265950). The authors acknowledge the use of computational facilities at the Center for information services and high performance computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden. Diffraction data have been collected on BL14.2 at the BESSY II electron storage ring operated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, we thank Dr. Manfred Weiss and his team for assistance during the experiment.

New modular research building handed over to TUD and users

October 14, 2021

It consists of 33 prefabricated room cells and was realized by the TU Dresden on its own in only ten months of construction time: the new modular research building on Stadtgutstraße 59. On 1,200 square meters, about 45 researchers of the professorship for Molecular Functional Materials of Xinliang Feng, which is integrated in the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), as well as of the Cluster of Excellence Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (ct. qmat) have perfect conditions for their research on the materials of the future, which ranges from 2-dimensional layered compounds with atomic thickness to materials with topological quantum phenomena. The ceremonial handover of this innovative high-tech building to its users has now taken place on October 14, 2021.

@TU Dresden/Eric Münch

At the ceremonial handover of the building, Science Minister Sebastian Gemkow said: "The speed of the construction work, as well as the modular and flexible design, fits perfectly with the vigorous development of research activities at TU Dresden. In recent years, we have succeeded in attracting a large number of highly ambitious research projects, to which we had to respond promptly with more space and optimal working conditions. I congratulate you today on this successful modular building, which, with its modern and reduced exterior, can serve as a benchmark for future research buildings."

@TU Dresden/Eric Münch

"With this first building project of our own, we have broken new ground. We have created a research building here that gives us the flexibility we need to strengthen research and teaching in the long term and has proven to be a time-efficient and cost-effective alternative to government construction. The idea behind this in-house construction measure was that we have reserves of research space that can then be accessed very quickly when needed," explains the Rector of TU Dresden, Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger. "This is because the pace of growth of our research groups based on their great success with third-party funding is usually far ahead of the construction of such research space and therefore presents the university with very great challenges. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the successful implementation of this first construction measure of the TU Dresden as a building owner - an example that points the way for the future!"

Observation of fractional edge excitations in nanographene spin chains

October 13, 2021

Recently, researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng (TU Dresden, MPI Halle, Germany) in collaboration with the scientists from Switzerland, Portugal and Spain have succeeded in building carbon-based quantum spin chains, where they captured the emergence of one of the cornerstone models of quantum magnetism first proposed by the 2016 Nobel laureate F. D. M. Haldane in 1983. Published in the journal Nature, the results could have widespread implications in the understanding of low-dimensional quantum magnetism and may contribute toward the emerging field of quantum computation.

We are all used to the idea that simpler units in nature interact to form complex structures. Take for example the hierarchy of life, where atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form cells, cells combine to form tissues, and so on, ultimately leading to the formation of complex organisms such as humans. However, in the quantum world this process may play in reverse, where interactions between two complex objects leads to the emergence of simpler species.

Artistic rendering of a triangulene quantum spin chain adsorbed on a gold surface and probed with the sharp tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. While each triangulene unit has a total spin of 1, quantum correlations in the chain lead to spin fractionalization, such that the terminal triangulene units exhibit a spin of ½.

Picture: Artistic rendering of a triangulene quantum spin chain adsorbed on a gold surface and probed with the sharp tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. While each triangulene unit has a total spin of 1, quantum correlations in the chain lead to spin fractionalization, such that the terminal triangulene units exhibit a spin of ½.

Quantum magic: sawing quantum magnets in half

All elementary particles have a ‘spin’, a fundamental property that governs their interaction with magnetic fields. Spins are quantized, which means they can only assume discrete values. Electrons have the smallest possible spin that can take two discrete values while the next simplest systems are those whose spin takes three discrete values – these are dubbed spin-½ and spin-1, respectively. In the 1980s, it was predicted that a one-dimensional chain of interacting spin-1 units should be ‘fractionalized’, such that the terminal units of the chain behave like spin-½ objects. Therefore, much like magicians who seem to saw a person in two halves and put them apart, quantum correlations in the chain divide a spin-1 in two spin-½ entities.

One dimensional magnetic chains assembled from molecules

Testing this prediction in a laboratory has been challenging for various reasons, chief among being that conventional materials are not one-dimensional. While indirect evidence of spin fractionalization has been seen in crystals of organometallic chains containing transition metal ions, a direct observation of the phenomenon has remained elusive.

Now, an international team of researchers has found a remarkable route to accomplish this feat. The team composed of organic chemists and local probe scientists fabricated chains of a [3]triangulene with spin 1. Using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) the Empa-team then probed magnetic excitations of these chains on a gold surface. They found that beyond a certain length, the terminal triangulene units of the chains exhibited Kondo resonances – which are a characteristic spectroscopic fingerprint of spin-½ quantum objects in contact with a metal surface, as also evidenced by theoreticians.

Picture Left: Overview STM of a sample containing triangulene quantum spin chains, where chains containing between two to seven triangulene units are highlighted. Picture Right: High-resolution STM of a ten unit-long spin chain. The chemical structure of [3]triangulene is shown in the inset, where the blue arrows denote a spin-1 interaction between the unpaired electrons.

From chains to networks - and to quantum computers?

The researchers are convinced that such directly accessible molecular systems, which exhibit strongly correlated behavior of electrons, should become a fertile playground for testing new theoretical concepts. After exploring linear spin chains, the scientists will proceed to researching two-dimensional networks of quantum magnets. Such spin networks could possibly be used for quantum computing.

Reference: Shantanu Mishra, Gonçalo Catarina, Fupeng Wu, Ricardo Ortiz, David Jacob, Kristjan Eimre, Ji Ma, Carlo A. Pignedoli, Xinliang Feng*, Pascal Ruffieux*, Joaquín Fernández-Rossier* and Roman Fasel “Observation of fractional edge excitations in nanographene spin chains” Nature, 2021, doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03842-3

Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant numbers 200020-182015 and IZLCZ2-170184), the NCCR MARVEL funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 51NF40-182892), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant number 881603, Graphene Flagship Core 3), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-18-1-2708), ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP, grant number 819698), the German Research Foundation within the Cluster of Excellence Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and EnhanceNano (grant number 391979941), the Basque Government (Grant No. IT1249-19), the Generalitat Valenciana (Prometeo2017/139), the Spanish Government (Grant PID2019-109539GB-C41), and the Portuguese FCT (grant number SFRH/BD/138806/2018). Computational support from the Swiss Supercomputing Center (CSCS) under project ID s904 is gratefully acknowledged.

CSC-Award granted to Dr. Mingchao Wang and Dr. Shunqi Xu

October 7, 2021

Mingchao Wang and Shunqi Xu, postdoctoral researchers in the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials at TU Dresden, were selected to receive the "2020 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad" by the China Scholarship Council. Congratulations!

Dr. Wang received his doctorate degree from Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group at TU Dresden in January 2021. His PhD study focused on the Phthalocyanine-Based Two-Dimensional Carbon-Rich Conjugated Frameworks.

Dr. Xu received his doctorate degree from Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group at TU Dresden in December 2020. His PhD study focused on the Cyano-substituted Two-dimensional Sp2-carbon-linked Conjugated Polymers.

This award recognizes their work for their PhD at Prof. Feng’s group.

The Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad was established by the China Scholarship Council in 2003 and aims at rewarding the academic excellence of self-financed Chinese students studying overseas. It is considered to be the highest award given by the Chinese government to graduate students studying aboard. Only those with outstanding performance in their PhD studies will be considered by the award panel and no more than 500 young talents will be granted the award each year all over the world.

Molecularly Engineered Black Phosphorus Heterostructures with Improved Ambient Stability and Enhanced Charge Carrier Mobility

September 24, 2021

Black phosphorus (BP) is an attractive layered semiconductor owing to a widely tunable bandgap (from 0.3 eV in bulk to 2 eV in the monolayer), inherent in-plane anisotropy, appealing charge-carrier mobility (1000 cm2 V-1 s-1) as well as a broadband absorption from visible to mid-infrared range. All these features enable broad applications of BP in many fields, such as field-effect transistors (FETs), optoelectronic devices, energy conversion, energy devices. However, BP is highly vulnerable to oxygen and moisture due to abundant lone pair electrons at the BP surface. To address this problem, various chemical functionalization methods have been implemented to protect the BP sheets from oxidation. For example, covalent functionalization is an effective method to protect the topological structure of BP sheets. However, this strategy directly break P-P bonds thus largely compromise BP’ electronic properties. In contrast, non-covalent functionalization can preserve or modify the intrinsic properties of BP sheets to a large extent. However, it is generally less effective to regulate electronic properties of BP because of the weak interfacial coupling.

The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng in collaboration with the group of Prof. Mischa Bonn (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research) and Dr. Hai I. Wang (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research) demonstrate an organic–inorganic hybrid heterostructure to enhance the stability of BP sheets and to tune simultaneously their electronic properties using hexaazatriphenylene derivatives (HATs). As electron acceptors, HATs can withdraw lone pair electrons from P atoms, resulting in a strong charge transfer from BP surface to HAT layer and leading to an improved ambient stability of BP/HATs sheets for up to 21 d. THz spectroscopic studies reveal that HATs substantially extend the scattering time of BP/HATs and yield a charge carrier mobility of 97 cm2 V-1 s-1 for BP/HATs film, which is much higher than that of the pristine BP film (35 cm2 V-1 s-1). The strategy opens up new avenues for versatile applications of BP sheets and provides an effective method for tuning the physicochemical properties of other air-sensitive 2D semiconductors.

Reference: Huanhuan Shi, Shuai Fu, Yannan Liu, Christof Neumann, Mingchao Wang, Haiyun Dong, Piotr Kot, Mischa Bonn, Hai I. Wang, Andrey Turchanin, Oliver G. Schmidt, Ali Shaygan Nia, Sheng Yang, Xinliang Feng. Molecularly Engineered Black Phosphorus Heterostructures with Improved Ambient Stability and Enhanced Charge Carrier Mobility, Adv. Mater. 2021, 2105694,

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202105694

Acknowledgments: This work was financially supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MX-OSMOPED project), ERC Consolidator Grant on T2DCP, M-ERA-NET project HYSUCAP, SPES3 project funded by German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) under Forschung für neue Mikroelektronik (ForMikro) program and GrapheneCore3 881603. The authors thank Dr. Panpan Zhang, Dr. Zaichun Liu, Dr. Libo Ma, Dr. Kejun Liu, Dr. Haoyuan Qi, Dr. Zhen Zhang, and Dr. Markus Löffler for helpful discussions and characterization, and also acknowledge the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN). Y.L. also acknowledges the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) in Dresden, Germany, for the provided computational resources. In addition, the authors acknowledge the support of computational calculations from Chenghao Liu in McGill University, Canada. H.S. and S.F. thank China Scholarship Council (CSC) for financial support. C.N. and A.T. acknowledge the financial support by FLAG-ERA “H2O” Project (DFG TU149/9-1) and SPP 2244 “2DMP” (DFG TU149/13-1).

NBN-Doped Bis-Tetracene and Peri-Tetracene: Synthesis and Characterization

September 14, 2021

The zigzag-edge rich polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as bis-tetracene and peri-tetracene, have attracted increasing attention due to their unique electronic and magnetic properties. However, the instability of bis-tetracene and peri-tetracene caused by the open-shell character limits their further investigations. Thus far, two main strategies, sterically blocking the most reactive position (kinetic stabilization) and heteroatom doping (thermodynamic stabilization), have been established to synthesize stable zigzag-edged higher acenes. Specifically, the introduction of heteroatoms such as boron (B) or nitrogen (N) on the zigzag edges, not only provides access to stable heteroatom-doped acenes but also offers the possibility to tune their electronic structures.

The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng in collaboration with the group of Prof. Hong-Jun Gao (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Dr. Junzhi Liu (The University of Hong Kong) recently demonstrated the synthesis of NBN-doped bis-tetracene (NBN-BT) and peri-tetracene (NBN-PT) through combining solution-based and surface-assisted synthesis methods. Based on the high-resolution STM characterization, NBN-BT adopts a double-helical structure, while NBN-PT displays planar geometry, in which the atomically resolved structure of NBN-PT is further unveiled by nc-AFM characterization. Compared with their carbon-based analogs bis-tetracene (1.56 eV) and peri-tetracene (1.11 eV), the NBN-BT (2.48 eV) and NBN-PT (2.45 eV) exhibit excellent stability under ambient conditions, which is associated with their higher energy gap. Notably, through controlled continuous single-electron chemical or electrochemical oxidation, NBN-BT can be converted into its corresponding radical cation (0.88 eV) and further to dication (1.24 eV), which demonstrates a similar energy gap to its isoelectronic structure bis-tetracene (1.56 eV). This work opens up a new avenue for the synthesis of stable zigzag-edged nanographenes with multi-NBN units and paves the way for investigating the isoelectronic structures of pristine carbon-based zigzag-edged acenes.

Reference: Yubin Fu, Xiao Chang, Huan Yang, Evgenia Dmitrieva, Yixuan Gao, Ji Ma, Li Huang, Junzhi Liu, Hongliang Lu, Zhihai Cheng, Shixuan Du, Hong-Jun Gao, Xinliang Feng. NBN-Doped Bis-Tetracene and Peri-Tetracene: Synthesis and Characterization. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.202109808

Acknowledgments: This work was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 (No 881603 Graphene Flagship Core3, No 813036 Marie Skłodowska-Curie), ERC Grant on T2DCP, German DFG (Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and DFG-NSFC Joint Sino-German Research Project (EnhanceNano, No. 391979941), as well as the DFG-SNSF Joint Switzerland-German Research Project (EnhanTopo, No. 429265950). J. Liu is grateful for the funding support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (HKU 27301720) and ITC to the SKL. We thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61888102, and 61674045), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of China (No. 2019YFA0308500), as well as the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDB30000000). We thank the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden for generous allocations of compute resources.

CRC 1415 Summer School  “Conductive Metal–Organic Frameworks - From Synthesis to Functions”

September 8, 2021

During the period from September 6 - 8 2021, the Priority Program (PP) 1928 "Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems - COORNETs", Technische Universität München, the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials and the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1415 "Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials" hosted the virtual Summer School "Conductive Metal-Organic Frameworks - From Synthesis to Functions". The in total 81 participants joined lectures by renowned scientists with focus on the synthesis, characterization and application of conductive metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). In addition, the poster presentations promoted the scientific exchange on further research topics and provided an ideal platform for networking for all participants.

We thank all Summer School participants for their contributions!

Interfacial Synthesis of Layer-Oriented 2D Conjugated Metal–Organic Framework Films toward Directional Charge Transport

August 26, 2021

Two-dimensional conjugated metal-organic frameworks (2D c-MOFs) have emerged as a unique class of electronic materials, because they displayed the potential as active layers for electronic devices due to high conductivities (up to 2500 S cm-1) and high carrier mobilities (up to 220 cm2 V-1 s-1) with band-like transport property as well as tunable electronic structures. In the previous reports, a great effort was devoted to exploring electronic properties via the intralayer (basal plane) pathway because it was believed that the high conductivity of 2D c-MOFs depended critically on the full π-electron delocalization in the 2D conjugated plane. However, recent advances demonstrated that long-range charge transport in these layer-stacked framework materials could be primarily mediated via π–π stacking order. Therefore, controlled synthesis of layer-oriented 2D c-MOF films will be highly desirable to direct the charge transport along the interlayer or intralayer pathways and dial-in lateral/vertical electronic devices as well as further unveil the transport mechanism. Nevertheless, such investigations have never been addressed so far due to the challenge in controlling the stacking orientation of 2D c-MOFs in thin films.

The researchers from Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Renhao Dong’s group recently presents the first demonstration of synthesizing unprecedented edge-on layer-orientated p-type semiconducting 2D c-MOF films (Cu2[PcM-O8], M=Cu, Fe) by combining supramolecular chemistry and interface-assisted polymerization. They figure out the crystal structure and orientations of the 2D c-MOFs films with molecular precision, and demonstrate that the edge-on structure formation is guided by the pre-organization of metal-phthalocyanine ligands, whose basal plane is perpendicular to the water surface due to their π-π interaction and hydrophobicity. The synthetic Cu2[PcCu-O8] film features with a thickness of ~20 nm and ~600 nm-sized crystal domains, and exhibits a room temperature conductivity of ~5.6×10-4 S cm-1 and a Hall mobility of ~4.4 cm2 V-1 s-1 based on macroscopic van der Pauw pattern. Lateral and vertical measurements further reveal the directional charge transport feature in this edge-on 2D c-MOF film, i.e., the lateral conductivity is 2~3 orders of magnitude higher than the vertical one. The directional conductivity studies combined with theoretical calculation identify that the intrinsic conductivity of Cu2[PcCu-O8] is dominated by charge transfer along the interlayer pathway.

Reference: Z. Wang, L. S. Walter, M. Wang, P. S. Petkov, B. Liang, H. Qi, N. N. Nguyen, M. Hambsch, H. Zhong, M. Wang, S. Park, L. Renn, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, S. C. B. Mannsfeld, T. Heine, U. Kaiser, S. Zhou, R. T. Weitz, X. Feng, R. Dong, Interfacial Synthesis of Layer-Oriented 2D Conjugated Metal–Organic Framework Films toward Directional Charge Transport, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c05051

Acknowledgments: This work is financially supported by EU Graphene Flagship (Core3, No. 881603), ERC starting grant (FC2DMOF, No. 852909), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP), DFG projects (SFB-1415, No. 417590517, SPP 1928, WE 4893/6-1, COORNET), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), as well as the German Science Council and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed). Z.W. gratefully acknowledges funding from the China Scholarship Council. R.T.W. acknowledges funding from the Center for Nanoscience (CeNS) and the Solar Technologies go Hybrid (SolTech) initiative as well as funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy-EXC-2111-390814868 (MCQST) and EXC 2089/1-390776260 (e-conversion). K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the MEXT, Japan, A3 Foresight by JSPS, and the CREST (JPMJCR15F3), JST. K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the EMEXT Element Strategy Initiative to Form Core Research Center, Grant Number JPMXP0112101001 and the CREST (JPMJCR15F3), JST. P.S.P. and T.H. thank ZIH Dresden for providing high-performance computing facilities. We acknowledge Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste for providing access to its synchrotron radiation facilities and we thank Luisa Barba for assistance in using beamline XRD1. The research leading to this result has been supported by the project CALIPSOplus under Grant Agreement 730872 from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation HORIZON 2020.

Guest Visit Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen

August 17, 2021

Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen visited the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1415 from 15th August 2021 to 17th August 2021. A number of principal investigators as well as numerous doctoral students took the opportunity to exchange scientific ideas with Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen in individual discussions and group meetings.

We deeply thank Prof. Dr. Klaus Müllen for his visit!

COORNET Summer School

August 3, 2021

The program will be directed primarily at PhD students (and advanced Master students) working in the respective COORNETs groups.

Title: Conductive Metal–Organic Frameworks - From Synthesis to Functions

Dates: 6th-8th of September 2021

Location: Online via Zoom

Capacity: ~30 people in person, first come first served basis, please register as soon as possible to ensure your spot!

Program (preliminary):

Lecture/workshop series focusing on conductive MOFs (see attached abstract). We are working on a very exciting speaker list!Networking and poster sessions. This will give the PhD students the chance to get in touch and exchange research topics. Note there is no topic restriction to conductive MOFs here.

Registration: Please send an email to coornets@tum.de with the following details: Name, University, Chair, Contact Email, Attending in person (yes/no). Please only register if you are sure you can attend. Priority (in case of overbooking) will be given to students attending in person.  

Fees: All costs will be covered by COORNETs (school program, accommodation, travel).

Corona: While the current situation is promising we will monitor the rules and regulations closely and all planning will be subject to the situation/legislation at the time of the workshop.

Organizers:

Dr. Philip Stanley (TUM)

Dr. Renhao Dong (TUD)

Online Guest lecture - Dr. Holger Meyerheim, Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle

July 26, 2021

Speaker: Dr. Holger Meyerheim, MPI Halle

Date/Time: Friday, July 30, 2021, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Online via Zoom

Topic: “X-ray diffraction for the study of ultra-thin organic and inorganic films

Online Guest lecture - Prof. Chunyi Zhi, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, China

July 16, 2021

Speaker: Prof. Chunyi Zhi, City University of Hong Kong, China

Date/Time: Friday, July 15, 2021, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Online via Zoom

Topic: “Aqueous battery for large-scale energy storage: towards both high energy density and superior safety

Dual Active Sites Conjugated Acetylenic Polymers for Photoelectrochemical Water Reduction in Alkaline Medium

July 15, 2021

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is a promising technology for hydrogen production combining the inexhaustible solar energy and the electrolysis of water. A variety of inorganic materials including inorganic metal oxides, transition-metal dichalcogenides and metal sulphides have been reported as photocathodes materials; however, their need of co-catalysts, the high costs and the photocorrosion have been hindered their practical application.
Synthetic organic materials are emerging as an interesting class of photocathodes due to their intrinsic advantages over the inorganic counterparts. These include the broader absorption of the solar spectrum, the molecular tunability of band gaps and energy levels positions and the facile synthesis. So far, they have only been reported under acidic or neutral conditions, facilitated by the high concentration of protons; in alkaline medium, on the other hand, they still show poor performance due to the lack of water dissociation sites, which are needed to produce the required protons.
The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng in collaboration with the group of prof. Inez Weidinger (TU Dresden) overcame this issue in the work Thiophene-based Conjugated Acetylenic Polymers with Dual Active Sites for Efficient Co-Catalyst-free Photoelectrochemical Water Reduction in Alkaline Medium, recently published in Angewandte Chemie.
Using a molecular engineering strategy, highly efficient active sites for water dissociation were incorporated in conjugated acetylenic polymers (CAPs) by modifying the polymer skeleton from poly(diethynylthieno[3,2-b]thiophene) (pDET) to poly(2,6-diethynylbenzo[1,2-b:4,5-b’]dithiophene (pBDT) and poly(diethynyldithieno[3,2-b:2’,3’-d]thiophene) (pDTT).
The as-synthesized pDTT and pBDT grown on Cu substrate demonstrated benchmark photocurrent densities of 170 mAcm-2 and 120 mAcm-2 (at 0.3 V vs. RHE; pH 13), which are 4.2 and 3 times higher than that of pDET.
Density Functional Theory (DFT) and electrochemical-operando resonance Raman spectroscopy reported that the Cβ of the outer thiophene rings are the water dissociation active sites, while the diacetylenic linkages function as electrocatalytic active sites. These findings will pave the way to design new and more efficient photocathodes.

Reference: Borrelli, C. J. Querebillo, D. L. Pastoetter, T. Wang, A. Milani, C. Casari, H. K. Ly, F. He, Y. Hou, C. Neumann, A. Turchanin, H. Sun, I. M. Weidinger, X. Feng, Thiophene-based Conjugated Acetylenic Polymers with Dual Active Sites for Efficient Co-Catalyst-free Photoelectrochemical Water Reduction in Alkaline Medium, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, 60, 2–8, …/doi/10.1002/anie.202104469

Acknowledgments: This work was financially supported by the Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore3, No. 881603) and ERC Grant (T2DCP, No. 819698). We acknowledge the cfaed (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden) and the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TU Dresden. I.W. acknowledges the cluster of excellence UniSysCat (EXC 2008/1 -390540038). C.S. and A.M. acknowledge ERC Grant (CoG 2016 EspLORE, No. 724610). A.T. and C.N. acknowledge DFG TRR 234 “CataLight” (B7 and Z2) and research infrastructure grant INST 275/257‐1. M.B. thanks Dr. Tao Zhang, Huanhuan Shi, Dr. Markus Löffler (DCN), and Dr. Zhongquan Liao for preliminary characterization, Dr. Moritz Kuehnel and Dr. Uttam Gupta for preliminary measurements, Dr. Jian Zhang and Dr. Ahiud Morag for fruitful discussions and prof. Fabrizia Negri for preliminary calculations. C.J.Q. acknowledges Markus Göbel for his helpful suggestions.

Synthetic tuning of the quantum properties of open-shell radicaloids

July 13, 2021

Molecular compounds are emerging as appealing units for quantum computation and quantum technologies. For these purposes open-shell molecular radicaloids hold exceptional interest: they offer π-conjugated units with an unpaired electron ground state and they can be considered as atomically-precise pieces of graphene. The next frontier to improve the quantum performance is to determine structure-quantum properties relations, such as how the size of the extended π-systems affects the coherence properties, or how the molecular geometry and electron-nuclear interactions determine the coherence time, so as to channel the synthetic efforts towards blocking decoherence pathways.

The scientists from TU Dresden/Oxford university have established the links between morphology and quantum properties, using three related radicaloids (1, 2 and 3) based on meta-quinodimethane. The roles of the π-conjugated backbone and of the side groups on the spin-flip and quantum coherence times are unraveled. The temperature regions are identified, where different structural parts of the molecule or solvent become the dominant decoherence channel. The record quantum coherence values obtained at room temperature are still well below the intrinsic limits of radicaloids, and the researchers further discuss the directions to optimize the quantum performance. This fruitful work of the joint research has been now published in the renowned journal “Chem” as an article.

Acknowledgments: The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the EU Horizon 2020 (ERC-CoG-MMGNRs-773048 and ERC-CoGT2DCP-881603, Graphene Flagship Core3 813036, Marie-Curie program), Royal Society (RS grant and URF), EPSRC (grant no. EP/N509711/1, EP/R042594/1, and EP/L011972/1), German DFG (Cluster of Excellence ‘‘Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)’’) and EnhanceNano-391979941, the European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESFProject ‘‘GRAPHD,’’ TU Dresden).

