The expansion of programmatically accessible materials data has cultivated opportunities for data-driven approaches. Workflows such as the Automatic Flow Framework for Materials Discovery not only manage the generation, storage, and dissemination of materials data, but also leverage the information for thermodynamic formability modeling, such as the prediction of phase diagrams and properties of disordered materials. In combination with standardized parameter sets, the wealth of data is ideal for training machine-learning algorithms, which have already been employed for property prediction, descriptor development, design rule discovery, and the identification of candidate functional materials. These methods promise to revolutionize the path to synthesis, and ultimately transform the practice of traditional materials discovery to one of rational and autonomous materials design.

Hafnium diselenide (HfSe2) has a high theoretical carrier mobility but is among the most reactive transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Herein, we have investigated the air stability of 2H polytype HfSe2 single-crystal thin films by spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Raman spectroscopy measurements in conjunction with atomic force microscopy reveal the formation of selenium-rich blisters on the surface of the crystals upon air exposure. Transmission electron microscopy analysis indicates that 2H-HfSe2 undergoes a spontaneous phase change to 1T-HfSe2. These results offer Raman spectroscopy as a fast, convenient, non-destructive technique to reliably monitor the surface degradation of TMDs and present an opportunity for further study of phase changes in this material.

Graphene-based electronic DNA sequencing techniques have received significant attention over the past decade and are hoped to provide a new generation of portable, low-cost devices capable of rapid and accurate DNA sequencing. However, these devices are yet to demonstrate DNA sequencing. This is partly due to complex fabrication requirements resulting in low device yields and limited throughput. In this paper, we review the challenging fabrication of graphene-based electronic DNA sequencing devices. We will place a particular focus on common fabrication challenges and look toward the development of high-throughput, high-yield fabrication of these devices.

We report results of the studies relating to the development of the emerging nanostructured molybdenum trioxide (nMoO3)-based biocompatible label-free biosensing platform for breast cancer detection. The structural and morphological studies of the synthesized nMoO3 nanorods were investigated by XRD, SEM, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic, and TEM techniques. This biocompatible one-dimensional (1D) nMoO3-based biosensing platform exhibited high sensitivity (0.904 µAmL/ng/cm2), wide linear detection range (2.5–110 ng/mL), and a lower detection limit as 2.47 ng/mL toward human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 detection. The results obtained using this sensor platform on serum samples of breast cancer patients were validated using ELISA.

Data are a crucial raw material of this century. The amount of data that have been created in materials science thus far and that continues to be created every day is immense. Without a proper infrastructure that allows for collecting and sharing data, the envisioned success of big data-driven materials science will be hampered. For the field of computational materials science, the NOMAD (Novel Materials Discovery) Center of Excellence (CoE) has changed the scientific culture toward comprehensive and findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data, opening new avenues for mining materials science big data. Novel data-analytics concepts and tools turn data into knowledge and help in the prediction of new materials and in the identification of new properties of already known materials.

We investigate the two-photon absorption characteristics of hemicyanine dyes that exhibit a one-photon absorption at around 500 nm. The dyes exhibited two-photon-induced fluorescence upon irradiation with an Yb-doped femtosecond fiber laser operating at 1030 nm. Among the dyes, 4-[4-[4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]-1,3-butadienyl]-1-ethyl-pyridinium perchlorate exhibited the most efficient two-photon-induced fluorescence at 1030 nm. Since these dyes possess cationic moiety, the dyes accumulated in the mitochondria of a living cell. Two-photon images of mitochondria were obtained by staining living HEK293 cells with these dyes. When 4-[4-[4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]-1,3-butadienyl]-1-ethyl-pyridinium perchlorate was employed, a two-photon-induced fluorescence image could be obtained even when a 3 mW fiber laser beam was used as the excitation source.