Towards efficient strain engineering of 2D materials: A four-points bending approach for compressive strain

Strain engineering, as a powerful strategy to tune the optical and electrical properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials by deforming their crystal lattice, has attracted significant interest in recent years. 2D materials can sustain ultra-high strains, even up to 10%, due to the lack of dangling bonds on their surface, making them ideal brittle solids. This…

Improved Non-Covalent Biofunctionalization of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Using Carbohydrate Amphiphiles with a Butterfly-Like Polyaromatic Tail

We have developed an efficient strategy for the non-covalent functionalization of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) which allows a biomimetic presentation of carbohydrates on their surface by pi-pi stacking interactions. The strategy is based on the use of sugar-based amphiphiles functionalized with tetrabenzo[a,c,g,i] fluorene (Tbf), a polyaromatic compound with a topology that resembles a butterfly with…