Reference: Fedrico Lombardi, Ji Ma, Hartmut Komber, Dimitris I. Alexandropoulos, Junzhi Liu, William K. Myers, Xinliang Feng, Lapo Bogani, Synthetic Tuning the Quantum Properties of Open-shell Radicaloids, 2021, 7(5), 1363-1378.

Dual-Redox-Sites Enable Two-Dimensional Conjugated Metal–Organic Frameworks with Large Pseudocapacitance and Wide Potential Window

July 13, 2021

Advanced supercapacitor electrodes require the development of materials with dense redox-sites embedded into conductive and porous skeletons. Two-dimensional (2D) conjugated metal-organic frameworks (c-MOFs) are attractive supercapacitor electrode materials due to their high intrinsic electrical conductivities, large specific surface areas, and quasi-one-dimensional aligned pore arrays. However, the reported 2D c-MOFs still suffer from unsatisfying specific capacitances and narrow potential windows because large and redox-inactive building blocks lead to low redox-site densities of 2D c-MOFs.

The researchers from Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group recently demonstrated the dual-redox-site 2D c-MOFs with copper phthalocyanine building blocks linked by metal-bis(iminobenzosemiquinoid) (M2[CuPc(NH)8], M = Ni or Cu), which depict both large specific capacitances and wide potential windows. Experimental results accompanied by theoretical calculations verify that phthalocyanine monomers and metal-bis(iminobenzosemiquinoid) linkages serve as respective redox sites for pseudocapacitive cation (Na+) and anion (SO42-) storage, enabling the continuous Faradaic reactions of M2[CuPc(NH)8] occurring in a large potential window of −0.8 ~ 0.8 V vs. Ag/AgCl (3 M KCl). The decent conductivity (0.8 S m−1) and high active-site density further endow the Ni2[CuPc(NH)8] with a remarkable specific capacitance (400 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1) and excellent rate capability (183 F g−1 at 20 A g−1). Quasi-solid-state symmetric supercapacitors are further assembled to demonstrate the practical application of Ni2[CuPc(NH)8] electrode, which deliver a state-of-the-art energy density of 51.6 Wh kg−1 and a peak power density of 32.1 kW kg−1. This work provides insightful guidelines for exploring the multielectron Faradaic reactions in new porous framework materials, which will benefit the development of next-generation energy storage technologies.

Reference: Panpan Zhang, Mingchao Wang, Yannan Liu, Sheng Yang, Faxing Wang, Yang Li, Guangbo Chen, Zichao Li, Gang Wang, Minshen Zhu, Renhao Dong, Minghao Yu, Oliver G Schmidt, Xinliang Feng. Dual-Redox-Sites Enable Two-Dimensional Conjugated Metal–Organic Frameworks with Large Pseudocapacitance and Wide Potential Window. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.1c03039

Acknowledgments: This work was financially supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GrapheneCore3 881603), ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP 819698), ERC Starting grant (FC2DMOF, No. 852909), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MX‐OSMOPED), M-ERA.NET and Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HYSUCAP 100478697), German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence, CRC 1415 (grant no. 417590517), Polymer-based Batteries (SPP 2248, RACOF-MMIS), and Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP1928, COORNETs). We appreciate Dr. Mao Wang for the conductivity measurements and thank Dr. Yulia Krupskaya (IFW Dresden) for EPR measurement. We acknowledge the use of the facilities in Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis at Technische Universität Dresden. The authors thank the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden for generous allocations of computer time.

Press Trip Greentech City Dresden

July 8, 2021

The Chair of Molecular Functional Materials, Sixonia Tech GmbH and the Collaborative Research Centre 1415 were pleased to welcome Greentech City Dresden for a short visit on July 8, 2021. The visit of a total of 3 journalists (Sächsische Zeitung, Oiger, IntoVR/Welt) and representatives of the city of Dresden included scientific presentations, demonstrations and interviews.

We thank all participants for their contribution to an exciting press visit!

https://oiger.de/2021/07/12/biegsame-stromspeicher-fuer-feuerwehr-kuehljacken/179856

https://www.dresden.de/de/wirtschaft/tomorrow-s-home/greentech/cfaed-dt.php

Online Guest lecture - Kai-Qiang Lin, Department of Physics, University of Regensburg, Germany

June 18, 2021

Speaker: Kai-Qiang Lin, University of Regensburg, Germany

Date/Time: Friday, July 15, 2019, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

Online via Zoom

Topic: "Excitonic quantum interference in 2D semiconductors"

CRC 1415 - Virtual Retreat 2021

May 31, 2021

The consortium of the CRC 1415 organized its first online-based retreat from May 27-28, 2021 with the aim of promoting interaction, communication and teamwork between the members of the CRC 1415.

During two eventful days, the scientific advances in the research areas A (material synthesis), B (characterization) and C (theory) were presented and discussed, taking into account all 22 sub-projects. Furthermore, the retreat participants came together in two virtual poster exhibitions, organized by the doctoral students: inside the Integrated Graduate School 2D Materials (MGK-2DMs). As part of the poster exhibitions, the MGK-2DMs awarded three poster prizes to doctoral students for outstanding performance and presentation inside the CRC 1415. The winners of this years’s MGK-2DMs poster exhibition chosen by the CRC members are: Paula Kalenczuk (1st place), Ankita De (2nd place) and Friedrich Schwotzer (3rd place).

MGK Poster Award Winner
MGK Poster Award Winner

Another highlight of the retreat was the guest lecture by Prof. Cinzia Casiraghi, University of Manchester, Great Britain. Her lecture “Water-based, error-free and biocompatible 2D material inks: From printed devices to biomedical applications” was met with great interest from all participants and we thank Prof. Casiraghi very much for her contribution to the CRC 1415 Retreat 2021!

Guest Lecture Prof. Cinzia Casiraghi
Guest Lecture Prof. Cinzia Casiraghi

In addition to the scientific exchange, team development and the promotion within the CRC 1415 was not neglected either. An exciting online escape room team event rounded off the evening on the first day of the event. In the Escape Room team event, the CRC members went on a mission together to track down the jewel thief using logical thinking, creativity and communication.

Diamond Fever ©Eplayces
Diamond Fever ©Eplayces

The 2021 retreat concluded with the 3rd General Assembly on the afternoon of May 28th.

Persistent peri-Heptacene: Synthesis and In-Situ Characterization

April 19, 2021

The synthesis of the longest peri-acene, i.e., peri-Heptacene (7-PA) is accomplished by the researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research, and Leibniz-Institut for Polymerforschung Dresden e. V. The work has recently reported as a communication “Persistent peri-Heptacene: Synthesis and In-Situ Characterizationin Angewandte Chemie International Edition. n-peri-Acenes (n-PAs) have gained enormous interest as fundamental model systems of zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons for the potential applications in synthetic carbon nanoelectronics and spintronics. However, the synthesis of n-PAs larger than peri-tetracene (4-PA) remains challenging because of their intrinsic open-shell character and high reactivity. In this communication, the authors reported the synthesis of the hitherto unknown 7-PA, by a rational molecular design strategy, in which the reactive zigzag edges are kinetically protected with eight 4-tert-butylphenyl groups. The successful formation of 7-PA from its tetrahydro-precursor 3 was clearly validated by high-resolution mass spectrometry and in-situ FT-Raman spectroscopy. The resultant 7-PA displays a narrow optical energy gap of 1.01 eV and exhibits a persistent stability (half-life, t1/2 ~ 25 min) under inert conditions. Moreover, electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements and theoretical studies reveal that 7-PA exhibits an open-shell feature and a significant tetraradical character (y0 = 1.0 and y1 = 0.2). This synthetic strategy could be considered as a modular approach for the construction of next generation (3N+1)-PAs (where N = 3, 4, etc.).

 

 

Reference: M. R. Ajayakumar, J. Ma, A. Lucotti, K. S. Schellhammer, G. Serra, E. Dmitrieva, M. Rosenkranz, H. Komber, J. Liu, F. Ortmann, M. Tommasini, and Xinliang Feng, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202102757

Acknowledgments:  This research was financially supported by the EU Graphene Flagship (Graphene Core 3, 881603), ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, 819698), the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and DFG-NSFC Joint Sino-German Research Project (EnhanceNano, No. 391979941), as well as the DFG-SNSF Joint Switzerland-German Research Project (EnhanTopo, No. 429265950). We thank Mr. Federico Lombardi and Prof. Dr. Lapo Bogani for helpful discussions. The authors acknowledge the use of computational facilities at the Center for information services and high performance computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden. J. Liu is grateful for the startup funding from The University of Hong Kong. G.S. and M.T acknowledge funding by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) through the PRIN 2017 program (Project No. 2017PJ5XXX “MAGIC DUST”).

 

A Two-Dimensional Polyimide-Graphene Heterostructure with Ultra-fast Interlayer Charge Transfer

April 15, 2021

The researchers from the group of Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Renhao Dong recently reported the paper “A Two-Dimensional Polyimide-Graphene Heterostructure with Ultra-fast Interlayer Charge Transfer” in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. This is a joint work of TU Dresden, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden, , Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, and Universität Ulm.
A two-dimensional polymer (2DP) is a sheet-like monomolecular macromolecule consisting of laterally connected repeat units with end groups along all edges. Given the single-atom or -molecule thickness, enormous chemical and structural diversity, 2DPs hold great promise as ideals candidates for van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) by stacking different 2D crystals on top of each other. However, the synthesis of 2DP-based vdWHs is still problematic. Firstly, there are tremendous challenges for precisely synthesizing well-defined crystalline monolayer 2DP at molecule level. Secondly, how to realize the transfer and stacking of 2DPs is still unexplored. Thirdly, there should be strong interlayer interaction in vdWH to show new physical properties, which is hard to realize due to the poor long-range ordering of 2DPs.
In recent years, air-water interfacial synthesis is rapidly developing to prepare large-area, free-standing, mono- or few-layer 2DPs, paving the way to synthesize 2DP-based vdWHs. Based on previous work, the research group led by Prof. Feng and Dr Dong used Langmuir–Blodgett technique to synthesize monolayer 2D polyimide (2DPI). Furthermore, the 2DPI film was fabricated with graphene via van der Waals force to prepare a 2DPI-Graphene hybrid material.
Transient absorption (TA) spectroscopy proved that there was ultra-fast (~60 fs) charge transfer from protonated 2DPI to graphene under UV radiation, which can compare with the best records of inorganic vdWH materials. The charge transfer was attributed to the strong cation-π interaction between graphene and protonated 2DP. This work offers an effective strategy for preparing 2DP-based vdWH and discovers a unique charge transfer property due to interfacial electron coupling.

Figure 1. Bottom: A general but reliable on-water synthesis and assembly strategy toward the preparation of 2D polyimide (2DPI)-graphene (G) van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs) on the water surface is demonstrated. Top: femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy reveals an ultra-fast interlayer charge transfer (~60 fs) after protonation in the heterostructure, which is among the fastest reports of vdWHs.

Reference: Liu, K., Li, J., Qi, H., Hambsch, M., Rawle, J., Vázquez, A.R., Nia, A.S., Pashkin, A., Schneider, H., Polozij, M., Heine, T., Helm, M., Mannsfeld, S.C.B., Kaiser, U., Dong, R., Feng, X., 2021. A Two‐Dimensional Polyimide‐Graphene Heterostructure with Ultra‐fast Interlayer Charge Transfer. Angewandte Chemie.. doi:10.1002/ange.202102984

Acknowledgments: We acknowledge financial support from EU Graphene Flagship (Core3, No. 881603), ERC Grants on T2DCP and FC2DMOF (No. 852909) and DFG projects (SFB-1415, No. 417590517; SPP 2244, 2DMP) as well as the German Science Council, Centre of Advancing Electronics Dresden, EXC1056 (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden) and OR 349/1. We thank Prof. Xiaodong Zhuang (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and Prof. Zhikun Zheng (Sun Yat-sen University) for fruitful discussions. We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) for scanning electron microscopy and Dr. Petr Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) for the use of facilities.. We acknowledge Diamond Light Source for time on Beamline I07 under Proposal SI25070.

 

Vinylene-Linked Two-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Functions

March 31, 2021

Two-dimensional conjugated covalent organic frameworks (2D-c-COFs) with covalently bonded repeat units, crystalline and porous frameworks, and in-plane π-conjugations have attracted immense attention. The precise structure and predictable properties of 2D-c-COFs can be applied to specific applications, such as energy storage/conversion, and optoelectronics. In particular, over the last five years, vinylene-linked 2D covalent organic frameworks (V-2D-COFs) have been extensively explored due to their high in-plane π-conjugation and robust nature.
In this Account, we summarized the important developments of V-2D-COFs, from synthetic methods to unique physical properties and functions. For the synthetic methodologies, three reaction methodologies are introduced, including the Knoevenagel-, other aldol-type-, and Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons polycondensations. Afterward, the optoelectronic and magnetic properties of V-2D-COFs are presented. Finally, the promising applications of V-2D-COF, including sensing, photocatalysis, energy storage and conversion are further demonstrated, which demonstrate the merits resulting from the robust vinylene-linked skeleton, full in-plane π-conjugation, and tunable structures.

 

 

Reference: Shunqi Xu, Marcus Richter, and Xinliang Feng*. Vinylene-Linked Two-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks: Synthesis and Functions. Acc. Mater. Res. 2021. doi.org/10.1021/accountsmr.1c00017.

Acknowledgments: This work was supported financially by the EU Graphene Flagship (Graphene Core, No. 881603), the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1415 “Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials” (No. 417590517), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), and the ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, No. 819698). We thank Dr. Naisa Chandrasekhar, Prof. Bishnu P. Biswal, M. Sc. Dominik Pasoetter and M. Sc. Albrecht Waentig for the helpful discussion.

 

Prof. Xinliang Feng joins the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics as new Director

March 15, 2021

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng will join the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics as a new Director on Monday, March 15, 2021. He will lead the Department of Synthetic Materials and Functional Devices at the Institute.

Link to website of MPI Halle

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng will also continue to run the chair for Molecular Functional Materials at TU Dresden.

Prof. Xinliang Feng acted as Guest Editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry's online collection in Nanoscale and Nanoscale Advances

March 15, 2021

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has acted as Guest Editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry's online themed collection in Nanoscale and Nanoscale Advances and contributed articles on the Chemistry of 2D Materials: graphene and beyond.

Link to the collection

Dr. Shaygan Nia recently interviewed by EU Graphene Flagship

February 26, 2021

Dr. Shaygan Nia, the Innovation group leader of the chair, was recently interviewed by EU Graphene Flagship and gave his thoughts on the current and potential application of Graphene and 2D materials Foams and Coatings.

EU Graphene Flagship Innovation Newsletter Issue 1,2021

Congratulations to Guangbo Chen for successfully defending his PhD

February 17, 2021

Guangbo Chen successfully defended his PhD on “Carbon-rich Nanomaterials for Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Reactions” on February 16, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Chen!

Congratulations to Mingchao Wang for successfully defending his PhD

January 25, 2021

Mingchao Wang successfully defended his PhD on “Phthalocyanine-Based Two-Dimensional Carbon-Rich Conjugated Frameworks” on January 25, 2021. Congratulations Dr. Wang!

Designer Spin Order in Diradical Nanographenes

January 18, 2021

Researchers from the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials of Prof. Xinliang Feng, Technische Universität Dresden, and the research group of Jinfeng Jia, Condensed Matter Physcics, School of Physics and Astronomy Shanghai Jiao Tong University, recently reported the joint paper “Designer Spin Order in Diradical Nanographenes”. The magnetic properties of carbon materials are at the focus of research effort in physics, chemistry and materials science due to their potential applications in spintronics and quantum computing. Although the presence of spins in open-shell nanographenes has recently been confirmed, the ability to control magnetic coupling sign has remained elusive. Here, the researchers demonstrate an effective approach of engineering magnetic ground states in atomically precise open-shell bipartite/nonbipartite nanographenes using combined scanning probe techniques and mean-field Hubbard model calculations. The method provides opportunities for designer above-room-temperature magnetic phases and functionalities in graphene nanomaterials.

 

 

Reference:

Designer Spin Order in Diradical Nanographenes

Yuqiang Zheng, Can Li, Chengyang Xu, Doreen Beyer, Xinlei Yue, Yan Zhao, Guanyong Wang, Dandan Guan, Yaoyi Li, Hao Zheng, Canhua Liu, Junzhi Liu, Xiaoqun Wang, Weidong Luo, Xinliang Feng, Shiyong Wang Jinfeng Jia.

Nature Communications 11, Article number: 6076 (2020).

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11874258, 12074247) and Fok Yin Tung foundation. J.L. is grateful for the startup funding from the University of Hong Kong and the funding support from ITC to the SKL. This work is also supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grants No. 2016YFA0301003, No. 2016YFA0300403), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 11521404, No. 11634009, No. 11574202, No. 11874256, No. 11790313, No. 11674226, No. U1632102, No. 11674222, No. U1632272 and No. 11861161003), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB28000000). We acknowledge SJTU HPC center for providing computational resources.

 

High-Mobility Semiconducting Two-Dimensional Conjugated Covalent Organic Frameworks with p-Type Doping

January 18, 2021

Two-dimensional conjugated covalent organic frameworks (2D c-COFs) have recently emerged as a unique class of 2D conjugated polymers that display high in-plane π-conjugation and weak out-of-plane interactions. Because of their tailorable architectures, abundant active sites, well-defined structures, inherent porosity, chemical stability, and (opto)-electronic properties, these materials are promising for chemiresistors, logic and memory devices, and energy storage. For many of these applications, long-range charge transport is required. Therefore, much effort has been devoted over the last years to interrogate the nature of the conductivity in 2D c-COFs. Recent studies have demonstrated charge carrier mobilities ranging from 5 to 8 cm2/(Vs). Although these mobilities are encouraging, their conductivities have remained rather low (typically <10-6 S/cm). To further improve the conductivity, doping strategies have been employed by incorporating guest molecules that act as dopants, e.g., linear conducting polymers, C60, iodine (I2), etc. For instance, I2-doping has demonstrated improvement of up to 3 orders of magnitude in the conductivities, but this approach was often associated with amorphization/irreversible structural changes of 2D c-COFs. A fundamental understanding of the doping interactions within the lattice in COFs remains largely unexplored.

 

 

In order to investigate the role of dopant for 2D c-COFs, researchers from Technical University of Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have demonstrated a doping-defined polycrystalline 2D c-COF (ZnPc-pz-I2) through molecular I2-doping of metal-phthalocyanine-based pyrazine-linked 2D c-COF ZnPc-pz. I2-molecules sit preferentially in the COF pores and near the skeleton. Hall effect measurements reveal that doping improves the conductivity and carrier density by approximately 3 and 2 orders of magnitude respectively in ZnPc-pz-I2. Notably, doping also leads to an unprecedented improvement in the Hall charge mobility from ~5 to ~22 cm2/(Vs). Density functional theory (DFT) and time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy (TRTS) show that this record mobility is related to an increase in the scattering time after doping, likely related to the formation of ordered pathways for charge carrier migration between the electron donor (ZnPc-pz) and acceptor (I2) within the framework. Such unique phenomena have never been reported among doped COF materials. This work highlights the potential of developing structurally-defined, doped 2D c-COFs with high conductivity and high mobility, which provides insight on a fundamental understanding of the role of the dopant and the host-dopant interplay necessary to elucidate structure-electronic property relationships.

This work is financially supported from EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore3, No. 881603), ERC Grants (T2DCP and FC2DMOF (No. 852909)), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), DFG projects (COORNETs, SPP 1928 and CRC 1415, No. 417590517), the German Science Council, Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (EXC1056), the regional government of Comunidad de Madrid under projects 2017-T1/AMB-5207 & P2018/NMT-4511, as well as the “Severo Ochoa” Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (MINECO, Grant No. SEV-2016-0686).

 

Reference:

Mingchao Wang, Mao Wang, Hung-Hsuan Lin, Marco Ballabio, Haixia Zhong, Mischa Bonn, Shengqiang Zhou, Thomas Heine, Enrique Cánovas*, Renhao Dong*, Xinliang Feng*. High-Mobility Semiconducting Two-Dimensional Conjugated Covalent Organic Frameworks with p-Type Doping. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 52, 21622–21627.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.0c10482

 

Congratulations to SangWook Park for successfully defending his PhD

December 22, 2020

SangWook Park successfully defended his PhD on “Two-Dimensional Organic Framework Films by Amphiphilic Compound Assisted Interfacial Synthesis” on December 16, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Park!

Congratulations to Shunqi Xu for successfully defending his PhD

December 22, 2020

Shunqi Xu successfully defended his PhD on “Cyano-substituted Two-dimensional Sp2-carbon-linked Conjugated Polymers” on December 11, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Xu!

Dr. Chuanhui Huang received the prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers

December 22, 2020

The Humboldt Research Fellowship is awarded to researchers from abroad with above average qualifications and who are at the beginning of their career. By being granted this fellowship, Dr. Chuanhui Huang, will receive financial support for two years to carry out his research in the research group of Prof. Xinliang Feng and Dr. Renhao Dong at Technische Universität Dresden.

Highly Cited Researcher 2020

December 9, 2020

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has been listed as highly cited researcher in 2020 - in the categories Chemistry and Materials Science - for his research performance demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.

Dr. Minghao Yu, research group leader in Prof. Feng's group, has been listed as well as highly cited researcher in 2020 in the category Materials Science.

Former colleagues in the group of Prof. Feng, Dr. Yang Hou and Dr. Xiaodong Zhuang, are also among the highly cited researchers in 2020 in the Cross-Field category.

https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2020/

Ground-breaking Ceremony for New Office and Laboratory Building at TU Dresden

November 25, 2020


l.t.r.: Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger, Dr. Andreas Handschuh, Dr. Volkhard Gürtler. © M. Kretzschmar/TUD

The TU Dresden has started construction work for a new office and laboratory building on Stadtgutstraße, close to the campus. For the first time, the university is also taking over the construction management under its own direction. By August next year, 1,200 square meters of office and lab space will be built. The Chair for Molecular Functional Materials, which is integrated in the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), as well as the Cluster of Excellence Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (ct.qmat) will move in.

"The project is an important step for the further development of our university. Prof. Feng's research group on Molecular Functional Materials and Prof. Ruck's group from the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat will find optimal conditions for their excellent work here", explains the Rector of TU Dresden, Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger. "The fact that they are moving into a new home together also offers opportunities for even stronger interdisciplinary cooperation in the future," she adds.

Congratulations to Paula Kalenczuk for successfully defending her Master thesis

November 20, 2020

Paula Kalenczuk successfully defended her Master thesis on “Interfacial synthesis of thiophene-based 2D conjugated polymers” on November 20, 2020. Congratulations Paula!

Thiophene‐Bridged Donor–Acceptor sp2-Carbon-Linked 2D Conjugated Polymers as Photocathodes for Water Reduction

November 20, 2020

 

Figure 1: Scheme for the synthesis of 2D CCP‐HATN-ThDAN and 2D CCP‐HATN-BDAN (left) and imine‐linked 2D C=N HATN-BZD (right) from HATN‐6CHO. Reaction conditions: i) for 2D CCP‐HATN-ThDAN: NEt4OH (0.1 M), dimethylacetamide (DMAc)/ortho‐dichlorobenzene (o‐DCB) = 3/7, 150 °C, 3 days; ii) for 2D CCP‐HATN-BDAN: Cs2CO3 (0.1 M), DMAc/o‐DCB = 1:1, 120 °C, 3 days; iii) for 2D C=N HATN-BZD: DMAc/mesitylene (Mes)/acetic acid (HOAc, 6 m) = 5/5/1, 120 °C, 3 days.

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water reduction, converting solar energy into environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel, requires delicate design and synthesis of semiconductors with appropriate bandgaps, suitable energy levels of the frontier orbitals, and high intrinsic charge mobility. Two-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (2D COFs), which belong to the class of 2D conjugated polymers, have recently emerged as a promising class of materials for photocatalysis and PEC applications due to the tailored energy bandgaps, positions of the frontier orbitals, and active centers. However, traditional imine‐linked 2D COFs generally exhibit moderate electron delocalization and poor chemical stability, which hamper the potential implementation of these materials in PEC applications.

In this respect, a group of scientists from Technische Universität Dresden (TUD, Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed a novel bithiophene-bridged donor-acceptor-based two-dimensional sp2-carbon-linked conjugated polymer (2D CCP). The Knoevenagel polymerization between the electron‐accepting building block 2,3,8,9,14,15‐hexa(4‐formylphenyl) diquinoxalino[2,3‐a:2′,3′‐c]phenazine (HATN‐6CHO) and the first electron‐donating linker 2,2′‐([2,2′‐bithiophene]‐5,5′‐diyl)diacetonitrile (ThDAN) provided the donor-acceptor containing 2D CCP‐HATN-ThDAN with a dual pore structure and high stability. Benefitting from the sp2-carbon-linked framework and donor-acceptor structure, the 2D CCP-HATN-ThDAN exhibited a wide light harvesting range (up to 674 nm), a narrow optical energy gap (2.04 eV), and separated HOMO-LUMO distributions for facilitated charge transfer. When employed as photocathode for PEC water reduction, 2D CCP-HATN-ThDAN presents a superb H2-evolution photocurrent density up to ~7.9 µA cm‑2 at 0 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE).

Reference: Shunqi Xu, Hanjun Sun, Matthew Addicoat, Bishnu P. Biswal, Fan He, SangWook Park, Silvia Paasch, Tao Zhang, Wenbo Sheng, Eike Brunner, Yang Hou, Marcus Richter, Xinliang Feng*, “ThiopheneBridged Donor–Acceptor sp2CarbonLinked 2D Conjugated Polymers as Photocathodes for Water Reduction”, Adv. Mater. 2020, 2006274. Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202006274

Acknowledgments: This work was supported financially by the DFG for the CRC 1415 (No. 417590517), the ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, No. 819698), Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET), EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore3; No. 881603), H2020‐MSCA‐ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed).

