A collaborative research between CNI and Academia Sinica found low thermal conductivity in Sb-doped GeTe, which resulted from the dopant-induced changes in the phonon spectra. This study provides a new direction in phonon engineering of single crystalline thermoelectric materials beyond nanostructuring.

Novel fullerene-enhanced triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is demonstrated in which the C60 active layer when added to an already high-performance triboelectrode, further improves the TENG performance.

There are many interfaces in conventional nanostructured silicon anodes for lithium ion batteries. While the capacity is enhanced by inclusion of interfacial layers or conductive additives, they do not resolve problems associated with the diffusion of Li+ ions in the anode. Here, we show that the use of freestanding and scalably produced carbon nanotube Bucky papers with Si nanoparticles (dia. ~100 nm) sandwiched between them exhibit up to 1900% increase in the gravimetric capacity after 500 cycles at 0.1C, respectively when discharged to 0.1 V.

Large-scale low-cost preparation methods for high quality graphene are critical for advancing graphene-based applications in energy storage, and beyond. Here, we present a sulfur-assisted method that converts benzene rings of tetraphenyltin into high purity crystalline graphene. The three dimensional few layer graphene microspheres (FLGMs) proved ideal for energy storage applications.

The Clemson Nanomaterials Institute (CNI) is dedicated to exploring the fundamental properties of nanomaterials, and their applications. We utilize electric arcs, lasers, ultrasonication, spark plasma sintering and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to prepare a wide range of nanomaterials. Few examples include the CVD growth of aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs), helically coiled MWNTs and nanowires, branched MWNTs, and low-melting metal oxide nanowires on various substrates such as …