Browsing by Author "Liu, Yang"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Branching phenomena in nanostructure synthesis illuminated by the study of Ni-based nanocomposites
    (Royal Society of Chemisty, 2023) Qiao, Liang; Fu, Zheng; Zhao, Wenxia; Cui, Yan; Xing, Xin; Xie, Yin; Li, Ji; Gao, Guanhui; Xuan, Zhengxi; Liu, Yang; Lee, Chaeeon; Han, Yimo; Cheng, Yingwen; He, Shengbao; Jones, Matthew R.; Swihart, Mark T.
    Branching phenomena are ubiquitous in both natural and artificial crystallization processes. The branched nanostructures' emergent properties depend upon their structures, but their structural tunability is limited by an inadequate understanding of their formation mechanisms. Here we developed an ensemble of Nickel-Based nano-Composites (NBCs) to investigate branching phenomena in solution-phase synthesis with precision and in depth. NBCs of 24 morphologies, including dots, core@shell dots, hollow shells, clusters, polyhedra, platelets, dendrites, urchins, and dandelions, were synthesized through systematic adjustment of multiple synthesis parameters. Relationships between the synthesis parameters and the resultant morphologies were analyzed. Classical or non-classical models of nucleation, nascent growth, 1D growth, 2D growth, 3D reconstruction, aggregation, and carburization were defined individually and then integrated to provide a holistic view of the formation mechanism of branched NBCs. Finally, guidelines were extracted and verified to guide the rational solution-phase syntheses of branched nanomaterials with emergent biological, chemical, and physical properties for potential applications in immunology, catalysis, energy storage, and optics. Demonstrating a systematic approach for deconvoluting the formation mechanism and enhancing the synthesis tunability, this work is intended to benefit the conception, development, and improvement of analogous artificial branched nanostructures. Moreover, the progress on this front of synthesis science would, hopefully, deepen our understanding of branching phenomena in nature.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Carrier-Domain Method for high-resolution computation of time-periodic long-wake flows
    (Springer Nature, 2023) Liu, Yang; Takizawa, Kenji; Tezduyar, Tayfun E.; Kuraishi, Takashi; Zhang, Yufei
    We are introducing the Carrier-Domain Method (CDM) for high-resolution computation of time-periodic long-wake flows, with cost-effectives that makes the computations practical. The CDM is closely related to the Multidomain Method, which was introduced 24 years ago, originally intended also for cost-effective computation of long-wake flows and later extended in scope to cover additional classes of flow problems. In the CDM, the computational domain moves in the free-stream direction, with a velocity that preserves the outflow nature of the downstream computational boundary. As the computational domain is moving, the velocity at the inflow plane is extracted from the velocity computed earlier when the plane’s current position was covered by the moving domain. The inflow data needed at an instant is extracted from one or more instants going back in time as many periods. Computing the long-wake flow with a high-resolution moving mesh that has a reasonable length would certainly be far more cost-effective than computing it with a fixed mesh that covers the entire length of the wake. We are also introducing a CDM version where the computational domain moves in a discrete fashion rather than a continuous fashion. To demonstrate how the CDM works, we compute, with the version where the computational domain moves in a continuous fashion, the 2D flow past a circular cylinder at Reynolds number 100. At this Reynolds number, the flow has an easily discernible vortex shedding frequency and widely published lift and drag coefficients and Strouhal number. The wake flow is computed up to 350 diameters downstream of the cylinder, far enough to see the secondary vortex street. The computations are performed with the Space–Time Variational Multiscale method and isogeometric discretization; the basis functions are quadratic NURBS in space and linear in time. The results show the power of the CDM in high-resolution computation of time-periodic long-wake flows.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Charge-based interactions through peptide position 4 drive diversity of antigen presentation by human leukocyte antigen class I molecules
    (Oxford University Press, 2022) Jackson, Kyle R; Antunes, Dinler A; Talukder, Amjad H; Maleki, Ariana R; Amagai, Kano; Salmon, Avery; Katailiha, Arjun S; Chiu, Yulun; Fasoulis, Romanos; Rigo, Maurício Menegatti; Abella, Jayvee R; Melendez, Brenda D; Li, Fenge; Sun, Yimo; Sonnemann, Heather M; Belousov, Vladislav; Frenkel, Felix; Justesen, Sune; Makaju, Aman; Liu, Yang; Horn, David; Lopez-Ferrer, Daniel; Huhmer, Andreas F; Hwu, Patrick; Roszik, Jason; Hawke, David; Kavraki, Lydia E; Lizée, Gregory