 

One-Pot Synthesis of Boron-Doped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons via 1,4-Boron Migration

November 20, 2020

Boron-doped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (B-PAHs) are of great current interest due to their excellent photophysical properties and their promising applications in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Although significant efforts have been made in the past few years, the modular synthetic routes toward B-PAHs, particularly for dual-B doped PAHs, remain limited due to the intrinsic instability of B-PAHs against moisture and oxygen. So far, the existing methods for the synthesis of B-PAHs usually involve special precursor design or multiple synthetic steps, e.g., an additional oxidation etc., resulting in low overall yields of synthetic procedures. Thereby, it is highly attractive to develop cost-effective methodologies for the synthesis of B-PAHs from the readily available starting compounds.

Recently, researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (TUD, Chair of Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators (HKU, Hong Kong) reported a novel one-pot synthetic method toward a series of mono/dual B-PAHs (1a-1o) via an unprecedented 1,4-boron migration process from readily available ortho-aryl substituted arylalkynes. This protocol renders a broad scope of substrates (13 examples) with high atom efficiency and functional group tolerance. The reaction mechanism involves a sequence of borylative cyclization, 1,4-boron migration, and electrophilic C-H borylation. Notably, this is the first example regarding the 1,4-boron migration in the π-conjugated system. Single-crystal X-ray analysis of the represented compounds 1b and 1k demonstrate that the boron atom locates at the zigzag edge and adopts a trigonal planar geometry. The achieved B-PAHs 1a-1o display excellent fluorescence with the photoluminescence (PL) quantum yields (ΦPL) up to 97% in dichloromethane solution (1g) and 91% in the solid-state thin film (1f). As a proof-of-concept study, blue and green OLEDs are fabricated based on B-PAHs 1f and 1k with an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 3.5% and 3.2%, respectively, demonstrating their promising applications in organic optoelectronic devices.

Reference: Jin-Jiang Zhang, Man Chung Tang, Yubin Fu, Kam-Hung Low, Ji Ma, Lin Yang, Jan J. Weigand, Junzhi Liu,*, Vivian Wing-Wah Yam, Xinliang Feng*.

One-Pot Synthesis of Boron-Doped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons via 1,4-Boron Migration. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2020, DOI: 10.1002/anie.202011237.

Acknowledgements: This work was financially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GrapheneCore3 No. 881603, Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant No 813036) ERC T2DCP, the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)” and DFG-NSFC Joint Sino-German Research Project (EnhanceNano), as well as the DFG-SNSF Joint Switzerland-German Research Project (EnhanceTopo). We thank the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at TU Dresden for generous allocations of compute resources. J. Liu is grateful for the startup funding from The University of Hong Kong and the funding support from ITC to the SKL.

 

A curved graphene nanoribbon with multi-edge structure and high intrinsic charge carrier mobility

November 20, 2020

Edge Engineering in Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs)

Both theoretical and experimental studies have demonstrated that the electronic and magnetic properties of GNRs are critically dependent on their widths and edge topologies. In contrast to armchair-edged GNRs (AGNRs) displaying semiconducting property with a direct energy gap, zigzag-edged GNRs (ZGNRs) typically exhibit narrow bandgaps and localized edge states. In addition, cove-edged GNRs with unique curved geometry are attractive because they can exhibit improved dispersibility in solution, and provide an additional means to control the optoelectronic properties of GNRs. Thereby, the combination of armchair, cove, and zigzag edge structures can impart GNRs with unique geometries and physiochemical properties that are not accessible by those with solely one type of edge structures.

The scientists from TU Dresden/SJTU/MPIP have demonstrated that the GNR with combined edge structures of cove, zigzag and armchair, synthesized by the team of Prof. Xinliang Feng in TU Dresden, displayed unique curved geometry, corresponding to an excellent liquid-phase dispersibility. This curved GNR exhibited unprecedented absorption in the near infrared region with a maximum peak at ~850 nm and a particular narrow optical energy gap of ~1.22 eV. The group led by Prof. Misha Bonn in MPIP used ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy to investigate the electronic transport properties of the curved GNR. Terahertz studies revealed the high charge scattering time (~60 fs) and record-high intrinsic charge carrier mobility of ~600 cm2 V-1 s-1 for curved GNR. These results hold great promise for multi-edged curved GNRs in many applications, including photothermal conversion, photovoltaics, and nanoelectronic devices, etc. This fruitful work of the joint research has been now published in the renowned journal “Journal of the American Chemical Society”.

This research is a joint collaboration between scientists from the Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPIP). The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21774076 and 52073173), Program of Shanghai Academic Research Leader (19XD1421700), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for funding (SFB 858), European Union's Horizon 2020 (No 881603 Gra-phene Flagship Core3, No 813036 Marie Skłodowska-Curie), ERC Grant on T2DCP, German DFG (Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)” and EnhanceNano (No. 391979941), European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESFProject “GRAPHD”, TU Dresden), European Commission in the framework of the ERC Grant NOC2D as well as the startup funding from The University of Hong Kong and the funding support from ITC to the SKL.

Reference:

Niu, W.; Ma, J.; Soltani, P.; Zheng, W.; Liu, F.; Popov, A. A.; Weigand, J. J.; Komber, H.; Poliani, E.; Casiraghi, C.; Droste, J.; Hansen, M. R.; Osella, S.; Beljonne, D.; Bonn, M.; Wang, H. I.; Feng, X.; Liu, J.; Mai, Y., A Curved Graphene Nanoribbon with Multi-Edge Structure and High Intrinsic Charge Carrier Mobility. JACS, 2020, 142 (43), 18293-18298.

 

Zn-ion energy storage device: a new application for 2D polyarylimide covalent organic frameworks

November 20, 2020

Zn-ion batteries, utilizing cheap, safe, and high ion-conductive (up to 1 S cm1) water-based electrolytes, can effectively circumvent the safety and cost issues encountered by non-aqueous Li-ion batteries. The high power density (~5 kW kg1) and decent energy density (~300 Wh kg1, in theory) empower Zn-ion batteries to be robust alternatives for grid-scale energy storage devices. However, conventional Zn metal anodes suffer from several intrinsic drawbacks like dendrite growth, side reactions, and use in excess, giving rise to the battery stability concern. Therefore, searching for new anode materials is highly desired to construct reliable Zn-ion energy storage devices.

 

Recently, researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (Chair of Molecular Functional Materials) demonstrated the first Zn2+-storage anode based on a two-dimensional polyarylimide covalent organic framework (PI-COF) with a high-rate and long-life electrochemical behavior. The electrode is constructed by synthesizing imide-linked PI-COF on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grown on carbon cloth via a condensation reaction between 1,4,5,8-naphthalene tetracarboxylic dianhydride (NTCDA) and tris (4-aminophenyl) amine (TAPA). Impressively, the obtained PI-COF exhibits a pseudocapacitive Zn2+-storage behavior with a specific capacity of 332 C g−1 (92 mAh g−1) at 0.7 A g−1, a large rate capability (79.8% at 7 A g−1) and a stable cycle life of 85% capacity retention over 4000 cycles. Through in-situ Raman spectroelectrochemistry and DFT calculations, the work also highlights the Zn2+-storage mechanism of the PI-COF electrode to be a two-step redox reaction, which involves the reversible formation of enolates by the stepwise coordination of carbonyl O with Zn2+. Such a favorable anode further enables the assembly of a flexible, high-rate, and dendrite-free full Zn-ion energy storage device. These encouraging results will inspire more efforts devoted to designing new redox-active monomers and fabricating polyarylimide COF structures with higher theoretical specific capacity.

This work was financially supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GrapheneCore3 881603), ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP 819698), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MX‐OSMOPED), M-ERA.NET and Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (HYSUCAP 100478697), and German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence, CRC 1415 (grant no. 417590517), and Polymer-based Batteries (SPP 2248, RACOF-MMIS). The authors acknowledge the use of the facilities in Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis at Technische Universität Dresden. The authors gratefully acknowledge Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing (PC2) and Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. for funding this project by providing computing time on the FPGA-based supercomputer Noctua and the GCS Supercomputer JUWELS at Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC).

Reference:

Minghao Yu, Naisa Chandrasekhar, Ramya Kormath Madam Raghupathy, Khoa Hoang Ly, Haozhe Zhang, Evgenia Dmitrieva, Chaolun Liang, Xihong Lu, Thomas D. Kühne, Hossein Mirhosseini, Inez M. Weidinger, Xinliang Feng*, A High-Rate Two-Dimensional Polyarylimide Covalent Organic Framework Anode for Aqueous Zn-Ion Energy Storage Devices, J. Am. Chem. Soc.,2020.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c07992

 

Congratulations to Kejun Liu for successfully defending his PhD

October 21, 2020

Kejun Liu successfully defended his PhD on “Synthesis of Crystalline Two-Dimensional Polymers on Water Surfaces” on October 5, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Liu!

Synthesis of Vinylene‐Linked Two‐Dimensional Conjugated Polymers via the Horner‐Wadsworth‐Emmons Reaction

September 29, 2020

Interest in linear (1D) conjugated polymers has significantly increased in recent decades due to their semiconducting properties and promising applications in organic optoelectronics. 2D conjugated polymers (2D CPs) consisting of multi-strands of linear conjugated polymers have been the dream of synthetic targets for several decades. The synthesis of 2D CPs with fully vinylene-linked backbones still lacks effective protocols to generate crystalline polymer materials. Vinylene-linked 2D CPs provide high chemical and thermal stabilities as well as complete π-conjugation over the whole 2D polymer framework, making these materials highly attractive for various applications, such as in optoelectronics, spintronics, and energy storage.

To address these synthetic challenges, a group of scientists from Technische Universität Dresden (TUD, Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed a novel methodology to synthesize 2D poly(arylenevinylene)s via a Wittig-type reaction (Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction, HWE). The novel vinylene-linked 2D CPs, namely, 2D poly(phenylenequinoxalinevinylene)s 2D-PPQV1 and 2D-PPQV2, were synthesized by employing the HWE reaction between aldehyde- and phosphonate substituted monomers (Figure 1a). Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) studies (Figure 1b) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements demonstrate the formation of proclaimed crystalline, dual-pore structures with surface areas of up to 440 m2/g. More importantly, the UV-Vis absorption (Figure 1c) and fluorescence emission (Figure 1d) of the obtained 2D-PPQV1 (Eg=2.2 eV) and 2D-PPQV2 (Eg=2.2 eV) are compared with those of cyano-vinylene-linked 2D-CN-PPQV1 (Eg=2.4 eV) produced by the Knoevenagel reaction and imine-linked 2D COF analog (2D-C=N-PPQV1, Eg=2.3 eV), unambiguously proving the superior conjugation of the vinylene-linked 2D CPs using the HWE reaction.

Figure 1: a) Synthesis of 2D-PPQV1, 2D-PPQV2, 2D-CN-PPQV1, and 2D-C=N-PPQV1; b) PXRD data of 2D-PPQV2: Experimental (black) and Pawley-refined PXRD (red), difference plot (gray), simulated PXRD with AA mismatch stacking (blue), and the model of the simulated eclipsed layer mismatch structure shown in the inset; c) UV-Vis absorption spectra of 2D-C=N-PPQV1 (black), 2D-CN-PPQV1 (red), 2D-PPQV1 (green), and 2D-PPQV2 (blue) (dispersions in 2-propanol, concentration=0.2 mg/mL); d) photographs of the fluorescence emission (λex=365 nm) of 2D-C=N-PPQV1, 2D-CN-PPQV1, 2D-PPQV1, and 2D-PPQV2.

Reference: Dominik L. Pastoetter, Shunqi Xu, Mino Borrelli, Matthew Addicoat, Bishnu P. Biswal, Silvia Paasch, Arezoo Dianat, Heidi Thomas, Reinhard Berger, Sebastian Reineke, Eike Brunner, Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Marcus Richter, Xinliang Feng*. Synthesis of VinyleneLinked TwoDimensional Conjugated Polymers via the HornerWadsworthEmmons Reaction. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2020, DOI: 10.1002/anie.202010398

Acknowledgments: This research was supported financially by the EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore, No. 881603), the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1415 “Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials” (No. 417590517), H2020-MSCA-ITN (ULTIMATE, No. 813036), the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), and the ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP, No. 819698).

 

Congratulations to Yubin Fu for successfully defending his PhD

September 24, 2020

Yubin Fu successfully defended his PhD on “Tailor-made Boron, Nitrogen-doped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Graphene Nanoribbons” on September 21, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Fu!

 

Congratulations to Jason Melidonie for successfully defending his PhD

September 14, 2020

Jason Melidonie successfully defended his PhD on “Pyrene as Versatile Building Block in PAHs and GNRs” on September 11, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Melidonie!

 

Seeing is believing: How do grain boundaries look like in 2D Polymers?

August 21, 2020

Since the dawn of Materials Science, researchers in this field have been fascinated by the beauty of crystals, in which all atoms appear at the right position in the right order. But, even the glowing diamonds on the wedding rings, the perfect symbol of eternal love and commitment, are never as perfect as we thought. Crystals, regardless of natural or synthetic, contain defects, where the atoms are not arranged as they are supposed to be or grain boundaries as the borderline between two crystalline domains. The study on the imperfections has been a vital topic in nanomaterials and nanotechnology because even a trivial change in the local structure may bring about substantial variation in materials physical and chemical properties. Since the imperfections can be small as missing tiny atoms are, to see how defects look like, and to establish the connection between defects and the resulting change in the properties belongs to the most challenging tasks ever met by materials scientists. With beginning of this century, just after the revolution in resolution due to the realization of “glasses” for electron microscope’s main lenses, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) became a powerful tool to guide into the world of single atoms. Such modern microscopes can now resolve structural features down to the sub-Angstrom scale (1 Angstrom = 10-10 meter = the order of the size of atoms), and therefore TEM developed now to a close and reliable companion to unravel also two-dimensional (2D) materials starting with graphene, the one carbon atom thin wonder material discovered in 2004 and awarded with the Nobel prize in 2010.  

Recent years have witnessed the rise of a new star on the vast sky of synthetic 2D materials, namely, 2D polymer. Contrast to traditional linear polymers discovered 100 years ago by Staudinger (Chem. Ber. 192053, 1073), 2D polymers consist of repeating building blocks in a 2D plane linked by strong covalent bonds, forming a sheet-like network. The enormous chemical and structural diversity of the building blocks (i.e., monomers) and linkage types provide the scientists with a playground filled with infinite creative possibilities. That means the synthetic polymer materials can be pre-designed and 'programmed' for desirable applications.

But, like every other crystalline material, 2D polymers also contain imperfections. Strikingly, how the imperfections really look like remains a mystery till now, even with the best TEMs available. Because TEM uses a high-energy electron beam as the imaging source, whether or not we can image the structure depends not only on the attainable resolution of the microscope. It largely depends also on the material under study itself. Can it remain intact during the imaging process? 2D polymers, unfortunately, like many other organic materials, quickly 'burn to ashes' when the electron beam is switched on. How can we image 2D polymers then? Well, like if you want to read a book in the middle of the night, instead of turning on a surgical light with high brightness, a small candle is probably enough. When translated, we only need to provide just a sufficient amount of electrons to obtain the structural information before the material is destroyed. A simple idea but not easy to realize! A group of scientists from Universität Ulm and Technische Universität Dresden have successfully observed grain boundary structures in 2D polyimine with an unprecedented resolution of 2.3 Angstrom (see Figures 1 and 2). The 2D polyimine was prepared by our recently-developed surfactant-monolayer-assistant interfacial synthesis (SMAIS), which took the synthesis of highly crystalline 2D polymers to a new level. Strikingly, based on the known-knowledge from inorganic 2D materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, high-energy point defects should appear at the grain boundaries between two crystalline domains. However, as demonstrated using our computer simulations, for 2D polymers, the two crystalline domains tend to be connected via flexible covalent bonds at the grain boundaries, suggesting that the local properties of 2D polymers are more robust compared to traditional materials: while in the latter a lot of binding energy is lost due to the imperfection of the bonding between the atoms across the grain boundaries, the structural flexibility of the molecules in the 2D polymer strongly reduces this energy penalty and thus limits the impact of the grain boundary on the stability, but also on the chemical and physical properties of the 2D polymer.

Science Advance© CRC 1415

Figure 1. (a) Atomic model of 2D polyimine; (b) Grain orientation map. (c) Unprocessed AC-HRTEM image acquired with an electron dose of 100 e-/Å2. (d) Fast-Fourier transform pattern of (c). The half-circle marks the spatial frequency of 4 nm-1 (i.e., 2.5 Å). The small circles mark the reflections at Nyquist frequency 4.35 nm-1 (i.e., 2.3 Å). (e) Magnified image of (a). (f) Simulated image with the atomic model overlaid.

Science Advance© CRC 1415

Figure 2. (a) Low-angle grain boundary with a misorientation of 10°. (b) High-angle grain boundary with a misorientation of 28°. The red and blue arrows mark TAPP and DhTPA terminations, respectively. (c) High-angle grain boundary with a misorientation of 45°. (d) DFTB models of n-membered rings formed by boundary reconstruction, and the relative formation energy per inter-grain DhTPA. The red arrows mark the inter-grain DhTPAs. Scale bar: 10 nm.

These results are published on August, 14th, 2020 in Science Advances. It makes a fabulous start of the Collaborative Research Centre 1415 "Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensonal Materials".

Reference

H. Qi, H. Sahabudeen, B. Liang, M. Položij, M. Addicoat, T. Gorelik, M. Hambsch, M. Mundszinger, S. Park, B. Lotsch, S. Mannsfeld, Z. Zheng, R. Dong, T. Heine, X. Feng, Ute Kaiser, “Near-atomic-scale observation of grain boundaries in a layer-stacked two-dimensional polymer", Sci. Adv. 2020.

H. Sahabudeen and B. Liang contributed equally to this work. H. Qi, T. Heine, X. Feng and U. Kaiser are the corresponding authors of this joint publication.

 

CSC-Award granted to Dr. Ji Ma

August 11, 2020

Ji Ma, a postdoctoral researcher in the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials, was selected to receive the "2019 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad" by the China Scholarship Council. Congratulations!

Dr. Ma received his doctorate degree from Prof. Xinliang Feng’s group at TU Dresden in November of 2019. His PhD study was focused on the Controlled Synthesis of Curved Nanographenes with Tunable Aromaticity. This award recognizes his work for his PhD at Prof. Feng’s group.

The Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad was established by the China Scholarship Council in 2003 and aims at rewarding the academic excellence of self-financed Chinese students studying overseas. It is considered to be the highest award given by the Chinese government to graduate students studying aboard. Only those with outstanding performance in their PhD studies will be considered by the award panel and no more than 500 young talents will be granted the award each year all over the world.

On-Surface Synthesis of Non-Benzenoid Nanographenes by Oxidative Ring-Closure and Ring-Rearrangement Reactions

August 11, 2020

Figure 1. Synthesis of Non-Benzenoid nanographenes 2A and 2B. Colored rings highlight the formation of heptagons via oxidative ring closure (depicted in green) and cyclodehydrogenation (depicted in blue) and pentalene (2A) and as-indacene (2B) moieties via ring rearrangement (depicted in red).

 

Nanographenes (NGs) have gained increasing attention due to their immense potential as tailor-made organic materials for nanoelectronics and spintronics. They exhibit a rich spectrum of physicochemical properties that can be tuned by controlling the size or the edge structure or by introducing structural defects in the honeycomb lattice. Moreover, NGs containing unpaired electrons have received increased interest in recent years due to their potential applications in organic spintronics. To date, most reported NGs consist exclusively of benzenoid rings. Nevertheless, the controlled introduction of structural defects, i.e. oddmembered polycycles (pentagons or heptagons), in the honeycomb lattice may have a considerable effect on the physicochemical properties of NGs, arising from local changes in strain and conjugation.

Recently, researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (Chair of Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators (EMPA, Zurich, and HKU, Hong Kong) reported the design and on-surface synthesis of NGs containing several odd-membered polycycles induced by a thermal procedure on Au(111). Two nonbenzenoid NGs (2A and 2B, Figure 1) containing four embedded azulene units in the polycyclic framework were achieved via onsurface oxidative ring-closure reactions. Interestingly, surface-catalyzed skeletal ring rearrangement reactions in NGs 2A and 2B were observed, which lead to the formation of additional heptagonal rings as well as pentalene and as-indacene units, respectively. The chemical structures of 2A and 2B have been elucidated by STM and nc-AFM. STS studies reveal that 2A and 2B exhibit narrow experimental frontier electronic gaps of 0.96 and 0.85 eV on Au(111), respectively, with moderate open-shell characters. These results reported herein motivate the rational synthesis of larger non-benzenoid ring topologies as functional centers toward the perspective of engineering graphene-based devices.

 

Reference:

Thorsten G. Lohr, Jose I. Urgel,* Kristjan Eimre, Junzhi Liu,* Marco Di Giovannantonio, Shantanu Mishra, Reinhard Berger, Pascal Ruffiffiffieux, Carlo A. Pignedoli, Roman Fasel,* and Xinliang Feng.* J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 13565-13572.

 

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (200020_182015), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GrapheneCore2 785219), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-18-1-2708), and the Swiss National Centre for Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials (MARVEL). The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) under project ID s746 and s904 is acknowledged for computational resources. The DFGNSFC Joint Sino-German Research Project (EnhanceNano), Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), the European Social Fund, and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project GRAPHD, TU Dresden) are acknowledged for financial support. J.L, is grateful for the startup funding from The University of Hong Kong and the funding support from ITC to the SKL. T.G.L. gratefully acknowledges the International Excellence Graduate School on Emerging Materials and Processes Korea (iEGSEMP Korea) in the context of TU Dresden’s institutional strategy The Synergetic University.

Perspectives on Two-Dimensional Carbon-Rich Conjugated Frameworks for Electrochemical Energy Applications

August 11, 2020

The great success of graphene in electrochemical energy applications (EEAs) has stimulated the recent efforts dedicated to exploring two-dimensional (2D) carbon-rich materials with similar structure features. To this end, 2D carbon-rich conjugated frameworks (2D CCFs), which are built up with atomically ordered planar networks, have been brought into the spotlight. Similar to graphene, 2D CCFs are characterized by high in-plane π-conjugation and weak out-of-plane π-π stacking. The unique structures endow 2D CCFs with regular porosities, large specific surface areas, and superior chemical stability. Especially, 2D CCFs are prepared via bottom-up synthetic strategies, making it convenient to precisely tailor their geometries, catalytic/redox sites, and chemical/physical properties at the molecular level by using modern organic and polymer chemistries. The exploration of 2D CCFs for EEAs has only attracted scientific attention in the last few years. As an emerging research field, some critical challenges remain, particularly in establishing an unambiguous correlation between 2D CCF structures and their performances in different EEAs.

Recently, researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (Chair of Molecular Functional Materials) reported their perspectives on the development of 2D CCFs for EEAs. The structural features and synthetic principles of 2D CCFs (including 2D conjugated polymer frameworks and 2D conjugated metal-organic frameworks) are briefly introduced. Recent progress in 2D CCFs designed for diverse energy conversion (electrocatalysis) and storage (supercapacitors and batteries) applications is evaluated. Particular emphasis is put on analyzing the precise structural regulation of 2D CCFs that determines the electrochemical performances. Finally, an outlook is provided for the future development of this field, which concerns novel monomer design, chemical methodology/strategy establishment, and a roadmap toward practical applications.

This work was financially supported by the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (T2DCP, grant no. 819698), ERC Starting Grant (FC2DMOF, grant no. 852909), GrapheneCore3 (grant no. 881603), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MX-OSMOPED project), M-ERA.- NET and Sachsisches Staatsministerium fur Wissenschaft und Kunst (HYSUCAP, grant no. 100478697), the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence, CRC 1415 (grant no. 417590517), Polymer-based Batteries (SPP 2248, RACOF-MMIS), and Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET).

Reference:

Minghao Yu, Renhao Dong, Xinliang Feng*, Two-Dimensional Carbon-Rich Conjugated Frameworks for Electrochemical Energy Applications, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 12903–12915.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.0c05130

Congratulations to Thorsten Lohr who successfully defended his PhD

July 22, 2020

Thorsten Lohr successfully defended his PhD on “Atomically Precise Synthesis of Nanographenes Based on Pentagons and Heptagons” on July 20, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Lohr!

 

The SFB 1415 holds its first General Assembly

July 15, 2020

After the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1415 "Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials" officially started working on July 1, the CRC consortium and numerous guests met on July 14, for its first General Assembly. During the event, research-relevant topics as well as organizational issues have been discussed to enable a fruitful start of the newly established interdisciplinary research initiative.

At the Heinz-Schönfeld lecture hall, Technische Universität Dresden, about 50 participants attended the first General Assembly. The Vice-Rector for Research Prof. Dr. Gerhard Rödel, Technische Universität Dresden, opened the meeting by a speech on behalf of the university. In the further course of the program, the CRC spokesperson Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng presented the scientific priorities, including future guest researchers, Mercator Fellows and the possibility of supporting the development of excellent young scientist by start-up funds. Moreover, the "Integrated Research Training Group 2D Materials", which is an additional educational framework provided for the doctoral students, was presented by its coordinator Dr. Doreen Beyer.

A BBQ party in a cozy atmosphere completed the General Assembly. We would like to thank all participants for coming!

