Moreover, the cross-plane thermal resistance decreases monotonically with temperature and coupling strength, and can be modulated by external strain. Surprisingly, the cross-plane tensile strain can reduce the thermal resistance of the heptazine-based GCN. Our study serves as a guide to groups interested in the physical properties of GCN.The currently emerging sodium-ion battery technology is in need of an optimized standard organic solvent electrolyte based on solid and directly comparable data. With this aim we have made a systematic study of "simple" electrolyte systems consisting of two sodium salts (NaTFSI and NaPF6) dissolved in three different alkyl carbonate solvents (EC, PC, DMC) within a wide range of salt concentrations and investigated (i) their more macroscopic physico-chemical properties such as ionic conductivity, viscosity, thermal stability, and (ii) the molecular level properties such as ion-pairing and solvation. From this all electrolytes were found to have useful thermal operational windows and electrochemical stability windows, allowing for large scale energy storage technologies focused on load levelling or (to a less extent) electric vehicles, and ionic conductivities on par with analogous lithium-ion battery electrolytes, giving promise to also be power performant. Furthermore, at the molecular level the NaPF6-based electrolytes are more dissociated than the NaTFSI-based ones because of the higher ionic association strength of TFSI compared to PF6- while two different conformers of DMC participate in the Na+ first solvation shells - a Na+ affected conformational equilibrium and induced polarity of DMC. The non-negligible presence of DMC in the Na+ first solvation shells increases as a function of salt concentration. Overall, these results should both have a general impact on the design of more performant Na-conducting electrolytes and provide useful insight on the very details of the importance of DMC conformers in any cation solvation studies.In the present work, the influence of Ag-induced plasmons on the surface optical (SO) phonon modes of NiO nanoparticles was extensively studied using room temperature Raman spectroscopy. Remarkable intensity enhancements were observed for the rarely reported SO phonon modes compared to the other first-order phonon modes of NiO nanoparticles. The occurrence of SO modes was further studied using an approximate dielectric continuum (DC) model and a difference between the calculated and experimental SO frequencies was observed, which can be attributed to the presence of one magnon background over the first order phonon modes. The experimental and theoretical SO frequencies became closer at higher Ag concentration and the second-order magnon (2M) and phonon bands disappeared in the NiOAg samples. The absence of magnon and higher order phonon modes in the NiOAg samples indicates changes in the magnetic properties of the nanomaterials, which has been further supported by the vibrating-sample magnetometer (VSM) measurements.Reorientation of organic cations in the cubic interstices of cyanoelpasolite molecular perovskites results in a variety of structural phase transitions, but far less is known about these cations' dynamics. We report quasielastic neutron scattering from the materials (C3H5N2)2K[MIII(CN)6], M = Fe,Co, which is directly sensitive to the rotation of the imidazolium ion. The motion is well described by a circular three-site hopping model, with the ion rotating within its plane in the intermediate-temperature phase, but tilting permanently in the high-temperature phase. Thus the two rhombohedral phases, which are crystallographically rather similar, have markedly different dynamics. The activation energy of rotation is about 10 kJ mol-1 and the barrier between orientations is 6 kJ mol-1. Our results explain two anomalous features in these materials' dielectric constants.Molecular dynamics (MD) is a powerful tool to investigate microscopic transport of atoms and molecules in condensed matter. However, there lies a large class of systems wherein atomic diffusion is too slow a process relative to the feasible time scales of typical atomistic simulations. Here, we demonstrate that with judicial implementation of a metadynamics (MTD) technique, the microscopic mechanism of atomic transport in solids can be accessed within a reasonable computational time. The calculations are carried out on the two end members of the true NASICON solid solutions, namely NaZr2(PO4)3 and Na4Zr2(SiO4)3, wherein Na+ diffusion is too slow to be accessed through standard MD simulations. The study also provides fresh insights on correlated ion hops and their implications on the effective diffusion barrier. The results are compared with climbing image nudged elastic band (CI-NEB) calculation, and available experimental results.Accelerated rate calorimetric studies have been employed to study the exothermic and thermal runaway behaviour of some aprotic and protic ionic liquids based on several families of ions including the bis(flurorsulfonyl)imide anion ([FSI]-); it was found that the protic salts are safer than aprotic salts of the [FSI]- anion.Hollow nanospheres are desirable to resolve the volume expansion of red phosphorus anodes for sodium-ion batteries. Here, we developed a mild molten salt method to prepare hollow red phosphorus in the NaCl-KCl-AlCl3 system by using the Kirkendall effect. As an anode for sodium-ion batteries, the prepared hollow nanospheres exhibit a highly reversible capacity of 624 mA h g-1 at 4.0C and 737 mA h g-1 at 1.0C even after 600 cycles with a low capacity fading rate of 0.06% per cycle.Molecular martensitic materials are an emerging class of smart materials with enormous tunability in physicochemical properties, attributed to the tailored molecular and crystal structures through molecular design. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/kn-93.html This class of materials exhibits ultrafast and reversible structural transitions in response to thermal and mechanical stimuli, which underlies fascinating properties such as thermoelasticity, superelasticity, ferroelasticity, and shape memory effect. These dynamic properties are not widely explored in molecular crystals and therefore molecular martensitic materials represent a new frontier in the field of solid-state chemistry. In martensitic transitions, the materials not only exhibit substantial shape changes but also remember the functions in the associated polymorphic phases. This suggests promising applicability towards light-weight actuators, lifts, dampers, sensors, shape-/function-memory and ultraflexible optoelectronic devices. In this article, we review characteristics, detailed transition mechanisms, and potential applications of molecular martensitic materials.