Guangbo Chen wins the 2020 CGCA Young Researchers Award

July 6, 2020

Guangbo Chen in Prof. Feng's chair at TU Dresden, has recently been honored with one of three ‘Young Researchers Award” from the Chinese-German Chemical Association(CGCA). This award is rewarding the academic excellence of PhD students
studying in Germany in the chemistry and chemical-related fields. On July 5th, Guangbo gave an online presentation on his research topics titled “Engineering Water Dissociation Sites for Enhanced Electrocatalytic Activity”.

 

 

About CGCA:

CGCA is a non-profit Chinese academic organization of chemistry, chemical engineering and related fields, which composes of members who have experience of studying and working in Germany. The essential goal of CGCA is to promote the academic exchange among its members, as well as to promote cooperation between Chinese and German academic and industrial institutions in chemistry and related fields. CGCA organizes regularly academic meetings and helps its members to participate in various events. See: http://www.gcccd-ev.de/aboutus-EN.php.

Congratulations to Hafeesudeen Sahabudeen who successfully defended his PhD

June 22, 2020

Hafeesudeen Sahabudeen successfully defended his PhD on “Synthesis of structurally defined two-dimensional polymers and their application in energy and electronics” on June 19, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Sahabudeen!

 

Dr. Renhao Dong received the status of TUD Young Investigator

June 17, 2020

Starting on 25.02.2020, Dr. Renhao Dong has been awarded the status of TUD Young Investigator by the rector of TU Dresden. Congratulations!

https://tu-dresden.de/forschung-transfer/wissenschaftlicher-nachwuchs/nach-der-promotion/tud-young-investigators

Electrochemically exfoliated black phosphorus for osmotic power generation

June 11, 2020

Engineering two-dimensional (2D) membranes has been an effective approach to boost the harvesting of the “blue” osmotic energy between river water and sea water. Black phosphorus (BP), an emerging layered material, has recently been explored for a wide range of ambient applications. However, little attention has been paid to the extraction of the worldwide osmotic energy, despite its large potential as an energy conversion membrane. The researchers from TUD report an experimental investigation of BP membrane in osmotic energy conversion. Through controllable oxidation in water, power output of the BP membrane can be largely enhanced, which can be attributed to the generated charged phosphorus compounds. Depending on the valence of oxidized BP that is associated with oxygen concentration, the power density can be precisely controlled and substantially promoted by ∼220%. Moreover, through constructing a heterostructure with graphene oxide, ion selectivity of the BP membrane increases by ∼80%, contributing to enhanced charge separation efficiency. When mixing natural sea water and river water, the power density can achieve about 4.7 W m-2. This work highlights the large potential of BP in surface-charge-governed aqueous nanofluidic energy devices.

This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant 881603, the European Science Foundation, and the Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP1928).

Reference:

Zhen Zhang, Panpan Zhang, Sheng Yang, Tao Zhang, Markus Löffler, Huanhuan
Shi, Martin R. Lohe and Xinliang Feng*, Oxidation promoted osmotic energy conversion in black phosphorus membranes, PNAS, 2020, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2003898117.

DFG is funding the Collaborative Research Centre 1415 “Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials”

June 8, 2020

The economy of the 21st century is enabled and fuelled by advanced materials for electronics and technologies. In this respect, the arena of two-dimensional materials (2DMs) became popular over the last decade, because 2DMs offer great promise in applications ranging from electronic devices to catalysis, and from information technology to medicine. 2DMs represent a class of nanomaterials with single- to few-layers thickness (≤ 10 layers) and high structural definition at the atomic/molecular level.

The Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1415 “Chemistry of Synthetic Two-Dimensional Materials” will aim at the controlled bottom-up synthesis and the development of novel classes of synthetic 2DMs with high structural definition. Moreover, the development of in-situ and ex-situ spectroscopic, microscopic and diffraction characterization methods plays a key role. The third focal point of the research initiative is to theoretically tackle the chemical and physical phenomena of 2DMs using advanced theoretical methods and models, and to predict the 2DM’s formation and their physical and chemical properties.

Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng
Deputy spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Thomas Heine
Contact: xinliang.feng@tu-dresden.de, +49 351 463 43251 and thomas.heine@tu-dresden.de, +49 351 463 37637

Participating research institutes
Technische Universität Dresden, (cfaed, Professur für Molekulare Funktionsmaterialien)
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
Leibnitz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V.
Leibnitz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung Dresden
Universität Ulm

Total funding: ~7.7 Mio. EUR.

Congratulations to Faxing Wang who successfully defended his PhD online

May 29, 2020

Faxing Wang successfully defended his PhD on “Development of Metal-Halogen Batteries with High Energy Densities and Smart Functions” on May 22, 2020. Congratulations Dr. Wang!

 

ULTIMATE-1st Progress Meeting & Workshop Hosted by TUD (Online Meeting)

May 29, 2020

On May 11th and 12th, the ULTIMATE-1st Progress Meeting & Workshop on how to overcome blackouts & scientific storytelling and ULTIMATE Early-Stage Researchers(ESR)’ presentation took place online, organized by ULTIMATE project and TU Dresden (Dr. Renhao Dong/Prof. Xinliang Feng/Prof. Gianaurelio Cuniberti).

During the workshop Dr. Jane Bormeister gave a vivid and detailed training to let ESRs know how to “catch their audience" via e-presentation, and ESRs from different European institutes presented their background, expertise, research project and the latest results. The purpose of the 1st progress meeting & workshop was to provide techniques of planning, preparation and delivery of clear and high-impact presentations and built collaborations for ESRs.

Synergistic electroreduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide on bimetallic layered conjugated metal-organic frameworks

March 17, 2020

Electrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR), coupled to renewable energies, offers sustainable opportunities to produce value-added chemicals/fuels. Specifically, electrochemical reduction of CO2 to C1 products (formic acid and CO) is of high relevance for the chemical industry, which can also yield a mixture of CO as carbon-reduced product and H2 as byproduct, which is the components of syngas. However, CO2-to-CO conversion, typically suffers from high kinetic barriers and low selectivity due to the high thermodynamic/kinetic stability of CO2 and the competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in aqueous media, respectively. Despite significant efforts to exploring effective catalysts, the current single site catalysts still fail to meet the requirement of electrochemical syngas synthesis with tunable H2/CO ratio at low overpotential. Therefore, developing highly active and selective electrocatalysts to adjust the competitive reactivity between the CO2RR and HER at room temperature, is imperative.

 

 

In order to address these challenges, researchers from Technical University of Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed a layer-stacked, bimetallic two-dimensional conjugated metal-organic framework (2D c-MOF) with copper-phthalocyanine as ligand (CuN4) and zinc-bis(dihydroxy) complex (ZnO4) as linkage (PcCu-O8-Zn). The PcCu-O8-Zn exhibits high CO selectivity of 88%, turnover frequency of 0.39 s1 and long-term durability (> 10 h), surpassing thus by far reported MOF-based electrocatalysts. The molar H2/CO ratio (1:7 to 4:1) can be tuned by varying metal centers and applied potential, making 2D c-MOFs highly relevant for syngas industry applications. The contrast experiments combined with operando spectroelectrochemistry and theoretical calculation unveil a synergistic catalytic mechanism; ZnO4 complexes act as CO2RR catalytic sites while CuN4 centers promote the protonation of adsorbed CO2 during CO2RR. This work offers a strategy on developing bimetallic MOF electrocatalysts for synergistically catalyzing CO2RR toward syngas synthesis.

Reference: Haixia Zhong, Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl, Khoa Hoang Ly, Jichao Zhang, Jin Ge, Mingchao Wang, Zhongquan Liao, Denys Makarov, Ehrenfried Zschech, Eike Brunner, Inez M. Weidinger, Jian Zhang, Arkady V. Krasheninnikov, Stefan Kaskel, Renhao Dong and Xinliang Feng. Synergistic Electroreduction of Carbon Dioxide to Carbon Monoxide on Bimetallic Layered Conjugated Metal-Organic Frameworks. Nat. commun. 2020, 11, 1409.

This work is financially supported by EU Graphene Flagship (GrapheneCore2 785219) and Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET), as well as the German Science Council and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed). This project also has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (FC2DMOF, grant agreement No. 852909). H.X.Z. gratefully acknowledges funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. I.M.W. acknowledges the Cluster of Excellence UniSysCat. We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD and Dr. Petr Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) for the use of facilities. We also thank Mr. Zhiyong Wang and Dr. Chongqing Yang for helpful discussions. We thank the beamline scientists at BL14W1 and BL15U1 of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for the XAFS measurements. We thank Mr. Chenbao Lu and Prof. Xiaodong Zhuang for the in-situ XAS electrochemical cell setup, as well as Wei Li for the ex-situ Raman testing. We thank Mr. Zhe Zhang for helping prepare the Au/CP current collector. The computational support from the HZDR computing cluster is gratefully appreciated.

A new vdW gap engineering paradigm enables high-kinetics α-MoO3 anodes for dual-ion energy storage devices

March 17, 2020

Efficient energy storage means storing energy, not only in substantial amounts, but also with significant velocities. However, to date, mitigating the inherent trade-off between energy density and power density remains highly challenging for electrochemical energy storage technologies. Assembling energy storage systems with fast-kinetics ion-intercalation electrodes represents a feasible way, but there is still lack of efficient approaches that remarkably enhance the charge storage kinetics of an ion-intercalation electrode.

 

 

Recently, researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (Chair of Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators (CIRIMAT, France) reported a new paradigm for the van der Waals (vdW) gap engineering of α-MoO3. H2O molecules were incorporated into the vdW interlayers of α-MoO3 by taking the place of lattice O in α-MoO3, which further induced an exceptional vdW gap expansion with b-lattice parameter increased by 1.2 Å. The incorporated H2O molecules can not only function as effective spacers to stabilize the expanded interlayer gaps of α-MoO3, but also shield the strong electrostatic interaction between Li+ and α-MoO3 lattice, thus providing efficient Li+ diffusion channels and alleviating the volume change of e-MoO3 during repeated Li intercalation/de-intercalation. These properties further empowered the modified α-MoO3 as a high-rate, long-life, and reliable anode for dual-ion-intercalation energy storage (DIES) devices. The as-assembled MoO3//graphite DIES device can operate within a 1.0 ~ 3.5 V voltage window over a wide discharge rate range (discharge time from 25 s to 3.5 h), and show high energy density (device-level 44 Wh L−1) with decent power capability (600 W L−1).

This work was financially supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 819698 and GrapheneCore2 785219), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MX‐OSMOPED project), and German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence. H. Shao, P. Rozier, and P. Simon thank the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Label STORE-EX) for financial support. The authors acknowledge the use of the facilities in the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis at the Technische Universität Dresden and synchrotron experimental facilities of the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) in Hefei, China (BL10B beamline).

Reference:

Minghao Yu, Hui Shao, Gang Wang, Fan Yang, Chaolun Liang, Patrick Rozier, Cai-Zhuang Wang, Xihong Lu, Patrice Simon* & Xinliang Feng*, Interlayer gap widened α-phase molybdenum trioxide as high-rate anodes for dual-ion-intercalation energy storage devices, Nat. Commun., 2020, 11, 1348.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15216-w

The M-ERA-NET 2019 proposal coordinated by Chair of Molecular Functional Materials has been granted

March 9, 2020

The project “Synthesis and characterization of novel 2D hybrid materials for supercapacitors, HYSUCAP” has been granted from M-ERA-NET 2019 call. This project is a collaboration between Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic, University of Warsaw, Poland and Technische Universität Dresden and will be coordinated by Chair of Molecular Functional Materials. Within this project novel hybrid 2D materials will be synthesized, characterized and used for fabrication of energy storage devices such as supercapacitors.

https://www.m-era.net/joint-calls/joint-call-2019/results-of-m-era-net-call-2019

Functional two-dimensional polymers enabled by interfacial synthesis

March 2, 2020

Two-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (2D COFs) or layer-stacked 2D polymers, as rising organic 2D materials, have been enormously developed via reversible covalent reactions by solvothermal synthesis method, and have exhibited great potential as activesemiconducting layers for (opto-)electronics. However, since solvothermal synthesis of organic crystals is inclined toward to poorly controlled nucleation and aggregation, the resultant 2D COFs are usually in the form of polycrystalline powders. Therefore, incorporation of these insoluble 2D COF powders into thin film logic and memory devices represents a formidable challenge due to the difficulty in thin-film processability and device integration associated with the necessity of controlling film thickness, layer orientation, stability and crystallinity.

 

Left : Imine-based 2D COF/polymer and its semiconducting property

Right : Boronate ester-based 2D COF/polymer and its neuromorphic memory device application

 

To address these synthetic and application challenges, a group of scientists from Technische Universität Dresden (TUD, Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed novel synthesis of large-area, free-standing, crystalline, few-layer 2D COF/polymer films utilizing a surfactant-monolayer-assisted interfacial synthesis (SMAIS) method on water surface for opening up exciting opportunity for the integration of 2D polymers into devices and systems. Mr. Hafeesudeen Sahabudeen synthesized three polycrystalline multilayer imine-based 2D COF/polymer films with tunable thickness from 6 to 200 nm via SMAIS method and unveiled the crystalline structures at the molecular lever by HRTEM in close collaboration with Prof. Ute Kaiser (Uni Ulm). The achieved crystalline 2D COF/polymer film with in-plane orientation exhibits a transient mobility as high as 0.01 cm2V-1s-1 as characterized by THz spectroscopy in collaboration with Prof. Mischa Bonn (MPIP) and Prof. Enrique Cánovas (IMDEANanociencia). This work establishes the clear structure-transport property relationship, which is a significant step for the development of semiconducting 2D COFs/polymers as well as their future FET device integration. To further explore the crystallinity and thin-film processability of 2D COF/polymer films, Mr. SangWook Park synthesized boronate ester-based 2D COF/polymer thin films with the single crystalline domains as large as ~60 μm2, which is a record to those of reported 2D COF films. Due to the high crystallinity, facile thin-film processability, high mechanical stability as well as the incorporation of electroactive porphyrin monomers, in collaboration with Prof. Gianaurelio Cuniberti (TUD), the developed few-layer 2D COF/polymer film was for the first time integrated into an organic thin film/Silicon nanowire-based field-effect transistor to mimic neuronal synapses, displaying a learning-erasing-forgetting memory process. This work broadens the interfacial synthesis of highly crystalline, few-layer 2D COF/polymer thin films and opens up a new area for developing such emergent materials as active components in memory devices for future neuromorphic computing, which also provides possibilities for the future development of COF-based flexible and wearable logic and memory electronics.

References:

  1. Hafeesudeen Sahabudeen#, Haoyuan Qi#, Marco Ballabio, Miroslav Položij, Selina Olthof, Rishi Shivhare, Yu Jing, SangWook Park, Kejun Liu, Tao Zhang, Ji Ma, Bernd Rellinghaus, Stefan Mannsfeld, Thomas Heine, Mischa Bonn, Enrique Cánovas, Zhikun Zheng,* Ute Kaiser,* Renhao Dong,* Xinliang Feng*. Highly Crystalline and Semiconducting Imine-Based Two-Dimensional Polymers Enabled by Interfacial Synthesis. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201915217.
  2. SangWook Park, Zhongquan Liao, Bergoi Ibarlucea, HaoyuanQi, Hung-Hsuan Lin, Daniel Becker, Jason Melidonie, TaoZhang, Hafeesudeen Sahabudeen, Larysa Baraban, Chang-Ki Baek, Zhikun Zheng, Ehrenfried Zschech, Andreas Fery, Thomas Heine, Ute Kaiser, Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Renhao Dong,* Xinliang Feng*. Two-Dimensional Boronate Ester Covalent Organic Framework Thin Films with Large Single Crystalline Domains for Neuromorphic Memory Device. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, DOI: 10.1002/ange.201916595.

Acknowledgement:

This work was financially supported by Graphene Flagship (Core 3), ERC Grants on T2DCP and FC2DMOF (grant agreement No. 852909) and COORNET (SPP 1928) as well as the German Science Council and Centre of Advancing Electronics Dresden, EXC1056, (cfaed)and OR 349/1. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 785219. Dr. Haoyuan Qi. and Prof. Ute Kaiser thank the financial support by the DFG in the framework of the “SALVE” (Sub‐Angstrom Low‐Voltage Electron Microscopy) project as well the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) of Baden‐Wuerttemberg in the framework of the SALVE project. Prof. Zhikun Zheng thanks financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51873236).We thank Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD and Dr. Petr Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) and Christine Damm (IFW) for the use of facilities. GIWAXS was carried out at DESY, a member of the Helmholtz Association (HGF), and at Helmholtz‐Zentrum Berlin. We would like to thank M. Schwartzkopf for assistance (P03‐MINAXS beamline) and Dr. Daniel Többens (KMC‐2 beamline). We thank HGF and HZB for the allocation of neutron/synchrotron radiation beamtime and ZIH Dresden for computer time.We gratefully acknowledge the International Excellence Graduate School on Emerging Materials and Processes Korea (iEGSEMP Korea) in the context of TU Dresden Institutional Strategy The Synergetic University.

Congratulations to Doreen Beyer who successfully defended her PhD

December 13, 2019

Doreen Beyer successfully defended her PhD on “Challenging Edges: Bottom-up Synthesis of Nanographenes Comprising a Zigzag-Edged Periphery” on December 6, 2019. Congratulations Dr. Beyer!

 

Congratulations to Marcus Richter who successfully defended his PhD

December 13, 2019

Marcus Richter successfully defended his PhD on “Polycyclic Aromatic Azomethine Ylides as Versatile Building Blocks for Unprecedented N-Containing Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons” on December 6, 2019. Congratulations Dr. Richter!

 

Topological Frustration Induces Unconventional Magnetism in a Nanographene

December 11, 2019

Finite-sized graphene molecules comprising identical hexagonal rings in one plane are so-called nanographenes (NGs), which show dependence of the intrinsic electronic structure on the topologies of the edge bonds and the π-electron network. In 1972, Erich Clar envisioned the Clar’s Goblet, a D2h-symmetric nanographene with a concealed non-Kekulé structure and two unpaired electrons, creating a magnetically non-trivial ground state.

Very recently, researchers from the Technische Universität Dresden (Chair of Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators (EMPA, Zurich, Switzerland) with expertise in on-surface physics and chemistry reported the first experimental realization of the Clar’s Goblet via combined in-solution and on-surface synthesis. Subsequent low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) reveal an antiferromagnetic intrinsic property with a large exchange coupling of 23 meV when the Clar’s Goblet is adsorbed on the gold surface. Furthermore, switching of the magnetic ground state by atomic manipulation provides direct evidence of carbon magnetism in the simple, bow-tie shaped nanographene.

Reference

“Topological frustration induces unconventional magnetism in a nanographene”

Shantanu Mishra, Doreen Beyer, Kristjan Eimre, Shawulienu Kezilebieke, Reinhard Berger, Oliver Gröning, Carlo A. Pignedoli, Klaus Müllen, Peter Liljeroth, Pascal Ruffieux, Xinliang Feng, Roman Fasel

Nat. Nanotechnol. 2019, xxx, DOI: 10.1038/s41565-019-0577-9

This work was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant nos 200020-182015 and IZLCZ2-170184), the NCCR MARVEL funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 51NF40-182892), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement nos 696656 and 785219 (Graphene Flagship Core 2), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-18-1-2708), ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP, no. 819698), the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and EnhanceNano (no. 391979941), and the European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project GRAPHD, TU Dresden). We acknowledge computational support from the Swiss Supercomputing Center (CSCS) under project ID s904; S. K. and P. L. acknowledge funding from the Academy of Finland (grant nos 309975 and 318995) and the European Research Council (ERC-AdG no. 788185) and the facilities of the Aalto Nanomicroscopy Centre.

Congratulations to Ji Ma who successfully defended his PhD

December 5, 2019

Ji Ma successfully defended his PhD on “Controlled Synthesis of Curved Nanographenes with Tunable Aromaticity” on November 29, 2019. Congratulations Dr. Ma!

 

Quantum units from the topological engineering of molecular graphenoids

December 4, 2019

Controlling quantum defects in graphene

Robustly coherent spin centers that can be integrated into devices are a key ingredient of quantum technologies. Vacancies in semiconductors are excellent candidates, and theory predicts that defects in conjugated carbon materials should also display long coherence times. However, the quantum performance of carbon nanostructures has remained stunted by an inability to alter the sp2 -carbon lattice with atomic precision.

The scientists from Oxford University/TU Dresden/MPIP have demonstrated that topological tailoring leads to superior quantum performance in molecular graphene nanostructures, which opens completely new perspectives for graphene spintronics. The saddle-shaped polycyclic hydrocarbon, synthesized by the team of Prof. Xinliang Feng in TU Dresden, possesses an open-shell singlet biradical structure in the ground state and exhibits high stability under ambient conditions (t1/2=39 days). The group led by Prof. Lapo Bogani in Oxford University used the pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance to investigate the quantum properties of this interesting biradicaloid. The decoherence mechanisms, quantify nuclear and environmental effects were clearly unraveled, and large spin-coherence times (Tm) were observed that outclass most nanomaterials. These results validate long-standing assumptions on the coherent behavior of topological defects in graphene and open up the possibility of introducing controlled quantum-coherent centers in the upcoming generation of carbon-based optoelectronic, electronic, and bioactive systems. This fruitful results of the joint research have been now published in the renowned journal “Science”.

This research is a joint collaboration between scientists from the Oxford University, Technische Universität Dresden and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPIP). The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the European Union (ERC-StG-338258- OptoQMol, ERC-CoG-773048-MMGNRs, ERC-CoG-819698-T2DCP, Graphene Flagship-Core2-696656, and European Social Fund); the Royal Society (University Research Fellow and URF grant); UKEPSRC EP/L011972/1; German DFG (Excellence Cluster CFAED and EnhanceNano-391979941); and the Max Planck Gesellschaft and Saxony ESF-Project-GRAPHD.

Reference: 
Federico Lombardi, Alessandro Lodi, Ji Ma, Junzhi Liu, Michael Slota, Akimitsu Narita, William K. Myers, Klaus Müllen, Xinliang Feng, Lapo Bogani. Quantum units from the topological engineering of molecular graphenoids. Science 2019, 366 (6469), 1107-1110.

A perspective review in Science magazine by Prof. Feng and his colleagues about the future of Energy Storage

December 2, 2019

The recent open access review article about nanomaterials for energy storage published in Science magazine. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6468/eaan8285

This work is the collaboration between Prof. Xinliang Feng from the Chair Molecular functional material in TU Dresden and other top scientist including “Prof. Gogotsi & Prof. Pomerantseva from Drexel university USA”, “Dr. Bonaccorso from Italian Institute of technology” and “Prof. Cui from Stanford University, USA”.  This article is a future-oriented perspective rather than a conventional literature review about application of nanomaterials for future of energy storage in different area of applications from mobile phones to electronic vehicles and grids.

It is important to mention that in limelight of EU and German government policies for decarbonization of society, the chair of molecular functional materials in TU Dresden investing a lot of effort for developing new materials especially 2D materials for high energy and efficient energy storage devices such as battery and supercapacitor.

EU Graphene Flagship Meetings took place at TUD in November 2019

November 28, 2019

On November 11th and 12th two meetings of the EU Graphene Flagship with more than 30 participants from different European institutes and companies took place at TU Dresden. The chair for molecular functional materials (Prof. Xinliang Feng) is the leader of Working Package 13 (Functional Foams and Coatings) and Spearhead Project 6 (WearGraph, Self-powered graphene-based textile for wearable electronics) of the EU Flagship project. The purpose of these meetings was to discuss the results and prepare the prototypes in the field of wearable electronics, energy storage and water purification based on graphene and 2D materials.

TUD Professors from the Chemistry Faculty visited Shanghai and Beijing in October 2019

November 11, 2019

At the end of October 2019, Prof. Feng had invited Prof. Heine, Prof. Ruck and Prof. Weigand to visit the universities of Shanghai and Beijing in order to expand the discussions and future cooperations between these institutions.

Guest lecture - Prof. Lei Jiang, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China

October 28, 2019

Speaker: Prof. Lei Jiang, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China

Date/Time: Friday, November 1, 2019, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Chemie-Neubau (CHE), lecture hall CHE 089 (ground floor), Bergstrasse 66, 01069 Dresden

Topic: “Smart Interfacial Materials with Super-Wettability”

Click here for more information

Unveiling Electronic Properties in Metal-Phthalocyanine-based Pyrazine-linked Conjugated Two-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks

Published on October 21, 2019

Conjugated two-dimensional (2D) covalent organic frameworks (COFs), also termed as 2D conjugated polymer frameworks, have also been rising as active semiconductors for potential applications in optoelectronics, photovoltaics, chemiresistive sensing, and (photo)electrocatalysis. To date, improved electronic properties in π-conjugated 2D COFs have been achieved by systematic engineering of the framework favoring extended conjugation, e.g., by employing conjugated linkers such as carbon-carbon bonds and pyrazine units. Besides conjugated linkers, planar conjugated building blocks such as pyrene, porphyrin, hexabenzocoronene and phthalocyanine have been employed with the aim of improving mobilities. Although the recent developments illustrate that improved charge transport properties are at reach by rational tuning of COF structures, current approaches are generally unable to establish a neat relationship between the structure and electronic properties. To do so, a thorough analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting the charge transport is highly required for π-conjugated 2D COFs where differential analysis is feasible (i.e., where changes in composition are not dramatically affecting the energy band diagram).

In order to address these challenges, researchers from Technical University of Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed two novel pyrazine (pz)-linked metal-phthalocyanine (MPc)-based conjugated 2D COFs (MPc-pz, M = Zn or Cu), which assembled as van der Waals (vdWs) layer-stacked structures. The resultant materials are found to be polycrystalline p-type semiconductors with band gaps of ~1.2 eV. Van der Pauw,  Hall effect, time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy (TRTS), and density functional theory (DFT) calculations are employed for characterizing univocally the intrinsic and extrinsic factors determining the electronic properties of these materials. We demonstrate that for this p-type semiconductor changing the metal center from Cu to Zn in the phthalocyanine moiety has a negligible effect in the conductivity, charge density, charge carrier scattering rate, and effective mass of majority carriers (holes). Mobilities up to ~5 cm2/(Vs) are resolved in the dc limit, which is limited by long-range charge carrier transport across crystalline grain boundaries. Interestingly, charge transport is found to be highly anisotropic, with hole mobilities being practically null in-plane and finite out-of-plane for the developed 2D COFs.

This work is financially supported from EU Graphene Flagship, ERC Consolidator Grant (T2DCP), Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET) as well as the German Science Council, Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden, EXC1056, (cfaed) and OR 349/1. We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD; Dr. Philipp Schlender, Dr. Konrad Schneider (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden), Dr. Tilo Lübken and Mr. Friedrich Schwotzer for the use of facilities. We also appreciate Mr. Ji Ma, Dr. Haixia Zhong, and Ms. Yu Zhang (UvA) for the MS, SEM and XPS analysis, respectively. We thank Mr. Chi Xu (HZDR), Dr. Chongqing Yang and Dr. Zhongquan Liao (IKTS) for the helpful discussions. Prof. T. Heine and Hung-Hsuan Lin acknowledge the Centre for Information Services and High-Performance Computing (ZIH) in Dresden, Germany for the provided computational resources.

Reference:

Mingchao Wang, Marco Ballabio, Mao Wang, Hung-Hsuan Lin, Bishnu P. Biswal, Xiaocang Han, Silvia Paasch, Eike Brunner, Pan Liu, Mingwei Chen, Mischa Bonn, Thomas Heine, Shengqiang Zhou, Enrique Cánovas*, Renhao Dong*, Xinliang Feng*. Unveiling Electronic Properties in Metal-Phthalocyanine-based Pyrazine-linked Conjugated Two-Dimensional Covalent Organic Frameworks. J. Am. Chem. Soc.2019, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b07644.

 

Visit of TUD Delegation at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tongji University promises fruitful future cooperation

October 9, 2019

At the end of September, we had a wonderful trip to Shanghai accompanied by TU Dresden Rector Prof. Müller-Steinhagen, Prorector Prof. Krauthäuser and Prof. Gianaurelio Cuniberti. We successfully built up strategic cooperations with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Tongji University which are among the top Chinese universities. We look forward to the next steps!

 

Bottom-up Synthesis of Crystalline 2D Polymers: A Dream Finally Comes True

Published on September 24, 2019

Left: Schematic illustration for the SMAIS method for 2D polymer synthesis (by Marc Hermann, TRICKLABOR).

Right: High-resolution transmission electron microscopic image for 2D polyimide (by Dr. Haoyuan Qi, Uni Ulm)

Scientists at the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TU Dresden have succeeded in synthesizing sheet-like 2D polymers by a bottom-up process for the first time. A novel synthetic reaction route was developed for this purpose. The 2D polymers consist of only a few single atomic layers and, due to their very special properties, are a promising material for use in electronic components and systems of a new generation. The research result is a collaborative work of several groups at TU Dresden and the University of Ulm and was published this week in two related articles in the scientific journals "Nature Chemistry" and "Nature Communications".

Ever since Hermann Staudinger discovered the linear polymers in 1920, it has been a dream of synthetic scientists to extend the polymerization into the second dimension. A two-dimensional (2D) polymer is a sheet-like monomolecular macromolecule consisting of laterally connected repeat units with end groups along all edges. Given the enormous chemical and structural diversity of the building blocks (i.e., monomers), 2D polymers hold great promise in the rational material design tailored for next-generation applications, such as membrane separation, electronics, optical devices, energy storage and conversion, etc. However, despite the tremendous developments in synthetic chemistry over the last century, the bottom-up synthesis of 2D polymers with defined structures remains a formidable task.

Since 2014, a group of scientists from Technische Universität Dresden and Universität Ulm joined forces to pursue this intriguing yet challenging goal. The research team led by Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng (TU Dresden) innovatively developed a novel synthetic route: using surfactant monolayer as a soft template to guide the supramolecular organization of monomers and the subsequent 2D polymerization at an air-water interface. This synthetic methodology is now termed as surfactant-monolayer-assistant interfacial synthesis (SMAIS). By using the SMAIS method, Dr. Tao Zhang synthesized crystalline quasi-2D polyaniline films with lateral size ~50 cm2 and tunable thickness (2.6 - 30 nm). The superior charge transport properties and chemiresistivity toward ammonia and volatile organic compounds render the quasi-2D polyaniline films as promising electroactive materials for thin-film organic electronics. To further explore the potential of SMAIS, Mr. Kejun Liu, Dr. Tao Zhang, Dr. Zhikun Zheng and Dr. Renhao Dong achieved controlled synthesis of highly-crystalline few-layer 2D polyimide and polyamide for the first time. The 2D polymers have a thickness of only a few nanometers and can be readily transferred onto arbitrary substrates, opening up exciting opportunity for the integration of 2D polymers into next-generation devices and systems.

Along with the pivotal developments on the synthesis front, the transmission electron microscopy group led by Prof. Dr. Ute Kaiser (Uni Ulm) provided another indispensable pillar of the joint research. Since the development of aberration correction, high-resolution TEM imaging has been a powerful technique in structural characterization down to the atomic scale. Yet, hydrogen-containing organic materials are extremely prone to structural disintegration under the electron beam, rendering HRTEM imaging of 2D polymers a highly demanding mission. By utilizing the spherical-aberration-corrected HRTEM, Dr. Haoyuan Qi has successfully unraveled the micro-morphology, molecular structures, grain boundary and edge structures, of the synthetic 2D polymers: an achievement which is rarely reported in literature.

The molecular structures and overall crystallinity have been further elucidated via synchrotron grazing-incidence X-ray scattering (cfaed Chair for Organic Devices, Prof. Dr. Stefan Mannsfeld, TU Dresden). The group of Prof. Dr. Thomas Heine (TU Dresden) provided density-functional tight-binding calculations which offers significant insights into the atomistic structures of the synthetic 2D polymers.     

This fruitful results of the joint research have been published this week on Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/s41557-019-0327-5) and Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11921-3) in tandem.  

Acknowledgment:
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by ERC Grant on T2DCP and EU Graphene Flagship, COORNET (SPP 1928), CONJUGATION-706082 as well as the German Science Council, Centre of Advancing Electronics Dresden, EXC1056, (cfaed) and OR 349/1. Haoyuan Qi and Ute Kaiser thank the financial support by the DFG in the framework of the “SALVE” (Sub-Angstrom Low-Voltage Electron Microscopy) project as well the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) of Baden-Wuerttemberg in the framework of the SALVE project. Kejun Liu thanks the China Scholarship Council (CSC) for the financial support.

References:

  1. Kejun Liu, Dr. Haoyuan Qi, Dr. Renhao Dong, Rishi Shivhare, Dr. Matthew Addicoat, Dr. Tao Zhang, Hafeesudeen Sahabudeen, Prof. Thomas Heine, Prof. Stefan Mannsfeld, Prof. Ute Kaiser, Prof. Zhikun Zheng, Prof. Xinliang Feng. On-water surface synthesis of crystalline two-dimensional polymers assisted by surfactant monolayers. Nature Chemistry (2019). DOI: 1038/s41557-019-0327-5.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-019-0327-5
  2. Tao Zhang , Dr. Haoyuan Qi , Dr. Zhongquan Liao , Yehu Horev , Luis Panes-Ruiz , Dr. Petko Petkov , Zhe Zhang , Rishi Shivhare, Panpan Zhang, Kejun Liu, Viktor Bezugly , Prof. Shaohua Liu , Prof. Zhikun Zheng , Prof. Stefan Mannsfeld , Prof. Thomas Heine , Prof. Gianaurelio Cuniberti , Prof. Hossam Haick , Prof. Ehrenfried Zschech , Prof. Ute Kaiser, Dr. Renhao Dong, Prof. Xinliang Feng. Engineering Crystalline Quasi-Two-Dimensional Polyaniline Thin Film with Enhanced Electrical and Chemiresistive Sensing Performances. Nature Communications (2019), DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11921-3.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11921-3

Pictures:
Scientific Image: Download via https://bit.ly/2mpl1sF
Photo of Organic 2D-Materials Group at the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials, Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden, TU Dresden:
Download via https://bit.ly/2ml04iG

 

Guest lecture - Dr. Jos Lenders, Deputy Editor of Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, and Advanced Optical Materials

September 19, 2019

Speaker: Dr. Jos Lenders, Deputy Editor of Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, and Advanced Optical Materials

Date/Time: Thursday, September 19, 2019, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Chemie-Neubau (CHE), lecture hall CHE 091, Bergstrasse 66, 01069 Dresden

Topic: Publishing advanced materials science with Wiley under the Projekt DEAL “Publish & Read” agreement – How to maximize your success!

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Congratulations to Panpan Zhang who successfully defended his PhD

September 17, 2019

Panpan Zhang successfully defended his PhD on “Development of Novel Micro-Supercapacitors with High Areal Energy Density and Smart Functions” on September 10, 2019. Congratulations Dr. Zhang!

 

Renhao Dong receives an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million EUR to develop functional conjugated 2D MOFs

Published on September 13, 2019

The European Research Council (ERC) has approved the research project "Development of Functional Conjugated Two-Dimensional Metal-Organic Frameworks (FC2DMOF)" with a prestigious and highly competitive Starting Grant of 1.5 million EUR for 5 years.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline coordination polymers that consist of metal ions connected by organic ligands, which have been highlighted for the functions in catalysis, gas storage and separation. In the past, MOFs were regarded as insulators due to the large separation of metal centers by multi-atom, insulating organic ligands, etc. Recent advances disclose that the designs of conjugated 2D MOFs (C2DMOFs) have led to improved intrinsic conductivity (up to 2500 S/cm). However, the related research remains immature due to lack of high-quality film samples, very limited structural types and elusive transport mechanism. 

Dr. Renhao Dong’s ERC Starting Grant project aims to develop magnetic (semi-)conductive C2DMOFs and accomplish electronic/magnetic structure engineering for functions in electronics and spintronics. Dr. Dong and his team will design novel π-conjugated ligands to tune geometries and pore sizes of C2DMOFs, thus achieving in-plane engineering on charge and spin distribution; meanwhile, they will dedicate the development of versatile synthetic strategies towards the synthesis of highly crystalline (or single-crystalline) single-layer or few-layer C2DMOFs. By employing the developed C2DMOFs, they will explore magnetism and temperature-/magnetic/electric field-depended charge transport properties. As the key achievements, it is expected to establish novel electronic/magnetic structures and general synthesis strategies, delineation of reliable structure-transport relationships and superior device performance of C2DMOFs. This is an emerging joint research front that holds great potential for influencing the research and development in Chemistry, Materials Science and Physics.  

Since Jan. 2017, Dr. Renhao Dong has been a research group leader of organic 2D materials in the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials, TU Dresden. His current scientific interests include (1) Organic synthesis of novel pi-conjugated molecules; (2) Chemistry of 2D covalent polymers: structures and synthetic methodologies (solvothermal/interfacial/CVD methods as well as liquid-phase exfoliation); (3) Functional conjugated 2D MOFs: synthesis and functions for opto-electronics, magnetics, electrocatalysis, energy storage and sensing; (4) Organic-2D-crystal-based van der Waals heterostructures.

Website of Dr. Renhao Dong: https://tu-dresden.de/mn/chemie/mc/mc2/die-professur/gruppenleiter/dr-renhao-dong 

News for ERC Starting Grant 2019: https://erc.europa.eu/news/StG-recipients-2019

Chem2Dmat European conference on chemistry of two-dimensional materials was held in Dresden

September 9, 2019

The international Chem2Dmat conference was held on September 03 - 06, 2019 at the Dresden University of Technology organized by the Phantoms Foundation with local support from the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials (Prof. Xinliang Feng).

The 2nd edition of chem2Dmat has covered all areas related to 2D materials' chemistry spanning their synthesis as well as their functionalization, using covalent and non-covalent approaches, for composites, foams and coatings, membranes, (bio-)sensing, (electro- and photo-)catalysis, energy conversion, harvesting and storage, electronics, nanomedicine, biomaterials, with sessions on the following themes:
- Synthesis, processing and multiscale characterization
- Bottom-up growth
- Covalent and non-covalent functionalization
- Synthetic two-dimensional materials
- Design of 3D functional materials from layered systems

More than 90 inspiring presentations from international experts, such as Prof. Will Dichtel and Prof. Klaus Müllen showed the potential and perspectives of the future research in this area making this conference a central meeting point for the 2D material´s researcher. Furthermore, the poster session with more than 60 posters also offered young scientists the possibility to present their research on 2D materials.

 

Guest lecture - Prof. Yury Gogotsi, Drexel University, USA

August 29, 2019

Speaker: Prof. Yury Gogotsi, A. J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

Date/Time: Thursday, August 29, 2019, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, Seminar room HEM 219 (second floor)

Topic: Electronic Properties of 2D Transition Metal Carbides and Nitrides (MXenes).

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Dr. Jian Zhang started a Professorship in Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), China from March 2019

August 15, 2019

Dr. Jian Zhang has received a call for Professor in Materials Physics and Chemistry within the Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Applied and Natural Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), Xi'an, P. R. China and started from March 1, 2019.

 

Prof. Feng elected as member of the Academy Europaea

August 13, 2019

Prof. Xinliang Feng has been elected as a member of the Academy Europaea.

The object of Academia Europaea is the advancement and propagation of excellence in scholarship in the humanities, law, the economic, social, and political sciences, mathematics, medicine, and all branches of natural and technological sciences anywhere in the world for the public benefit and for the advancement of the education of the public of all ages. The aim of the Academy is to promote European research, advise governments and international organisations in scientific matters, and further interdisciplinary and international research.

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Guest lecture - Prof. Zhifeng Ren, University of Houston, USA

August 5, 2019

Speaker: Prof. Zhifeng Ren, Department of Physics and Texax Center for Superconductivity (TcSUH), University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA

Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2019, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, Seminar room HEM 219 (second floor)

Topic: Challenges and Potential Solutions to Future Energy Need.

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Workshop on "Graphene and 2D materials" and 5th year anniversary celebration of the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials

August 2, 2019

On August 1, 2019 Prof. Feng celebrated the 5th year anniversary with many colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere while enjoying a delicious BBQ. Prof. Feng began his work as a cfaed strategic professor 5 years ago and has since then built up his chair with more than 60 people.

On this occassion Prof. Feng organized a 1-day workshop on "Graphene and 2D materials" inviting many colleagues and collaboration partners.

Dr. Junzhi Liu will start Professorship in Hong Kong from September 2019

July 31, 2019

Dr. Junzhi Liu has received a call for Assistant Professor in Materials Chemistry with tenure track in the Department of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and will start from September 1, 2019.

 

Open-shell Non-benzenoid Nanographenes Containing Two Pairs of Pentagonal and Heptagonal Rings

Published on July 24, 2019

Extended polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or nanographenes, which can be regarded as finite graphene segments composed of sp2-conjugated carbon atoms, have attracted tremendous interest in the last two decades due to their intriguing electronic and optoelectronic properties, leading to potential applications in organic electronics. However, most reported nanographenes consist solely of benzenoid rings. Non-benzenoid odd-membered polycycles such as pentagons and heptagons occur in graphene as localized defects and extended grain boundaries, and may significantly influence the physicochemical properties of corresponding nanostructures, arising from local changes in strain and conjugation. The known methods of graphene fabrication, however, fail to offer a rational control over the formation of non-benzenoid topologies. This limitation thus motivates their atomically-precise synthesis and comprehensive characterizations.

The group of scientists from the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials of Prof. Xinliang Feng, Prof. Klaus Müllen (MPIP) and Prof. Roman Fasel (EMPA, Zurich, Switzerland) have demonstrated a combined bottom-up in-solution and on-surface synthetic approach, reported the synthesis of non-benzenoid open-shell nanographenes containing two pairs of embedded pentagonal and heptagonal rings. The 5-7 rings embedded nanographene displays an extremely narrow energy gap of 0.27 eV and exhibits a pronounced open-shell biradical character close to 1 (y0=0.92), in which the spin densities are localized on the edges of heptagonal rings. The experimental results are supported by mean-field and multi-configurational quantum chemical calculations. Access to large nanographenes with a combination of non-benzenoid topologies and open-shell character should have wide implications in harnessing new functionalities toward the realization of future organic electronic and spintronic devices.

This work was financially supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 696656 (Graphene Flagship Core2), the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)” and EnhanceNano (No. 391979941), the European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project “GRAPHD”, TU Dresden), the Swiss National Science Foundation and the NCCR MARVEL funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. 


Reference:
Junzhi Liu, Shantanu Mishra, Carlo A. Pignedoli, Daniele Passerone, José I. Urgel, Alberto Fabrizio, Thorsten G. Lohr, Ji Ma, Hartmut Komber, Martin Baumgarten, Clémence Corminboeuf, Reinhard Berger, Pascal Ruffieux, Klaus Müllen*, Roman Fasel*, Xinliang Feng*. J. Am. Chem. Soc, 2019, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b04718..

A Semiconducting Layered Metal-Organic Framework Magnet

Published on July 22, 2019

Semiconductors that display spontaneous magnetization are attractive for spintronic applications. Historically, the research of ferromagnetic semiconductor materials has been primarily focused on inorganic dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) and layered inorganic two-dimensional (2D) materials. As major drawbacks, their low magnetic ordering temperature as well as poor chemical tunability greatly hindered their practical application. As a new kind of promising alternatives, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been reported to show promise in tailoring the magnetic ordering temperature and carrier motilities respectively through rational design and synthesis of MOFs materials. However, the simultaneous realization of room-temperature magnetic ordering and semiconducting behavior in a MOF has not been experimentally demonstrated to date.
To address this situation, a group of scientists from the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) & Department of Chemistry and Food Chemistry at TU Dresden, together with researchers from HZDR/MPIP/IKTS/IMDEA/SJTU/Leipzig have developed a semiconducting layered metal-organic framework (MOF, K3Fe2[PcFe-O8]) with spontaneous magnetization. This layered MOF features in-plane full π-d conjugation and exhibits semiconducting behavior with a room temperature carrier mobility of ~15 cm2/Vs as determined by time-resolved Terahertz spectroscopy. Magnetization experiments and 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy demonstrate the presence of long-range magnetic correlations in obtained K3Fe2[PcFe-O8] arising from the magnetic coupling between iron centers via delocalized π electrons. The sample exhibits superparamagnetic features due to a distribution of crystal size and possesses magnetic hysteresis up to 350 K. This work sets the stage for the development of spintronic materials exploiting magnetic MOF semiconductors.

Figure (a) Schematic illustration for the synthesis of K3Fe2[PcFe-O8] framework with iron ions and organic PcFe-OH8 linkers connected by coordination bonds (light cyan: C; blue: N; light pink: O; orange: Fe3+ in the phthalocyanine ring; green: Fe2+ in the linkage; H atoms and K+ counter-ions omitted for clarity). (b) Real (black dots) and imaginary (red dots) components of the frequency-resolved complex conductivity; solid lines represent a Drude-Smith description of the data. (c) Magnetic hysteresis loops obtained at different temperatures.

This work was financially supported by ERC Grant on 2DMATER, EU Graphene Flagship, Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET) as well as the German Science Council, Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden, EXC1056, (cfaed) and OR 349/1 and the Max Planck Society. E.C. acknowledges financial support from the Max Planck Graduate Center and the regional government of Comunidad de Madrid under project (2017-T1/AMB-5207). We also acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD, Dr. Petr Formanek and Dr. Konrad Schneider (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden), Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF, China) for the use of facilities. We appreciate Prof. Bernd Büchner, Dr. Vladislav Kataev, Dr. Yulia Krupskaya (IFW Dresden) for the helpful discussion. Prof. T. Heine and Dr. P. Petkov aknowledge the Centre for Information Services and HighPerformance Computing (ZIH) in Dresden, Germany for the provided computational resources.

Reference:
Chongqing Yang, Renhao Dong*, Mao Wang, Petko St. Petkov, Zhitao Zhang, Mingchao Wang, Peng Han, Marco Ballabio, Sascha A. Bräuninger, Zhongquan Liao, Jichao Zhang, Friedrich Schwotzer, Ehrenfried Zschech, Hans-Henning Klauss, Enrique Cánovas, Stefan Kaskel, Mischa Bonn, Shengqiang Zhou, Thomas Heine, Xinliang Feng*. Nature Communications 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11267.

Layered Two-Dimensional Conjugated Metal-Organic Framework as Highly Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Published on July 11, 2019

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), have been rising as a fascinating family of electrocatalysts with both homogeneous and heterogeneous advantages: the well-defined structures and readily accessible active sites can be tuned at the molecular level to improve the catalytic performance and also enable the MOFs to serve as model systems for fundamental understanding of catalytic mechanism. However, great challenges still plagued on the conventional MOFs including electrical insulators and blockage of metal centers by organic ligands, resulting in their inferior activity (half-wave potential E1/2 <0.8 V vs RHE) and dramatically limit their broader applications in electrocatalysis. Pyrolysis of MOFs into metal- and heteroatom-doped porous carbons has been widely demonstrated to improve the catalytic activity. However, this method has to sacrifice the well-defined molecular active sites.

In order to address these challenges, researchers from Technical University of Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed a copper-phthalocyanine-based 2D conjugated MOF with square planar cobalt-bis(dihydroxy) complexes (Co-O4) as linkages (PcCu-O8-Co), which is atomically ordered, planar metal-organic networks along 2D directions with fully in-plane π-delocalization and weak out-plane π-π stacking. This 2D MOFs shows unique 2D features as well as improved electron transfer capacity and high utilization of exposed active sites apart from the inherited advantages of traditional MOFs. PcCu-O8-Co 2D MOF mixed with carbon nanotubes exhibits excellent electrocatalytic ORR activity (E1/2=0.83 V vs. RHE, n=3.93, and jL=5.3 mA cm-2) in alkaline media, which is the record value among the reported intrinsic MOF electrocatalysts. Supported by in-situ Raman spectro-electrochemistry and theoretical modelling as well as contrast catalytic tests, we identified the cobalt nodes as ORR active sites. Furthermore, when employed as cathode electrocatalyst for zinc-air battery, PcCu-O8-Co delivers a maximum power density of 94 mW cm-2, outperforming the state-of-the-art Pt/C (78.3 mW cm-2).

Reference:
Haixia Zhong, Khoa Hoang Ly, Mingchao Wang, Yulia Krupskaya, Xiaocang Han, Jichao Zhang, Jian Zhang, Vladislav Kataev, Bernd Büchner, Inez M. Weidinger, Stefan Kaskel, Pan Liu, Mingwei Chen, Renhao Dong* & Xinliang Feng*, A Phthalocyanine‐Based Layered Two‐Dimensional Conjugated Metal–Organic Framework as a Highly Efficient Electrocatalyst for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, doi.org/10.1002/ange.201907002..

This work is financially supported from EU Graphene Flagship, ERC T2DCP, Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP 1928, COORNET), as well as the German Science Council and Center of Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed). H.X.Z. gratefully acknowledges funding from China Scholarship Council and Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst German Academic Exchange Service, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. I.M.W. acknowledges the Cluster of Excellence UniSysCat. We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD, Dr. Petr Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) for the use of facilities. We also like to appreciate the helpful discussion from Dr. Zhongquan Liao, Mr. Zhiyong Wang and Dr. Chongqing Yang. We thank the beamline BL14W1 and BL15U1 of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for the XAFS measurements.

Synthesis and characterisation of π-extended Triangulene

Published on July 3, 2019

Researchers from the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials of Prof. Xinliang Feng and the research group of Prof. Roman Fasel (EMPA, Zurich, Switzerland) recently reported the synthesis and characterization of the elusive π-extended triangulene – a non-Kekulé high-spin nanographene potentially useful in carbon-based spintronic. The π-extended triangulene with the structural formula C33H15 was obtained via combined in-solution and on-surface synthesis approach. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) were employed to characterize the π-extended triangulene at the sub-molecular level. In particular, STS data confirm the expected presence of three unpaired electrons that couple to form a high-spin quartet ground state when the π-extended triangulene is adsorbed on a gold surface.



Reference:
Synthesis and Characterization of π-Extended Triangulene”. Shantanu Mishra, Doreen Beyer, Kristjan Eimre, Junzhi Liu, Reinhard Berger, Oliver Gröning, Carlo A. Pignedoli, Klaus Müllen, Roman Fasel, Xinliang Feng, Pascal Ruffiuex. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, xxx. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b05319.

This work was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant numbers 200020-182015 and IZLCZ2-170184), the NCCR MARVEL funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number 51NF40-182892), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement numbers 696656 and 785219 (Graphene Flagship Core 2), the Office of Naval Research (grant number N00014-18-1-2708), ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP, number 819698), the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)” and EnhanceNano (number 391979941), and the European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESFProject “GRAPHD”, TU Dresden). Computational support from the Swiss Supercomputing Center (CSCS) under project ID s904 is gratefully acknowledged.

Mechanically strong MXene/Kevlar nanofiber composite membranes as high-performance nanofluidic osmotic power generators

Published on July 2, 2019

Two-dimensional nanofluidic channels are emerging candidates for capturing osmotic energy from salinity gradients. However, present two-dimensional nanofluidic architectures are generally constructed by simple stacking of pristine nanosheets with insufficient charge densities and exhibit low-efficiency transport dynamics, consequently resulting in undesirable power densities of less than 1 W m-2.

The researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) demonstrate a high-performance nanofluidic osmotic power generator by hybridizing 2D MXene nanosheets with 1D Kevlar nanofibers (ANFs). The ANF can serve as an intercalating agent that will enlarge the interlayer channel and prevent the restacking of adjacent MXene nanosheets. More importantly, the ANFs are negatively charged in solution and their entanglement in confined channel can create a negatively charged space charge zone. By mixing artificial river water and sea water, the output power density can achieve ~3.7 W m-2, which is the highest value ever reported in both 1D and 2D nanofluidic channel membrane systems. Replacing the artificial water with natural water resource can contribute to a substantially high power density about 4.1 W m-2, much closer to the commercialization benchmark. Additionally, benefitting from the introduction of ultrastrong structural unit ANF, the composite membrane also exhibits excellent mechanical strength and good stability, showing great application prospects. This work highlights the promise in the coupling of surface charge and space charge in nanoconfinement for energy conversion driven by chemical potential gradients.

This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785219, the European Science Foundation (ESF), and the Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems (SPP1928, COORNET). The authors acknowledge the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TU Dresden.

Reference:
Zhen Zhang, Sheng Yang, Panpan Zhang, Jian Zhang, Guangbo Chen, and Xinliang Feng*, Mechanically strong MXene/Kevlar nanofiber composite membranes as high-performance nanofluidic osmotic power generators. Nat. Commun. 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10885-8.

Radio report on Graphene - Interview with Prof. Xinliang Feng

June 27, 2019

Radio interview by Frank Grotelüschen with Prof. Xinliang Feng on the topic of Graphene and demineralisation/water processing published on radio channel "Deutschlandfunk".

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/die-welt-wird-flach-elektronik-und-werkstoffe-aus-graphen.740.de.html?dram:article_id=451927

https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/hocheffiziente-membran-graphen-in-der-trinkwasserentsalzung.676.de.html?dram:article_id=451984

Guest lecture - Prof. Tien-Yau Luh, National Taiwan University

Published on June 26, 2019

Speaker: Prof. Tien-Yau Luh, Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Date/Time: Monday, July 8, 2019, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, Seminar room HEM 219 (second floor)

Topic: From One-dimensional Ladderphanes to Two-dimensional Stromaphanes.

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Guest lecture - Prof. Shie-Ming Peng, National Taiwan University

Published on June 26, 2019

Speaker: Prof. Shie-Ming Peng, Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei Taiwan, Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Taipei Taiwan

Date/Time: Monday, July 8, 2019, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, Seminar room HEM 219 (second floor)

Topic: Molecular Metal Wires from Homonuclear Metal String Complexes to Heteronuclear Metal String Complexes.

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Guest lecture - Prof. Michael Mastalerz, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

Published on June 7, 2019

Speaker: Prof. Michael Mastalerz, Organisch-Chemisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg

Date/Time: Thursday, June 13, 2019, 15:00 - 16:30

Location: TU Dresden, Chemie-Neubau, CHE 183 (first floor)

Topic: From Soluble Porous Cages to Extended fused π-Systems.

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CSC-Award granted to Faxing Wang and Panpan Zhang

June 7, 2019

Faxing Wang and Panpan Zhang, two PhD students in Prof. Feng's chair at TU Dresden, have recently been granted "the 2018 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad" by the China Scholarship Council. This award was founded by the Chinese government in 2003 and aims at rewarding the academic excellence of self-financed Chinese students studying overseas. Only those with outstanding performance in their PhD studies will be considered by the award panel and no more than 500 young talents will be granted the award each year all over the world.

Guest lecture - Dr. Jeremy Allen, Royal Society of Chemistry

Published on June 7, 2019

Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Allen, Deputy Editor, Chemical Science, Royal Society of Chemistry

Date/Time: Monday, May 20, 2019, 10:00 - 11:00 AM

Location: TU Dresden, Chemie-Neubau, CHE 182 (first floor)

Topic: My role within a societal publisher and tips on how to publish your scientific research.

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Atomically Dispersed Nickel–Nitrogen–Sulfur Species Anchored on Porous Carbon Nanosheets for Water Oxidation

Published on April 9, 2019

Exploring earth-abundant, active and stable electrocatalysts to replace noble metal catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) through alkaline water photoelectrolysis and electrolysis system is a key to develop sustainable energy conversion technologies. Despite certain progress made in the development of heteroatom-doped carbon materials in the past, especially the transitional metal-N (TM–Nx) doped nanocarbons catalysts, the application of TM–Nx-doped nanocarbons in OER electrocatalysis is in infancy, and the overall catalytic performance of TM–Nx-doped nanocarbons is far from satisfactory for practical applications.
Here, Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany), Prof. Dr. Yang Hou (Zhejiang University, China), and colleagues report a 2D nanocarbon hybrid electrocatalyst comprised of atomically dispersed Ni atoms coordinated with three nitrogen and one sulfur atoms in porous carbon nanosheets (S|NiNx-PC). Benefiting from the abundant porous architecture and well-distributed active sites, the achieved S|NiNx-PC/EG nanosheets electrode displays outstanding electrocatalytic activity and durability for OER with a low overpotential of 1.51 V at 10 mA cm-2 and a small Tafel slope of 45 mV dec-1 in alkaline media. The overpotential for the S|NiNx-PC/EG is the lowest among all heteroatom- and/or transition metal-doped carbon electrocatalysts for OER reported thus far, and it even surpasses the state-of-the-art commercial Ir/C catalyst. Moreover, an integrated photoanode of nanocarbon on a Fe2O3 nanosheet array enables highly active solar-driven oxygen production.

Experimental results reveal that the well-dispersed molecular S|NiNx species act as active sites for catalyzing OER, where the incorporated S atoms can effectively tune the hybridization state of the Ni and N atoms and enhance the electron transfer, thus synergistically promoting the oxidation kinetics. Theoretical calculations manifest that the coordination of Ni–Nx centers hybridized with that of neighboring S atom creates sufficient localized reactive sites by modifying the local charge distribution on the carbon surface and reducing the potential barriers of the elementary reactions, thereby boosting its OER kinetics. More importantly, the accurate atomic structure of isolated Ni atoms coordinated with three N atoms and one S atom in the carbon matrix for the S|NiNx active centers is clearly disclosed by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, atomic electron energy loss spectroscopy and synchrotron radiation X-ray absorption spectroscopy together with DFT-simulated scanning tunneling microscopy. This work was published at Nat. Commun. 2019, doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09394-5.

Dr. Lucia Gemma Delogu received call for Professorship in Padua

April 4, 2019

Dr. Lucia Gemma Delogu has received a call for professor in Biochemistry with tenure track at the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Padua Italy.

ERC Consolidator Grant für Prof. Xinliang Feng

March 7, 2019

Im Februar 2019 wurde die Vereinbarung über einen „Consolidator Grant“ des Europäischen Forschungsrates ERC für Prof. Xinliang Feng unterschrieben. Der Projekttitel lautet „T2DCP – Development of Thiophene Based Conjugated Polymers in Two Dimensions“, der Grant läuft über fünf Jahre und ist mit einem Volumen von zwei Millionen Euro ausgestattet. Es ist geplant, fünf Postdocs und vier Doktoranden in das Projekt einzubeziehen, da es eine sehr breite Palette von Forschungsthemen abdeckt.

Der Europäische Forschungsrat hat das Consolidator-Programm aufgelegt, um Wissenschaftlern auf einer fortgeschrittenen Karrierestufe eine größere Unabhängigkeit durch den (weiteren) Aufbau ihres Forschungsteams und die Weiterentwicklung einer erfolgreichen Karriere in Europa zu ermöglichen. Der ERC fördert damit Projekte, bei denen ein einzelner Forscher als Principal Investigator auftritt und die an einer beliebigen Gastinstitution in einem Mitgliedsland der EU durchgeführt werden.

Prof. Feng leitet die Strategische cfaed-Professur für Molekulare Funktionsmaterialien an der TU Dresden und beschäftigt sich hauptsächlich mit 2D-Materialien, die aus nur einer einzigen Atomlage bestehen. In diesem Jahr wird er sein 5-jähriges Jubiläum am Exzellenzcluster begehen.

Dr. Wee Jun Ong, BMBF Green Talents Award Winner joins Prof. Feng's chair

February 25, 2019

Dr. Wee Jung Ong, Assistant Professor at Xiamen University Malaysia and BMBF Green Talents Award winner, has joined our chair on February 25, 2019. During his three months research stay he aims to work on the sustainable energy development and simultaneously to address the present energy and environmental-related issues, which are two of the biggest challenges in society today.

https://www.bmbf.de/de/green-talents-350.html

Prof. Feng elected as member of the European Academy of Sciences

Feburary 22, 2019

Prof. Xinliang Feng has been elected as a member of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc).

The European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) is a non-profit non-governmental, independent organization which units the most distinguished scholars and engineers performing forefront research and the development of advanced technologies.
The mission of EURASC is to promote excellence in science and technology and it plays an essential role in fostering social and economic development and progress. The official name of the institution is European Academy of Sciences (Académie Européenne des Sciences).

http://www.eurasc.org/aboutus/aboutus.asp

Advanced Materials Hall of Fame laureates highlighted on Advanced Science News

January 17, 2019

Advanced Materials Hall of Fame laureates highlighted on Advanced Science News

Advanced Materials

2nd Graphene Flagship EU-China Workshop was held in Dresden

December 13, 2018

The 2nd Graphene Flagship EU-China Workshop on Graphene and related 2D materials was held on 07-08 December 2018 at Pullman Hotel in Dresden organized by Graphene Flagship and Chair of Molecular Functional Materials (Prof. Xinliang Feng).

During the workshop speakers from China and European countries presented their current works and exchanged their experiences and ideas related to the current and emerging topics associated with the fundamental materials synthesis, physics and devices for graphene and related 2D materials. At the end of the workshop, Chinese and European speakers have built new collaborations base on the presented works in the workshop.

Dr. Zhen Zhang received the prestigious Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers

November 27, 2018

The Humboldt Research Fellowship is awarded to researchers from abroad with above average qualifications and who are at the beginning of their career. By being granted this fellowship, Dr. Zhen Zhang, will receive financial support for two years to carry out his research in the research group of Prof. Xinliang Feng at Technische Universität Dresden.

Highly Cited Researcher 2018

November 27, 2018

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has been listed as highly cited researcher in 2018 for his research performance demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.

Highly Cited Researchers 2018 (list)

Fluoride-Free Synthesis of Two-Dimensional Titanium Carbide (MXene)

Published on October 18, 2018

MXenes are a fascinating class of two-dimensional (2D) materials that consist of few atoms thick layers of transition metal carbides, nitrides or carbonitrides. They have aroused increasing attention due to their unique combination of hydrophilic properties and good electrical conductivity. The production of MXene relies on chemical etching of aluminium (Al) layers from titanium aluminium carbide (Ti3AlC2, a MAX phase). Although diverse etching conditions have been identified, the state-of-the-art strategies require the handling of hydrofluoric acid or fluoride-based compounds, which result in highly toxic and corrosive liquid waste, and the functionalization of Ti3C2 surfaces with fluorine- and oxygen-containing terminations. Along with the considerable safety issues, fluoridated etchants have negative impact on the specific capacitance of etched materials when used as electrodes for supercapacitors.

To address these problems, researchers from Technical University of Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) and collaborators have developed an efficient electrochemical strategy to prepare Ti3C2Tx (T=O, OH) (MXene) in a binary aqueous system. The anodic etching of Al atoms followed by the replacement with hydroxide groups enable the formation of single or bilayer sheets with high yield (>90 %) and large average dimension. The results are comparable or even better than those made from classic etching techniques using HF or LiF/HCl. For the use as energy storage materials, all-solid-state supercapacitors assembled with Ti3C2Tx films deliver a high areal capacitance of 220 mF cm-2 (scan rate: 10 mV s-1). More importantly, this method does not require any dangerous fluoride-containing agents or harsh etching conditions, therefore it is appealing for the practical production of novel MXene materials.

This work was financially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (MX-OSMOPED project), ERC grants on 2DMATER, Graphene Core 2 and EC under Graphene Flagship (NO. CNECT-ICT-604391) and Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed).

Reference:
Sheng Yang, Panpan Zhang, Faxing Wang, Antonio Gaetano Ricciardulli, Martin R. Lohe, Paul W. M. Blom & Xinliang Feng*, Fluoride-Free Synthesis of Two-Dimensional Titanium Carbide (MXene) Using A Binary Aqueous System. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201809662

Angewandte Chemie

MOFtronics: 2D metal-organic frameworks are ready for electronics

Published on October 16, 2018

A group of scientists has observed for the first time band-like electron transport in a conjugated two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic framework film (Nature Materials, "High-mobility band-like charge transport in a semiconducting two-dimensional metal–organic framework"). This semiconducting behavior, together with its cost-effective production, opens the path for employing metal-organic frameworks as electroactive materials in electronic devices.

The 21st century has seen a reinvention of how modern electronics impact our daily lives. Inorganic semiconductors as silicon, germanium or gallium arsenide are at the core of modern electronics; they are currently widely employed in e.g. computer chips, LEDs and solar cells. Inorganic semiconductors are highly pure, crystalline and hence ordered materials, these features make them good conductors of electricity under the application of an external bias (e.g. by applying a voltage). As a drawback, their high crystallinity and purity is reached by high temperature processing and then, they are very expensive to produce. A low-cost alternative are organic based semiconductors as e.g. polymers, these can be processed at room temperatures.

The scientists from TU Dresden/MPI-P/IMDEA Nanociencia/HZDR/MPI-CPS/Sofia have now developed and characterized a novel metal-organic framework (MOF) material, an organic graphene-like two-dimensional (2D) material made at room temperature that, remarkably, behaves electrically as inorganic semiconductors. These results open the path for exploiting MOFs as electroactive materials in electronic devices.

Figure (a) A high-resolution transmission electron microscopy image of the conjugated 2D MOF together with the structural schematic (grey, yellow and orange: carbon, sulfur and iron atoms, respectively). (b and c) Transport studies by THz spectroscopy and Hall effect measurements, respectively.

MOFs are crystalline coordination polymers that consist of metal ions connected by organic ligands. In the past, MOFs were regarded as insulators due to the large separation of metal centers by multi-atom, insulating organic ligands, etc. The new conjugated 2D MOF, produced by the team of Dr. Renhao Dong and Prof. Xinliang Feng in TU Dresden, is a highly crystalline film, obtained from trigonal planar organic ligands that are coordinated by square-planar atomic metal nodes. Such design rendering graphene-like conjugated planar geometry induces full delocalization of p-electrons in 2D, leading to a largely improved conductivity and a narrowed band gap.

The group led by Dr. Enrique Cánovas in MPI-P/IMDEA Nanociencia characterized the 2D MOFs by Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy, a tool that measure the conductivity of a sample in ultrafast time scales (10-12 seconds), locally (measuring currents over distances as short as 10-9 meters) and optically (without the need of applying perturbative metal contacts). These aspects enabled THz spectroscopy to assess the dependence with frequency for the conductivity in the 2D MOF, which turns out to obey a “Drude” behaviour; the same found in e.g. in highly crystalline silicon. From the Drude response, resolved by THz spectroscopy in the novel 2D MOFs, a world record electron mobility was inferred, that surpass previous values, obtained in insulating MOFs, by a factor of 10000.

The “Drude” behaviour implies that electrons can be displaced very easily over very long distances when a voltage is applied. As contrast, a Hall effect measurement by the group led by Dr. Artur Erbe in HZDR based on a “real” electronic device further confirmed the high mobility in this novel MOF. These results open the path for exploiting low cost MOFs in a plethora of novel applications where long-range motion of electrons is desired (e.g. in electronic devices).

This research is a joint collaboration between scientists from Germany, Bulgaria and Spain. The Technical University of Dresden, the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, the Helmholtz Zentrum in Dresden, the Wilhem-Ostwald-Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry in Leipzig, The University of Sofia and the Madrid’s Institute of Advanced Studies IMDEA Nanociencia contributed to this work.

Reference:
Renhao Dong, Peng Han, Himani Arora, Marco Ballabio, Melike Karakus, Zhe Zhang, Chandra Shekhar, Peter Adler, Petko St. Petkov, Artur Erbe, Stefan C. B. Mannsfeld, Claudia Felser, Thomas Heine, Mischa Bonn, Xinliang Feng and Enrique Cánovas. High-mobility band-like charge transport in a semiconducting two-dimensional metal–organic framework. Nature Materials 2018, online.

Nature Materials

This work was financially supported by the ERC Grant on 2DMATER, HIPER-G and EU Graphene Flagship, European Science Foundation (ESF), SPP 1928 (COORNET) and the German Science Council. Financial support by the Max Planck Society is also acknowledged. We acknowledge the CFAED (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden). E.C. acknowledges financial support from the Max Planck Graduate Center and the Regional Government of Comunidad de Madrid under project 2017-T1/AMB-5207. R.D. gratefully appreciates funding from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. H.A. and A.E. are grateful to the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers through the International Helmholtz Research School for Nanoelectronic Networks, IHRS NANONET (VH-KO-606). We appreciate LPKF Laser & Electronics for the fabrication of the Hall bar geometry by laser ablation. We acknowledge the Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD and P. Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) for the use of facilities, and we appreciate X. Zhang, T. Zhang, F. Ortmann and K. S. Schellhammer for the helpful discussion. P.P. and T.H. thank ZIH Dresden for providing high-performance computing facilities.

Marcus Richter wins the RSC poster prize at EuCheMS 2018

Published on September 5, 2018

Congratulations to our PhD student Marcus Richter for the honour to win the Royal Science Chemistry (RSC) poster prize at the EuCheMS conference 2018, which was sponsored by the three RSC journals Nanoscale, Nanoscale Advances and Nanoscale Horizons.
The 7th EuChemS Congress is an internationally respected, large-scale event for chemical sciences, which was held from 26th to 30th August 2018 in Liverpool. This conference had a wide selection of current research topics in chemistry and was highlighted by expert talks from noble prize winner Ben Feringa, Michael Grätzel or Omar Yaghi.

Guest lecture - Prof. Yoshito Tobe, Osaka University

Published on August 28, 2018

Speaker: Prof. Yoshito Tobe, Osaka University

Date/Time: Friday, August 31, 2018, 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, HEM 219 seminar room (second floor)

Topic: Porous Self-Assembled Monolayers at Solution/Graphite Interfaces: From On-Surface Chirality to Molecular Lithography

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Symposium at TU Dresden in celebration of 30 years „Wiley‘s Advanced Materials“

Published on July 27, 2018

Exactly 30 years ago, Advanced Materials - the scientific journal focusing on innovative materials research - saw the light of day. On this occasion the TU Dresden was proud to organize a scientific symposium with the topic "Advanced Carbon & 2D Materials" in honour of this first-class journal which is pioneering in the field of chemistry and materials research. 24 world-renowned scientists from all over the world gave an insight into their groundbreaking research in these fields.

A large number of young scientists followed the inspiring lectures and had the opportunity to present their latest research results to the experts in these research fields, but also to high-ranking representatives of the journal and the publishing house Wiley-VCH, resulting in a stimulating scientific exchange.

It can be said that this symposium was a complete success due to its internationality, the diversity of research and the numerous discussions - both for "Advanced Materials" and Wiley-VCH, the participating (young) scientists and the materials research location TU Dresden.

Magnetic semiconducting 2D MOF

Published on July 10, 2018

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) so far have been highlighted for their potential roles in catalysis, gas storage and separation. However, the realization of high electrical conductivity (>10-3 S/cm) and magnetic ordering in MOFs will afford them new functions for spintronics, which remains relatively unexplored.

The groups from cfaed/TUD/HZDR/MPICPS/IKTS/XJTU demonstrate the synthesis of a two-dimensional MOF (2D MOF) by solvothermal methods using perthiolated coronene, namely 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12-perthiolated coronene (PTC, reported by the same group (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2017, 139, 2168-2171)), as a ligand and planar iron-bis(dithiolene) as linkages enabling a full p-d conjugation. Thus, such 2D MOF is featured with hexagonal lattices and van der Waals layer-stacking structure. Van der Pauw electrical measurement reveals the room temperature conductivity value of ~10 S/cm for bulk compressed pallet. A variable-temperature conductivity measurement displays a non-linear increase of conductivity with temperature, indicating a typical semiconducting behavior. A density functional theory (DFT) calculation is carried out to estimate the band gap as ~0.2 eV for a monolayer MOF. A variable-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurement as well as 57Fe Mössbauer spectra demonstrated that the PTC-Fe exhibit ferromagnetic ordering within nanoscale magnetic clusters at low temperatures (below ~20 K), thus evidencing exchange interactions between the intermediate spin iron(III) centers via the delocalized p electrons. Our work highlights conjugated 2D MOFs as a class of conductive materials exhibiting ferromagnetic and semiconducting features for potential spintronics application.

This work was financially supported by the ERC Grant on 2DMATER, EU Graphene Flagship, SPP 1928 (COORNET) and the German Science Council. We acknowledge the cfaed (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden). We also thank Beamline BL14W1 at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) for providing the beamtimes to carry out the XAS measurements. We acknowledge Dresden Center for Nanoanalysis (DCN) at TUD and Dr. Petr Formanek (Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, IPF, Dresden) for the use of facilities, and we like to appreciate Prof. Stuart Parkin, Dr. Binghai Yan, Dr. Reinhard Berger and Mr. Chi Xu for the helpful discussion.

Reference:
Renhao Dong, Zhitao Zhang, Diana C. Tranca, Shengqiang Zhou, Mingchao Wang, Peter Adler, Zhongquan Liao, Feng Liu, Yan Sun, Wujun Shi, Zhe Zhang, Ehrenfried Zschech, Stefan C.B. Mannsfeld, Claudia Felser & Xinliang Feng*, A coronene-based semiconducting two-dimensional metal-organic framework with ferromagnetic behavior. Nat. Commun. 2018, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05141-4.

Nature Communications

Graphene 2018 Conference was successfully held in Dresden

Published on July 5, 2018

The 8th edition of International Graphene Conference series, the largest European Event in Graphene and 2D Materials with nearly 650 participants from different scientific institutes and industries was successfully held in Dresden from the 26th to 29th of June 2018. The conference covered all areas related to Graphene and 2D Materials including chemistry, physics, material science and engineering. Moreover, within Exhibition and 2 days INDUSTRIAL FORUM, most recent technologies and business opportunities in Graphene and 2D Materials commercialization were presented.

EU Graphene Flagship Meeting took place in Dresden on June 25th 2018

Published on June 26, 2018

On June 25th a meeting of the EU Graphene Flagship with 27 participants from different European institutes and companies took place at TU Dresden. The chair for molecular functional materials (Prof. Xinliang Feng) is the leader of working package 13 (Functional Foams and Coatings) of this EU Flagship project and the purpose of this meeting was to discuss initial results and future perspectives in the field of graphene and related 2D material. The special focus of this meeting was the use of graphene and 2D materials in coatings and porous structures like foams and membranes for applications such as energy storage and conversion, catalysis, water filtration and environmental protection.

EU-40 materials prize awarded to Prof. Xinliang Feng at the e-MRS 2018 Spring Meeting in Strasbourg

Published on June 21, 2018

Prof. Xinliang Feng, cfaed Chair for Molecular Functional Materials, has been announced as the winner of the 2018 edition of the EU-40 Materials Prize for his outstanding and innovative contributions to Materials Research in Europe.
The EU-40 Materials Prize is awarded to researchers under 40 who have a major impact in the field and show exceptional promise for leadership. This prestigious award consists of a 5,000 Euro cash prize, a certificate, waiver of the meeting registration fee and a plenary talk at the Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society where the award was presented. The award ceremony took place on June 20, 2018 in Strasbourg, France.

Toward Full Zigzag-Edged Nanographenes: peri-Tetracene and Its Corresponding Circumanthracene

Published on May 8, 2018

Story of peri-acene (n-PA) molecules started one century ago. Apart from perylene (R. Scholl, 1910) and bisanthene (E. Clar, 1948), all n-PAs are theoretically predicted to show singlet biradical ground state (open-shell), and, hence unstable under ambient conditions. After several decades of waiting, recently, researchers from Technische Universität Dresden (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials, cfaed) and collaborators tackle the synthetic challenges to realize peri-tetracene (4-PA), the next higher analogue, in solution via steric-protection of its active zigzag edges.

This work has been published in Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b03711). The authors demonstrated the synthesis and characterization of the hitherto unknown 4-PA by a rational bottom-up strategy. The phenyl substituents at the zigzag periphery of 4-PA not only offer stability, but also enhance its solubility in common organic solvents. The obtained 4-PA possesses a singlet biradical character (y0 = 72%) and exhibits remarkable persistent stability with a half-life time (t1/2) of ∼3 h under ambient conditions. UV–vis–NIR and electrochemical measurements reveal a narrow optical/electrochemical energy gap (1.11 eV) for 4-PA. Moreover, the bay regions of 4-PA enable the efficient 2-fold Diels–Alder reaction, yielding a novel full zigzag-edged circumanthracene (CA).

This work was financially supported by ERC grants on 2DMATER, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 696656 (Graphene Flagship Core1), Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project “GRAPHD”, TU Dresden). J.J.W. thanks the DFG for funding a Rigaku Oxford Diffraction SuperNova system with a dual source (INST 269/618-1). The authors acknowledge the use of computational facilities at the Center for information services and high performance computing at TU Dresden.

Reference:
M. R. Ajayakumar, Y. Fu, J. Ma, F. Hennersdorf, H. Komber, J. J. Weigand, A. Alfonsov, A. A. Popov, R. Berger, J. Liu, K. Müllen, X. Feng, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b03711).

JACS

New understanding on graphite: a high power cathode material

Published on April 24, 2018

As conventional Li-ion batteries are approaching the bottleneck of energy and power limit, new energy storage technologies with fast-charging feature but based on low-cost materials are highly desirable for future sustainable and scalable applications. To construct next-generation quick-charge batteries, the key lies at developing high power cathodes. However, conventional strategies heavily relied on nanoengineering approaches sacrificing the scalability and battery cost.
The group from cfaed/ Technische Universität Dresden provides another option to build high power cathodes, where inexpensive graphite powders were exploited as the active cathode material. The disintegration problem of graphite cathode, that suffers from large volume change (>130%) during anion (de)intercalation, was well suppressed by utilizing a strong aqueous binder, alginate sodium. Then the mechanically stable electrode functioned as a reliable platform to investigate the electrochemical performance of graphite cathode and reaction kinetics of anion intercalation process. Ultrahigh power density of 42.9 kW/kg at the energy density of 334 Wh/kg and long cycling life (>10000 cycles) were achieved on commercial bulk graphite, surpassing conventional cathodes for Li-ion batteries. The kinetics analysis further revealed that, for the first time, anion intercalation into graphite is a self-activating and fast (pseudo)capacitive process. The kinetical differences between anion intercalation and cation intercalation into graphitic carbon materials were also identified in the paper.

Reference:
Title: Self-activating, capacitive anion intercalation enables high-power graphite cathodes. Adv. Mater., 2018, 1800533.
DOI:10.1002/adma.201800533

Advanced Materials

Copper-surface-mediated synthesis of acetylenic carbon-rich nanofibers for active metal-free photocathodes

Published on March 23, 2018

Researches from the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials of Prof. Xinliang Feng, and other research groups in Germany, China and Italy have recently published a paper in Nature Communications on 19th March 2018, titled “Copper-surface-mediated synthesis of acetylenic carbon-rich nanofibers for active metal-free photocathodes”. This work reported a facile and scalable approach for the synthesis of acetylenic carbon-rich nanofibers (i.e. polytriethynylbenzene, PTEB) via Cu-surface mediated Glaser polycondensation. The as-prepared PTEB nanofibers on conductive substrates can be directly utilized as metal-free photocathodes in photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) for hydrogen production, and the photocurrent can be increased through the introduction of thienothiophene segment into the PTEB nanofibers. This work highlights the promise of utilizing acetylenic carbon-rich materials as efficient and sustainable photocathodes for hydrogen production.

Reference:
“Copper-surface-mediated synthesis of acetylenic carbon-rich nanofibers for active metal-free photocathodes”. Tao Zhang, Yang Hou, Volodymyr Dzhagan, Zhongquan Liao, Guoliang Chai, Markus Löffler, Davide Olianas, Alberto Milani, Shunqi Xu, Matteo Tommasini, Dietrich R.T. Zahn, Zhikun Zheng, Ehrenfried Zschech, Rainer Jordan & Xinliang Feng. Nat. Commun., 2018, 9, 1140. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03444-0

Nature Communications

This work was financially supported by the ERC Grant 2DMATER, ESF Young Researcher Group ‘GRAPHD,’ and the EC under the Graphene Flagship (number CNECTICT-604391). The German Excellence Initiative via the Cluster of Excellence EXC1056 “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden” (cfaed) is gratefully acknowledged.

A Delamination Strategy for Thinly Layered Defect-Free High-Mobility Black Phosphorus Flakes

Published on March 23, 2018

Extraordinary electronic and photonic features render black phosphorus (BP) an important material for the development of novel electronics and optoelectronics. Despite recent progress in the preparation of thinly layered BP flakes, scalable synthesis of large-size, defect-free BP flakes remains a major challenge. An electrochemical delamination strategy is demonstrated that involves intercalation of diverse cations in non-aqueous electrolytes, thereby peeling off bulk BP crystals into defect-free flakes comprising only a few layers. The interplay between tetra-n-butylammonium cations and bisulfate anions promotes a high exfoliation yield up to 78 % and large BP flakes up to 20.6 µm. Bottom-gate and bottom-contact field-effect transistors, comprising single BP flakes only a few layers thick, exhibit a high hole mobility of 252±18 cm2V-1s-1 and a remarkable on/off ratio of (1.2±0.15)×105 at 143 K under vacuum, comparable with the electronic properties of mechanically exfoliated BP flakes. This efficient and scalable delamination method opens new opportunities for the development of BP-based composites and optoelectronic devices. The related work has published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.

Reference:
Sheng Yang, Ke Zhang, Antonio Gaetano Ricciardulli, Panpan Zhang, Zhongquan Liao, Martin R. Lohe, Ehrenfried Zschech, Paul W. M. Blom, Wojciech Pisula, Klaus Müllen* and Xinliang Feng*, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed, 2018, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201801265

Angewandte Chemie

This work is financially supported by ERC grants on 2DMATER, Graphene Core 1 and EC under Graphene Flagship (NO. CNECT-ICT-604391) and Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed).

Graphene 2018 will take place in Dresden

Published January 12, 2018

Prof. Xinliang Feng is one of the co-organizers of the Graphene 2018 conference which will take place in Dresden (Germany) from June 26 – June 29, 2018. The 8th edition of Graphene Conference series is the largest European Event in Graphene and 2D Materials.

Workshop website

Exploration of pyrazine-embedded antiaromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons generated by solution and on-surface azomethine ylide homocoupling

Published on December 12, 2017

Researches from the Chair for Molecular Functional Materials of Prof. Xinliang Feng at Dresden University of Technology, Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research Mainz, Technical University of Munich and Linköping University, recently, explored an unprecedented way of doping Graphene by incorporating antiaromatic units in the basal plane.
In the joint publication “Exploration of pyrazine-embedded antiaromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons generated by solution and on-surface azomethine ylide homocoupling” in Nature Communications, Xiao-Ye Wang, Marcus Richter, Yuanqin He, Jonas Björk, Alexander Riss et al. (all authors contributed equally) demonstrated azomethine ylide homocoupling as a strategy to synthesize non-planar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in solution and planar nanographenes on surfaces, embeding a central pyrazine ring. The antiaromaticity of the central pyrazine ring is indicated by optical absorption spectroscopy in conjunction with theoretical calculations. This strategy opens up methods for chemically tailoring graphene and nanographenes, modified by antiaromatic dopants.

Reference:
“Exploration of pyrazine-embedded antiaromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons generated by solution and on-surface azomethine ylide homocoupling”. Xiao-Ye Wang, Marcus Richter, Yuanqin He, Jonas Björk, Alexander Riss, Raju Rajesh, Manuela Garnica, Felix Hennersdorf, Jan J. Weigand, Akimitsu Narita, Reinhard Berger, Xinliang Feng, Willi Auwärter, Johannes V. Barth, Carlos-Andres Palma, Klaus Müllen, Nat. Commun., 2017, 8, 1948. 
doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01934-1

Nature Communications

C.-A.P. was supported from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program 2D ink (no. 664878). X.-Y.W. is grateful to a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. R.B. appreciates
support by European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project “GRAPHD”). M.G. acknowledges the H2020-MSCA-IF-2014 program and W.A. a Heisenberg professorship by the DFG. This work was partially
supported by the ERC Consolidator Grant NanoSurfs (no. 615233), the Max Planck Society, the German Excellence Initiative“Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden” (cfaed), and the Graphene Flagship.

14th European Conference on Molecular Electronics (ECME) was successfully held in Dresden

Published October 6, 2017

Prof. Xinliang Feng was one of the co-organizers of the successful ECME conference which was held from August 29 – September 2 2017. The workshop took place in Dresden and covered all areas related to molecular -organic and plastic- electronics including chemistry, physics, biology, materials science, nanoscience, engineering, device fabrication and commercialization

Workshop website

Guest lecture - Prof. Emil List-Kratochvil, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Published September 29, 2017

Speaker: Prof. Emil List-Kratochvil, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Date/Time: Wednesday, September 29, 2017, 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, HEM 219 seminar room (second floor)

Topic: Hybrid Resistive Memory Elements: Fundamental Considerations and Emerging Device Applications

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Marcus Richter wins the ACS Nano Poster Prize Award

Published September 5, 2017

Congratulations to cfaed PhD student Marcus Richter for being honored with one of three prestigious ACS Nano Poster Prize Awards at the ChinaNANO 2017 in Beijing, which was held between August 29-31. He received it for his poster on “Polycyclic Azomethine Ylides as Versatile Building Block for Unprecedented N-doped Nanographenes”. A total of over 800 posters were pitching at the conference. The prize was handed over by Prof. Paul S. Weiss (founding Editor-in-Chief of ACS Nano) during the closing session. Marcus Richter, who was supported by the cfaed Inspire Grant, visited the chairs of Prof. Carlos-Andres Palma, Prof. Shixuan Du and Prof. Hong-Jun Gao at the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing for two months.

ChinaNANO 2017 is intended to stimulate discussions on the forefront of research in nanoscience and nanotechnology. The conference will focus on carbon nanomaterials, inorganic nanomaterials and MOFs, self-assembly and soft nanomaterials, nanocatalysis, nano-composites and applications, energy nanotechnology, environmental nanoscience and nanotechnology, nanophotonics and plasmonics, 2D materials beyond graphene and nanodevices, nanocharacterization, standards and metrology, modeling and simulation of nanostructures, nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine, nanotechnology for bioimaging and diagnostics, safety and health of nanomaterials,printing of nanomaterilas and applications as well as optoelectronic nanomaterials and devices.

About ACS Nano

Published monthly, ACS Nano is an international forum for the communication of comprehensive articles on nanoscience and nanotechnology research at the interfaces of chemistry, biology, materials science, physics, and engineering. Moreover, the journal helps facilitate communication among scientists from these research communities in developing new research opportunities, advancing the field through new discoveries, and reaching out to scientists at all levels.

The 1st China-EU Graphene Flagship Bilateral Workshop on Graphene and 2D Materials was co-organized by Prof. Xinliang Feng in Beijing, China

Published July 7, 2017

Prof. Xinliang Feng was one of the co-organizers of the successful 1st China-EU-Graphene Flagship Workshop on Graphene and 2D Materials. The workshop took place in Beijing, China at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOP, CAS) from June 29th - July 2nd, 2017.

Workshop website

 

Guest lecture - Prof. Wei Zhang, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Published July 7, 2017

Speaker: Prof. Wei Zhang, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Date/Time: Wednesday, July 5, 2017, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, HEM 219 seminar room (second floor)

Topic: Molecular Architectures and Functional Materials through Dynamic Covalent Assembly

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Hamburg Science Award 2017 goes to Klaus Müllen and Xinliang Feng

Published on June 27, 2017


Klaus Müllen of Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz and Xinliang Feng of Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden / Technische Universität Dresden will be awarded the Hamburg Science Award 2017, which this year is dedicated to the subject of energy efficiency. The Academy of Sciences and Humanities thus honours the two chemists’ research in the field of graphene research. This functional material, which – due to its various properties – has since its discovery in 2004 been considered as the material of the future, is especially suitable to be used in batteries and supercapacitors. [...]

Link: Press release TUD (English)

Link: Press release Academy of Sciences and Humanities (German)

 

Workshop "Chemistry of 2-Dimensional Materials" in Dresden

Published on June 23, 2017


This workshop unites internationally renowed experts to share their experiences in this field of research and serves as a plattform for joint discussions.

 Bild1 Book

Download workshop flyer

 

Prof. Xinliang Feng's & Prof. Klaus Müllen's book "Chemistry of Carbon Nanostructures" has been published

Published on June 23, 2017


Carbon Materials such as nanoparticles, fibres, adamantane- and graphene-like structures are widely used in science and engineering. Applications range from energy and gas storage to electronics and optical applications. The internationally renowned experts who contributed to this book discuss chemical aspects of carbon structures, their synthesis, functionalization and design strategies for defined applications.

Link: De Gruyter

 Bild1 Book

 

π-Extended and Curved Antiaromatic Polycyclic Hydrocarbons

Published on June 13, 2017


To date, it remains a great challenge to develop the p-extended anti-aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons (PHs) with more than 20 p-electrons. Moreover, the anti-aromatic PHs reported till now mainly adopt a planar p-conjugated carbon skeleton. In order to pursue the synthesis of novel p-extended and stable anti-aromatic PHs, Cfaed scientists at TU Dresden and collaborators reported the solution synthesis of air-stable 24 and 28 p-electron anti-aromatic PHs (1a and 1b) by laterally extending indeno[1,2-b]fluorene and fluoreno[3,2-b]fluorene, respectively. In addition, for the first time, a curved 48 p-electrons anti-aromatic molecule (1c) was synthesized. The X-ray crystallographic analysis confirms that while 1a and 1b manifest planar structures, 1c shows a curved p-conjugated carbon skeleton. The experimental results demonstrated that 1a, 1b and 1c represent a new type of air-stable, fully conjugated anti-aromatic PHs, which can be used as potential candidates in optoelectronic devices due to their narrow HOMO-LUMO energy gaps and excellent reversible electron transfer properties. The synthetic strategy towards anti-aromatic PHs by building five-membered rings from the ortho-substituted benzene units and the combination of cove-edge structures, can be applied to the construction of other air-stable p-expanded and curved anti-aromatic PHs as well as even helical graphene nanoribbons. The related works are published in J. Am. Chem. Soc.

For more details please click on the link: JACS

This work was financially supported by ERC grants on 2DMATER, the EC under Graphene Flagship (No. CNECT-ICT-604391), Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project “GRAPHD”, TU Dresden) and ERC Consolidator grant 648295 "GraM3".

Reference:
Junzhi Liu, Ji Ma, Ke Zhang, Prince Ravat, Peter Machata, Stanislav Avdoshenko, Felix Hennersdorf, Hartmut Komber, Wojciech Pisula, Jan J. Weigand, Alexey A. Popov, Reinhard Berger, Klaus Müllen, Xinliang Feng*. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 7513-7521.( ?J.L. and J.M. contributed equally to this work.)

 JACS

 

Prof. Xinliang Feng receives ERC Proof of Concept Grant

Published on June 13, 2017


In May 2017 the European Research Council ERC awarded Proof of Concept Grants, each worth 150,000 €, to fifty one people - Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng is one of the grant holders. The Proof of Concept grants can be used, for example, to establish intellectual property rights, investigate business opportunities or conduct technical validation.

Link: European Research Council (ERC)

 

Synthesis of Molecular Hydrogen: Novel Method Sets Benchmark for Platinum-free Electrocatalysts

Published on May 26, 2017


A paper from cfaed’s Chair for Molecular Functional Materials co-authored by researchers at universities and institutes in Germany, France and Japan has been published in Nature Communications on 17th May 2017. The paper titled “Efficient hydrogen production on MoNi4 electrocatalysts with fast water dissociation kinetics” describes a new approach to revolutionize the production of molecular hydrogen. This gas is considered to be one of the most promising energy carriers of the future.
Growing concern about the energy crisis and the seriousness of environmental contamination urgently demand the development of renewable energy sources as feasible alternatives to diminishing fossil fuels. Owing to its high energy density and environmentally friendly characteristics, molecular hydrogen is an attractive and promising energy carrier to meet future global energy demands. In many of the approaches for hydrogen production, the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) from water splitting is the most economical and effective route for the future hydrogen economy. To accelerate the sluggish HER kinetics, particularly in alkaline electrolytes, highly active and durable electrocatalysts are essential to lower the kinetic HER overpotential. As a benchmark HER electrocatalyst with a zero HER overpotential, the precious metal platinum (Pt) plays a dominant role in present H2-production technologies, such as water-alkali electrolysers. Unfortunately, the scarcity and high cost of Pt seriously impede its large-scale applications in electrocatalytic HERs.
Prof. Xinliang Feng’s team from the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany)/ Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), in collaboration with the University Lyon, ENS de Lyon, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS, France), the Tohoku University (Japan) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) (Germany), have reported a low-cost MoNi4 electrocatalyst anchored on MoO2 cuboids, which are vertically aligned on nickel foam (MoNi4/MoO2@Ni). MoNi4 nanoparticles are constructed in situ on the MoO2 cuboids by controlling the outward diffusion of Ni atoms. The resultant MoNi4/MoO2@Ni exhibits a high HER activity that is highly comparable to that of the Pt catalyst and presents state-of-the-art HER activity amongst all reported Pt-free electrocatalysts. Experimental investigations reveal that the MoNi4 electrocatalyst behaves as the highly active centre and manifests fast Tafel step-determined HER kinetics. Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) calculations determine that the kinetic energy barrier of the Volmer step for the MoNi4 electrocatalyst is greatly decreased. The large-scale preparation and excellent catalytic stability provide MoNi4/MoO2@Ni with a promising utilization in water-alkali electrolysers for hydrogen production. Therefore, the exploration and understanding of the MoNi4 electrocatalyst provide a promising alternative to Pt catalysts for emerging applications in energy generation.

Reference:
Efficient hydrogen production on MoNi4 electrocatalysts with fast water dissociation kinetics. J. Zhang, T. Wang, P. Liu, Z. Liao, S. Liu, X. Zhuang, M. Chen, E. Zschech, X. Feng* Nat. Commun.
This work was financially supported by the ERC Grant on 2DMATER and EC under Graphene Flagship (No. CNECT-ICT-604391).
DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS15437

 

Link: Nature Communications


 

 

Prof. Xinliang Feng wins the 2017 Small Young Innovator Award

Published on May 26, 2017


The Small Young Innovator Award recognizes outstanding, interdisciplinary scientific work in the development and fundamental understanding of nanoscience and nanotechnology by a young scientist or engineer. Prof. Feng is one of the two winners of the Small Young Innovator Award, receiving it for his important contributions to 2D nanomaterials.
The award ceremony took place during the "Small Science Symposium" in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on May 16, 2017.

 fengmitschale1_b710.jpg

 

Ultrafast Delamination of Graphite into High-Quality Graphene Using Alternating Currents

Published on May 5, 2017


Global progress in graphene research is expected to unlock a new era in the next generation of electronics. To bridge the gap between laboratory-scale study and commercial applications, mass production of high quality graphene is essential. Here Cfaed scientists at TU Dresden and collaborators demonstrate a scalable exfoliation strategy towards the production of graphene sheets that has excellent yield (ca. 75 %, 1-3 layers), low defect density (a C/O ratio of 21.2), great solution-processability and outstanding electronic property (a hole mobility of 430 cm2•V-1•s-1). By applying alternating currents, dual exfoliation at both graphite electrodes enables a high production rate exceeding 20 g h-1 in laboratory tests. As a cathode material for lithium storage, graphene-wrapped LiFePO4 particles deliver a high capacity of 167 mAh g-1 at 1 C rate after 500 cycles. The high-quality solution-processable exfoliated graphene holds great promise for a wide spectrum of applications, such as inkjet printing, solar cells and composites.

This work was financially supported by ERC grants on 2DMATER and UPGreen, the EC under Graphene Flagship (No. CNECT-ICT-604391).
Sheng Yang, Antonio Gaetano Ricciardulli, Shaohua Liu, Renhao Dong, Martin R. Lohe, Alfons Becker, Marco A. Squillaci, Paolo Samor&igrave;, Klaus M&uuml;llen*, Xinliang Feng*
Ultrafast Delamination of Graphite into High-Quality Graphene Using Alternating Currents
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 1 - 8, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201702076
Angew. Chem.. 2017, 129, 1- 8, DOI: 10.1002/ange.201702076 (hot paper)

Link to: AngewChem

 

 

Honorable Mention for the 2017 IUPAC-SOLVAY International Award for Young Chemists

Published on April 5, 2017


The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and Solvay announced the winners of the 2017 IUPAC-Solvay International Award for Young Chemists, presented for the best Ph.D. theses in the chemical sciences, as described in 1000-word essays.
There were 34 applications from individuals receiving their Ph.D. degrees from institutions in 19 countries. The award selection committee, chaired by Dr. Mark C. Cesa, IUPAC Past President, comprised members of the IUPAC Bureau and a senior science advisor from Solvay, all of whom have a wide range of experience in chemistry.
Dr. Junzhi Liu is one of the recipients of the Honorable Mention for the 2017 IUPAC-Solvay International Award for Young Chemists, which acknowledges the best PhD thesis in chemical science.
The recipients of Honorable Mention will receive a copy of the IUPAC History bookset.

Link to: IUPAC

 

 

cfaed Successfully Presented at 'Graphene2017' in Barcelona - Next Year's Conference Will be Held in Dresden

Published on April 4, 2017


With the support of the cfaed team, Prof. Xinliang Feng's Chair for Molecular Functional Materials was able to successfully present the Cluster with its own booth at the largest European graphene conference
in Barcelona. For four days, representatives of the areas atomic precision (Reinhard Berger), energy storage and transformation (Xiaodong Zhuang), and production and innovation (Martin Lohe) were in close
contact with numerous visitors.
Many questions about the properties and possible applications of graphene and nanographene strips were discussed. In the closing session of the conference, a big success could be publicly announced:
We are pleased to reveal that the 'Graphene 2018' will take place in Dresden!

 

Link to: Press release

 

Coordination Polymer Framework-Based On-Chip Micro-Supercapacitors with AC Line-Filtering Performance

April 4, 2017


On-chip micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) are important Si-compatible power source backups for miniaturized electronics, owing to their rapid energy-harvesting features, burst-mode power delivery,
and in particular the good compatibility with Si. However, current on-chip MSCs require harsh processing conditions (high-temperature fabrication, oxygen plasma and wet-chemistry etching, etc.),
and typically perform like resistors when filtering ripples from alternating current (AC). Therefore, the development of Si-compatible MSCs with facile fabrication procedure is an urgent task for
their practical applications.
Recently, Prof. Xinliang Feng, Dr. Enrique Cánovas, Dr. Xiaodong Zhuang firstly reported an on-chip MSC based on a coordination polymer framework (PiCBA) by using a facile layer-by-layer strategy. Owing to
the good carrier mobility (5 × 10-3 cm2•V-1•s-1) of PiCBA, strong interaction between PiCBA and patterned Au current collectors, and in-plane geometry, the as-fabricated MSCs delivered high specific capacitances
of up to 34.1 F•cm-3 at 50 mV•s-1, a volumetric power density of 1323 W•cm-3 and an energy density of 4.7 mWh•cm-3. Moreover, the fabricated MSCs exhibited typical AC line-filtering performance (-73° at 120 Hz)
with a short resistance-capacitance constant of ~0.83 ms, which is well comparable to the state-of-art MSCs. This study not only provides a general, easy method for the preparation of on-chip MSCs, but also
demonstrates the remarkable energy storage potential of coordination polymer frameworks.

 

Figure. a-c) Schematic illustration of LBL fabrication of PiCBA films on Au interdigital electrodes; e) Impedance phase angle on the frequency for the PiCBA-based microdevices; f) Impedance phase angle
on the frequency for the PiCBA-based microdevices; g) Calculated quantum capacitance based on the two bands crossing the Fermi level for zero disorder, and charge density of the lower band crossing the Fermi
level at the G point as well as close to the Brillouin zone boundary at X, namely k = (0.4, 0.0, 0.0).

C. Yang, K. S. Schellhammer, F. Ortmann, S. Sun, R. Dong, M. Karakus, Z. Mics, M. Löffler, F. Zhang, X. Zhuang,* E. Cánovas,* G. Cuniberti, M. Bonn, X. Feng*
Coordination Polymer Framework Based On-Chip Micro-Supercapacitors with AC Line-Filtering Performance
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 3920-3924. [DOI: 10.1002/anie.201700679] [very important paper]

Link to: Angewandte Chemie

 

 

Guest lecture - Prof. Hossam Haick, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

March 24, 2017

Speaker: Prof. Hossam Haick, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

Date/Time: Tuesday, April 11, 2017, 09:30 am - 10:30 am

Location: TU Dresden, Walther-Hempel-Building, HEM 219 seminar room (second floor)

Topic: Novel Alliance between Advanced Materials and Volatile Biomarkers for Non-Invasive Medical Evaluation

Click here for more information

 

 

 

Highly Stable Open-Shell Nanographenes with a Saddle-Shaped Geometry

February 16, 2017


Open-shell nanographenes (or polycyclic hydrocarbons) have attracted a great deal of interest because of their unique nonlinear optical, electronic and magnetic properties, making them promising candidates for organic electronic and spintronic devices. However, it is the intrinsic instability of the biradical species that limits the practicality of this research. The scientists from Dresden University of Technology (Prof. Xinliang Feng) reported the synthesis of the first example of highly stable open-shell nanographenes with a saddle-shaped p-conjugated geometry. The achieved saddle-shaped nanographenes exhibits an open-shell singlet biradical structure (biradical index: y = 0.69) in the ground state with a narrow optical energy gap of 0.92 eV. More importantly, the title nanographene displays excellent stability at air and sun light conditions, with the half-life time (t1/2) as long as 39 days. The synthetic concept reported in this work introduces new perspectives on the accessibility of high-spin graphene-like moleculae with a view towards potential materials applications in organic spintronics. The related works are published in Angewandte Chemie, for more details please click the link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201611689.
This work was financially supported by ERC grants on 2DMATER, the EC under Graphene Flagship (No. CNECT-ICT-604391), Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed), European Social Fund and the Federal State of Saxony (ESF-Project “GRAPHD”, TU Dresden).
Literature: Ji Ma, Junzhi Liu*, Martin Baumgarten, Yubin Fu, Yuan-Zhi Tan, Karl Sebastian Schellhammer, Frank Ortmann, Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Hartmut Komber, Reinhard Berger, Klaus Müllen and Xinliang Feng*. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 56, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201611689.

 

stable_saddle

Link to: Angewandte Chemie

Persulfurated Coronene: A New Generation of “Sulflower”

February 12, 2017


Currently, fully sulfur-substituted polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) carrying fused disulfide bonds at the periphery have not yet been achieved. Here, Cfaed scientists at TU Dresden with collaborators report the first synthesis of a persulfurated PAH as a next-generation “sulflower.” In this novel PAH, disulfide units establish an all-sulfur periphery around a coronene core (C24S12). The structure, electronic properties, and redox behavior were investigated by microscopic, spectroscopic and electrochemical methods and supported by density functional theory (DFT). The sulfur-rich character of persulfurated coronene renders it a promising cathode material for lithium-sulfur batteries, displaying a high capacity of 520 mAh g-1 after 120 cycles at 0.6 C with a high-capacity retention of 90%. The protocol established in this work offers unique access to larger PAHs and graphene (or graphene nanoribbons) with persulfurated edges and paves the way toward promising applications in OFETs, OPVs, energy, and superconductor-related areas.

 

pic_december_2

Link to: JACS

Stimulus-Responsive Micro-Supercapacitors

December 6, 2016


Smart micro-/nano-devices or stimuli-responsive devices have attracted substantial attention due to a wide range of needs for smart modern electronics. Nevertheless, it remains a great challenge to integrate various kinds of stimuli into modern functional devices without sacrificing the device performance, most probably due to the poor compatibility among those stimuli, active materials, and processing technologies. The scientists from Dresden University of Technology (Prof. Xinliang Feng) and Chemnitz University of Technology (Prof. Oliver G. Schmidt) reported the fabrication of the first stimulus-responsive micro-supercapacitor (SR-MSC) with ultrahigh volumetric energy density (20 mWh cm-3 at 235 W cm-3) and reversible electrochromic effect by employing vanadium pentoxide and electrochemical exfoliated graphene-based hybrid nanopaper and viologen as electrode and stimulus-responsive material, respectively. The fabricated high performance SR-MSCs offer new opportunities for intuitively observing the working state of energy devices without the aid of extra equipment and techniques.
This work was financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Cluster of Excellence “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden” (cfaed) and the Initiative and Networking Fund of the German Helmholtz Association, Helmholtz International Research School for Nanoelectronic Networks NanoNet (VH-KO-606), ERC Grant on 2DMATER, UP-GREEN, and EU Graphene Flagship.

Literature: [1] Panpan Zhang, Feng Zhu, Faxing Wang, Jinhui Wang, Renhao Dong, Xiaodong Zhuang,* Oliver G. Schmidt, and Xinliang Feng*, Stimulus-Responsive Micro-Supercapacitors with Ultrahigh Energy Density and Reversible Electrochromic Window, Adv. Mater. 2017, in press. [DOI: 10.1002/adma.201604491].

pic_december_2

Wafer-sized multifunctional polyimine-based two-dimensional conjugated polymers with high mechanical stiffness

November 16, 2016


Two-dimensional (2D) soft materials have attracted increasing attention in chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology and biology due to their fascinating optical, electrical, mechanical and magnetic properties derived from the reduction of dimensions. One of the key challenges in 2D materials is to go beyond graphene, a prototype 2D polymer (2DP), and to synthesize its organic analogues with structural control at the atomic- or molecular-level. Here, Cfaed scientists at TU Dresden, reported the successful preparation of porphyrin containing monolayer and multilayer crystalline conjugated 2DPs through the Schiff-base polycondensation reaction at an air-water and liquid-liquid interface. The monolayer 2DP has a thickness of 0.7 nm with a lateral size of 4-inch wafer, and has a Young’s modulus of 267±30 GPa, which is on the same order of graphene (200-1000 GPa). The 2DP has an optical band gap of 1.4 eV and the monolayer 2DP can function as an active semiconducting layer in a thin film transistor and electrocatalyst towards water splitting. This work opens the door for the synthesis of functional 2DPs using reversible polycondensation reaction, which may pave the way for the rational synthesis of 2D organic soft materials for next generation electronics and energy-related applications.

Nature Communications

Link to: Nature Communications

EU Graphene Flagship Meeting

November 3 & 4, 2016


On November 3rd and 4th a meeting of the EU Graphene Flagship with 31 participants from 18 different European institutes and companies took place at TU Dresden. The purpose of the meeting of the Flagship Work Package 13 on Functional Foams and Coatings led by Professor Xinliang Feng was to discuss recent progress and future perspectives in the field of graphene and related 2D materials. The special focus was their use in coatings, thin films and porous structures like foams and membranes for applications such as energy storage and conversion, catalysis, water remediation and environmental protection.


CFAED Distinguished Lecture Series - Nobel Prize Laureate Professor Sir Konstantin S. Novoselov FRS, University of Manchester, UK

September 16, 2016

Speaker: Professor Sir Konstantin S. Novoselov FRS, University of Manchester, UK

Date/Time: September 16, 2016, 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Location: TU Dresden, Dülfersaal

Topic: Materials in the Flatland

Professor Sir Konstantin S. Novoselov 

Click here for more information

 

 

Atom-thick solution to energy storage conundrum

September 12, 2016


Sheets of carbon an atom thick could soon double the amount of electricity stored in smartphone batteries, researchers believe, as 2D materials present a picture of the future of energy storage.

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, combined with the increasing power of today’s portable devices, calls for cheap materials that can store electricity on an unprecedented scale. Researchers are exploring the extraordinary characteristics of two-dimensional nanomaterials to achieve this goal. According to Professor Xinliang Feng, at the Technical University Dresden, Germany, confining the thickness of materials to nanoscopic dimensions can endow them with exciting physical and chemical properties. This is because, at small scales, electrons obey the exotic laws of quantum mechanics. They spread like waves, exist in multiple places at the same time, and engage in all manner of activities that contradict our experience in the macroscopic world. Prof. Feng is trying to put quantum effects to work in cheaper and more powerful energy storage technologies. Already atomically thin layers of carbon, known as graphene, are helping researchers squeeze more electricity out of conventional lithium-ion batteries. The negative electrode of these batteries is commonly made of bulk carbon. Each lithium ion stores energy by fixing itself to this electrode, typically by bonding with six carbon atoms on its surface. Because graphene is so thin, the lithium ions only need three carbon atoms to hold them in place. This doubles the amount of energy that can be stored in a given size of battery.
[...]

Read full article: Horizon - The EU Research & Innovation Magazine


Joint Kick-Off Event ESF „Graphene Center Dresden“ and 2.5D-Path of the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)

September 07, 2016


On September 7th, the official start of the ESF-supported Young Researcher Group ‘Graphene Center Dresden’ (GraphD) took place at TU Dresden. In addition, the initiation of a new path dedicated to two dimensional materials within the Cluster of Excellence Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) was celebrated with the participation of very distinguished guests. The Graphene Center Dresden is an ESF Young Researcher Group, funded by the European Social Fund (ESF), with strong collaboration of many chairs within TU Dresden under the supervision of cfaed’s Strategic Professorship ‘Molecular Functional Materials’ of Prof. Xinliang Feng. Cooperation partners include, e.g., Prof. Sibylle Gemming, Prof. Alexander Eychmüller, Prof. Stefan Kaskel, Prof. Karl Leo, Prof. Stefan Mannsfeld, Prof. Michael Schröter, Prof. Gotthard Seifert as well as Prof. Gianaurelio Cuniberti. All hold important functions within cfaed as research path leaders and principal investigators. With this joint competence, TU Dresden will emerge as one of the most important European actors in the field of the “wonder material” graphene and related two-dimensional materials. These one-atom thin materials exhibit outstanding physical properties, which render them promising candidates for application in various fields of electronic and energy applications as well as, for instance, novel lubricants. Meanwhile, graphene has been implemented in the first industrial applications. This is also one of the core competences of the Graphene Center Dresden: The close relationship to industrial partners is an elementary part of its strategy. The recently started ESF young researcher group ‘GraphD’ is an important milestone, funded by the European Social Fund (ESF). GraphD started on July 1st and consists of three postdocs, six PhD students, and the research group leader Dr. Reinhard Berger. Aims of the group are, amongst others, to attract the world’s most renowned young scientists in the field, train outstanding experts for Saxony’s industry, enforce the innovation potential of local companies, and to efficiently complement the regional cluster of ‘Silicon Saxony’. The Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden currently prepares a proposal within the ‘Excellence Strategy’ of the German Federal and State governments. It’s program will be extended to include research of two-dimensional materials within a new ‘2.5D-path’.

Joint Kick-Off Event ESF „Graphene Center Dresden“ and 2.5D-Path of the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)

 All photos: cfaed / Katharina Knaut

Press contact:

Professor Xinliang Feng
Technische Universität Dresden
Chair of Molecular Functional Materials
Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)
Phone: +49 351 463-43251
E-mail: xinliang.feng@tu-dresden.de


Matthias Hahndorf
Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)
Public Relations
Phone: +49 (0)351 463 42847
E-mail: matthias.hahndorf@tu-dresden.de

Press Images:

Joint Kick-Off Event ESF „Graphene Center Dresden“ and 2.5D-Path of the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed)

Two-Dimensional Mesoscale-Ordered Conducting Polymers

September 07, 2016


Despite the availability of numerous two-dimensional (2D) materials with structural ordering at the atomic or molecular level, direct construction of mesoscale-ordered superstructures within a 2D monolayer remains an enormous challenge. Here, cfaed scientists at TU Dresden with collaborators, report the synergic manipulation of two types of assemblies in different dimensions to achieve 2D conducting polymer nanosheets with structural ordering at the mesoscale. The resulting polyaniline nanosheets feature mesoscale-ordered hexagonal pore arrays, tunable morphologies and pore sizes, large specific surface area as well as anisotropic and record-high electrical conductivity. Such moldable approach creates a new family of mesoscale-ordered structures as well as opens avenues to the programmed assembly of multifunctional materials.

Angewandte Chemie_Two-Dimensional Mesoscale-Orderes Conducting Polymers

Link to: Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed.

Highlighted by Nature Reviews Materials

 

Synthesis of NBN-type Zigzag-Edged Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: 1,9-Diaza-9a-boraphenalene as a Structural Motif

August 31, 2016


A novel class of dibenzo-fused 1,9-diaza-9a-boraphenalenes featuring zigzag edges with a nitrogen-boron-nitrogen bonding pattern named NBN-dibenzophenalenes (NBN-DBPs) has been synthesized. Alternating nitrogen and boron atoms imparts high chemical stability to these - else very reactive -zigzag-edged polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Upon oxidation, an open-shell intermediate is formed corroborated by spectroscopic calculations and in-situ spectroelectrochemistry. The oxidized nitrogen-boron-nitrogen subunit is isoelectronic to the pristine carbon zigzag periphery but also positively charged. This new synthetic strategy represents an efficient pathway towards NBN-doped zigzag-edged graphene nanoribbons.

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b04445

Synthesis of NBN-type Zigzag-Edged Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: 1,9-Diaza-9a-boraphenalene as a Structural Motif

Link to: JACS - Journal of the American Chemical Society

Prof. Xinliang Feng has served as the organizer of the Graphene Flagship EU-Korea Workshop on Graphene and related 2D Materials

August 16, 2016


Prof. Xinliang Feng has served as the organizer of the Graphene Flagship EU-Korea Workshop on Graphene and related 2D Materials. The workshop took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from August 15 - 16, 2016. The purpose of the EU-Korea workshop is to exchange experiences, practices and ideas related to the current and emerging topics associated with the basic chemistry approach, materials synthesis, application development and commercialisation for graphene and related 2D materials. In addition, the aim is to explore further possibilities for collaborative research opportunities between researchers in Europe and Korea. This workshop is a follow up of the first EU-Korea workshop held in Busan (Republic of Korea) in 2015.

Link to: Graphene Flagship - EU-Korea Workshop

Chemical approaches to 2D materials

August 12, 2016


[...] Issue 29/2016 of Advanced Materials is a special issue of on chemical approaches to 2D materials, guest edited by Paolo Samorì, Vincenzo Palermo, and Xinliang Feng, which provides a state-of-the-art description of the most enlightening results regarding various chemical approaches to 2D materials, written by some among the most creative scientists in the field.[...]

Chemical approaches to 2D materials

Link to: Materials Views

Guest lecture - Prof. josef Michl, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

August 12, 2016, 10:00 pm - 11:30 pm, CHE091


Speaker: Prof. Josef Michl (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)

Date/Time: August 12, 2016; 10:00 am - 11:30 am

Location: TUD, CHE091, New Chemistry Building

Topic: Direct Alkylation of Gold Surfaces with Solutions of Organometallics

Prof. Josef Michl 

 Lecture Prof. Josef Michl

A New Bowl-shaped Subunit of Fullerene C70

June 29, 2016


Total synthetic approaches of fullerenes are a holy grail for organic chemistry. So far, the main attempts have been focused on the synthesis of the buckminsterfullerene C60. In contrast, access to subunits of the homologue C70 remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate an efficient bottom-up strategy towards a novel bowl-shaped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) C34 with two pentagons. This PAH represents a subunit for C70 and also of other higher fullerenes. The bowl-shaped structure was unambiguously determined by X-ray crystallography. Especially, a bowl-to-bowl inversion for a C70 fragment in solution was investigated by dynamic NMR analysis, showing a bowl-to-bowl inversion energy (ΔG‡) of 16.7 kcal mol-1, which is further corroborated by DFT calculations.

A New Bowl-shaped Subunit of Fullerene C70

Link to: ACS Publications JACS

Guest lecture - Prof. Felix R. Fischer, University of California Berkeley

May 25, 2016, 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm, HEM 219


Speaker: Prof. Felix R. Fischer (University of California Berkeley)

Topic: Teaching Polymers the Meaning of Life & Quantum Confinement in Graphene Nanostructures

 

Icon PDF Lecture Prof. Felix R. Fischer

Guest lecture - Prof. Di Zhang

May 10, 2016

Speaker: Prof. Di Zhang (Shanghai Jiaotong University)

Topic: Bioinspired Materials Templated from Nature Species

Topical Workshop on Graphene and Nanoscience held in Dresden

published April 25 2016

On Monday, April 25, 2016 Prof. Xinliang Feng (cfaed / Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) welcomed a delegation of 20 people from the Chinese Graphene Industrial Alliance (CGIA) in Dresden. A workshop on graphene and nanoscience was organized including the top scientific and industrial experts from TU Dresden, Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research Dresden (Leibnitz-IPF), and Chinese representatives from industry and science. TUD’s vice-rector for research Prof. Gerhard Rödel held the welcoming speech and introduced the university to the guests from China. During the workshop, Prof. Karl Leo (Chair for Optoelectronics) represented the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and Institute for Applied Photophysics (IAPP) and Dr. Martin Lohe (Chair for Molecular Functional Materials) informed about the latest developments in graphene production. The delegation of the CGIA informed about their activities in regards to graphene commercialization. Since China has emerged to be a key player not only in terms of industrial aspects but also regarding the outstanding scientific development, the purpose of the workshop was to lay the foundations for the future cooperation between TU Dresden and China.

Workshop Program (PDF) 

Group shot                Group shot

Link to: https://www.chm.tu-dresden.de

Graphene nanoribbons: it's all about the edges

published 24 Mar 2016

When electrons spin differently Graphene nanoribbons: it's all about the edges.
As reported by the journal Nature in its latest issue, researchers from Empa, the Max Planck Institute in Mainz and the Technical University of Dresden have for the first time succeeded in producing graphene nanoribbons with perfect zigzag edges from molecules. Electrons on these zigzag edges exhibit different (and coupled) rotational directions ("spin"). This could make graphene nanoribbons the material of choice for electronics of the future, so-called spintronics.


For further information see PDF Press Release (English) -> Click
For further information see PDF Press Release (German) -> Click

Graphene Nanoribbons                Graphene nanoribbons

Graphene slides smoothly across gold

published 26 Feb 2016

Graphene, a modified form of carbon, offers versatile potential for use in coating machine components and in the field of electronic switches. An international team of researchers led by physicists at the University of Basel, and including TU Dresden (Dr. Andrea Benassi and Dr. Xinliang Feng) have been studying the lubricity of this material on the nanometer scale. Since it produces almost no friction at all, it could drastically reduce energy loss in machines when used as a coating, as the researchers report in the journal Science. In future, graphene could be used as an extremely thin coating, resulting in almost zero energy loss between mechanical parts. This is based on the exceptionally high lubricity—or so-called superlubricity—of modified carbon in the form of graphene. Applying this property to mechanical and electromechanical devices would not only improve energy efficiency but also considerably extend the service life of the equipment. Fathoming out the causes of the lubricant behavior An international community of physicists have studied the above-average lubricity of graphene using a two-pronged approach combining experimentation and computation. To do this, they anchored two-dimensional strips of carbon atoms—so-called graphene nanoribbons—to a sharp tip and dragged them across a gold surface. Computer-based calculations were used to investigate the interactions between the surfaces as they moved across one another. Using this approach, the research team is hoping to fathom out the causes of superlubricity; until now, little research has been carried out in this area. By studying the graphene nanoribbons, the researchers hope to learn about more than just the slip behavior. Measuring the mechanical properties of the carbon-based material also makes sense because it offers excellent potential for a whole range of applications in the field of coatings and micromechanical switches. In future, even electronic switches could be replaced by nanomechanical switches, which would use less energy for switching on and off than conventional transistors. The experiments revealed almost perfect, frictionless movement. It is possible to move graphene nanoribbons with a length of 5 to 50 nanometers using extremely small forces (2 to 200 piconewtons). There is a high degree of consistency between the experimental observations and the computer simulation. A discrepancy between the model and reality appears only at greater distances (five nanometers or more) between the measuring tip and the gold surface. This is probably because the edges of the graphene nanoribbons are saturated with hydrogen, which was not accounted for in the simulations. "Our results help us to better understand the manipulation of chemicals at the nano level and pave the way for creating frictionless coatings," write the researchers.

Graphene slides smoothly across gold

 Linkt to: www.science.org

Patterning two-dimensional free-standing surfaces with mesoporous conducting polymers

published 30 Nov 2015

The ability to pattern functional moieties with well-defined architectures is highly important in material science, nanotechnology and bioengineering. Although two-dimensional surfaces can serve as attractive platforms, direct patterning them in solution with regular arrays remains a major challenge. Here, cfaed scientists at TU Dresden with collaborators, developed a versatile route to pattern two-dimensional free-standing surfaces in a controlled manner assisted by monomicelle close-packing assembly of block copolymers, which is unambiguously revealed by direct visual observation. This strategy allows for bottom-up synthesis of two-dimensional mesoporous conducting polymer nanosheets with adjustable mesopores on various functional free-standing surfaces, including two-dimensional graphene, molybdenum sulfide, titania nanosheets, and even on one-dimensional carbon nanotubes. This approach will shed light on developing solution-based soft patterning of given interfaces towards bespoke functions.

Link to: http://www.nature.com

Prof. Xinliang Feng Raises "Proof of Concept" Sponsorship from European Research Council

published 24 Nov 2015

Two scientists of TU Dresden succeeded in the second call for proposals of the European Research Council, “Proof of Concept Grants”. One of them is cfaed's Strategic Professor Xinliang Feng who has been honored for his project concerning electrochemical delamination of graphite. The honored scientists will now receive a sponsorship up to 150.000 Euros, which will contain a study about the viability of commercial utilization of the excellent research results. To apply for the sponsorship it was required that the scientists and projects had already been promoted by ERC. With the 'Proof of Concept Grant' the ERC wants to make a contribution to growth and innovation in the European Union.

Read this news in German on the page of Saxony Liaison Office Brussels


"Nanocarbons for Advanced Energy Conversion" Volume 2 edited by Prof. Xinliang Feng

published 22 Oct, 2015

Wiley has published the book "Nanocarbons for Advanced Energy Conversion" which has been edited by Prof. Xinliang Feng. The book is the volume 2 of the book series on nanocarbons for advanced applications.

picture 3527336664_wiley_book.jpg

Link to: http://eu.wiley.com


Radical assisted electrochemical exfoliation

published 17 Oct, 2015

Despite the intensive research efforts devoted to graphene fabrication over the last decade, the production of high-quality graphene on a large scale, at an affordable cost and in a reproducible manner still represents a great challenge. Cfaed scientists with collaborators report a novel method based on the controlled electrochemical exfoliation of graphite in aqueous ammonium sulfate electrolyte to produce graphene in large quantities and with outstanding quality. The developed exfoliation method results in large graphene sheets (5-10 µm on average), which exhibit outstanding hole mobilities (~405 cm2 V-1 s-1), very low Raman ID/IG ratios (below 0.1), and extremely high carbon to oxygen (C/O) ratios (~25.3). Moreover, the graphene ink prepared in dimethylformamide qualifies this material for intriguing applications such as transparent conductive films and flexible supercapacitors. In general, this robust method for electrochemical exfoliation of graphite offers great promise for the preparation of graphene that can be utilized in industrial applications to create integrated nanocomposites, conductive or mechanical additives as well as energy storage and conversion devices.

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Link to: http://pubs.acs.org


Highly Cited Researcher

published 21 Sept 2015

Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng was listed as highly cited researcher in 2015 (published by Thompson Reuters) for both categories - chemistry and materials science.

Link to: http://highlycited.com/


Temperature-Dependent Multidimensional Self-Assembly of Polyphenylene-Based “Rod-Coil” Graft Polymers

published 7 Sept 2015

cfaed scientists at TU Dresden with collaborators demonstrate a novel type of “rod−coil” graft copolymer containing a polyphenylene backbone linked with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) side chains. Such graft copolymers manifest unprecedented temperature-dependent one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) self-assembly in solution. At 20°C, which is higher than the crystallization temperature (Tc) of the PEO chains, the achiral graft copolymers self-organize into nanoribbons that twist into 30 μm ultralong helices with controlled pitch depending on the grafting ratio of the PEO chains. At 10°C, which is lower than the Tc, quadrangular multilayer sheets of over 10 μm in lateral size are obtained. This work presents the first example of controlled self-assembly of graft polymers into 1D helix and 2D sheet superstructures. Such graft polymers provide new opportunities for the controlled preparation of 1D helix and 2D superstructures as well as offer a new system for the fundamental studies on the self-assembly of conjugated polymers, including morphological control, thermodynamics and kinetics, potential applications, etc.


View Publication online: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5b07487


Synthetic two-dimensional conjugated supramolecular polymers (2DSPs) open new application in electrocatalysis

published 7 Sept 2015

Two-dimensional polymers and supramolecular polymers refer to laterally infinite, one monomer-unit thick, free-standing network with a defined internal periodicity based on covalent and non-covalent bond, respectively. They represent a new class of artificially created 2D materials with a manifold of promises in electronics, membrane technology, catalysis, sensing, and energy storage and conversion. Here, cfaed scientists at TU Dresden, reported the synthesis of  a large-area (mm2) crystalline 2DSP with a thickness of ∼ 0.7 nm, comprising triphenylene-fused nickel bis(dithiolene) complexes, at an air/water interface of Langmuir-Blodgett trough under ambient conditions. Such 2DSP, processed on a glassy carbon electrode, exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction from water with a Tafel slope of 80.5 mV decade-1 and an operating overpotential of 333 mV at 10 mA cm-2, which are superior to those of carbon nanotube (CNT)-supported molecular catalysts and heteroatom-doped graphene catalysts. This work opens the door for developing large-area, free-standing 2D organic materials consisting of immobilized molecular catalysis as novel electrode materials bearing functions in energy technologies.

synthesis 2dsps

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201506048/abstract


cfaed Seminar Series: Minisymposium on Graphene Materials

published 9 Jul 2015

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015, 15:00 - 17:00 we will hold a Minisymposium on Graphene Materials.
Beginning at 3 p.m. Prof Hui-Ming Cheng (Chinese Academy of Sciences) is going to give a talk titled “Graphene Materials: Large-Scale Fabrication and Application Explorations”.
Beginning at 4 p.m., Prof. Shi-Zhang Qiao (University of Adelaide, Australia) is going to give a talk titled “Metal-free and Non-precious Metal Materials for Energy-relevant Electrocatalytic Processes”.

Location: TU Dresden, New Chemistry Building, Lecture Theatre CHE S89, Bergstraße 66, 01069 Dresden

See full announcement and CVs


cfaed Seminar Series: Prof. Maurizio Prato

published 9 Jul 2015

Prof. Maurizio Prato

We are happy to welcome Prof. Maurizio Prato (Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy) on 13 July 2015 for a talk at our chair! Prof. Prato will speak about "Synergies between chemistry and nanotechnology: applications to neurosciences and energy".
Time: 4 pm
Location: TU Dresden, Hempel-Building, Seminar Room HEM 219 , Mommsenstraße 4 , 01069 Dresden
See abstract and short CV / download it: application/pdf 20150713_cfaedSeminarSeries_Prato.pdf (158.2 KiB)


Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry

published 26 Nov 2014

In November 2014, Prof. Dr. Xinliang Feng has been appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. The honor is given to researchers who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of chemical science.
The Royal Society of Chemistry has more than 49,000 members worldwide. The largest chemical society in Europe, the organization works to promote the development, practice and application of the chemical sciences across the world. In particular, the society encourages the participation of students and young people in chemistry.


New Certificate: "Highly Cited Researcher"

published Oct 2014

Prof. Xinliang Feng appears in the 2014 “highly cited researcher” list published by Thompson Reuters. This prestigious list includes scientific researchers whose publications have been cited most often in academic journals over the past decade and rank among the top 1 % most cited for their subject field and year of publication. Those listed are identified as being among the world’s leading scientific minds, along with the universities and institutions which employ them.

http://highlycited.com/index.htm#table