    Human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I) molecules bind and present peptides at the cell surface to facilitate the induction of appropriate CD8+ T cell-mediated immune responses to pathogen- and self-derived proteins. The HLA-I peptide-binding cleft contains dominant anchor sites in the B and F pockets that interact primarily with amino acids at peptide position 2 and the C-terminus, respectively. Nonpocket peptide–HLA interactions also contribute to peptide binding and stability, but these secondary interactions are thought to be unique to individual HLA allotypes or to specific peptide antigens. Here, we show that two positively charged residues located near the top of peptide-binding cleft facilitate interactions with negatively charged residues at position 4 of presented peptides, which occur at elevated frequencies across most HLA-I allotypes. Loss of these interactions was shown to impair HLA-I/peptide binding and complex stability, as demonstrated by both in vitro and in silico experiments. Furthermore, mutation of these Arginine-65 (R65) and/or Lysine-66 (K66) residues in HLA-A*02:01 and A*24:02 significantly reduced HLA-I cell surface expression while also reducing the diversity of the presented peptide repertoire by up to 5-fold. The impact of the R65 mutation demonstrates that nonpocket HLA-I/peptide interactions can constitute anchor motifs that exert an unexpectedly broad influence on HLA-I-mediated antigen presentation. These findings provide fundamental insights into peptide antigen binding that could broadly inform epitope discovery in the context of viral vaccine development and cancer immunotherapy.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Cryo-mediated exfoliation and fracturing of layered materials into 2D quantum dots
    (AAAS, 2017) Wang, Yan; Liu, Yang; Zhang, Jianfang; Wu, Jingjie; Xu, Hui; Wen, Xiewen; Zhang, Xiang; Tiwary, Chandra Sekhar; Yang, Wei; Vajtai, Robert; Zhang, Yong; Chopra, Nitin; Odeh, Ihab Nizar; Wu, Yucheng; Ajayan, Pulickel M.
    Atomically thin quantum dots from layered materials promise new science and applications, but their scalable synthesis and separation have been challenging. We demonstrate a universal approach for the preparation of quantum dots from a series of materials, such as graphite, MoS2, WS2, h-BN, TiS2, NbS2, Bi2Se3, MoTe2, Sb2Te3, etc., using a cryo-mediated liquid-phase exfoliation and fracturing process. The method relies on liquid nitrogen pretreatment of bulk layered materials before exfoliation and breakdown into atomically thin two-dimensional quantum dots of few-nanometer lateral dimensions, exhibiting size-confined optical properties. This process is efficient for a variety of common solvents with a wide range of surface tension parameters and eliminates the use of surfactants, resulting in pristine quantum dots without surfactant covering or chemical modification.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Metallic 1T-TiS2 nanodots anchored on a 2D graphitic C3N4 nanosheet nanostructure with high electron transfer capability for enhanced photocatalytic performance
    (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017) Liu, Yang; She, Xiaojie; Zhang, Xiaoni; Liang, Chenglu; Wu, Jingjie; Yu, Peng; Nakanishi, Yusuke; Xie, Banghu; Xu, Hui; Ajayan, Pulickel M.; Yang, Wei
    Photocatalysis is one of the most promising technologies for solar energy conversion. With the development of photocatalysis technology, the creation of low-dimensional structure photocatalysts with improved properties becomes more and more important. Metallic 1T-TiS2 nanodots with a low-dimensional structure were introduced into environmentally friendly two-dimensional g-C3N4 (2D-C3N4) nanosheets by a solvothermal method. It was found that the ultrathin TiS2 nanodots were uniformly anchored on the surface of the 2D-C3N4. The effective suppression of electron–hole recombination was realized due to the addition of the intrinsic metallic property of 1T-TiS2 in the prepared nanocomposite. The 5 wt% TiS2/2D-C3N4 nanocomposite exhibited the best photocatalytic performance and the degradation rate towards RhB was ca. 95% in 70 min, which showed an improvement of ca. 30% in comparison with 2D-C3N4. The results indicate that the obtained TiS2/2D-C3N4 nanocomposite is a promising photocatalyst for practical applications.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Nickel particle–enabled width-controlled growth of bilayer molybdenum disulfide nanoribbons
    (AAAS, 2021) Li, Xufan; Li, Baichang; Lei, Jincheng; Bets, Ksenia V.; Sang, Xiahan; Okogbue, Emmanuel; Liu, Yang; Unocic, Raymond R.; Yakobson, Boris I.; Hone, James; Harutyunyan, Avetik R.
    Transition metal dichalcogenides exhibit a variety of electronic behaviors depending on the number of layers and width. Therefore, developing facile methods for their controllable synthesis is of central importance. We found that nickel nanoparticles promote both heterogeneous nucleation of the first layer of molybdenum disulfide and simultaneously catalyzes homoepitaxial tip growth of a second layer via a vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism, resulting in bilayer nanoribbons with width controlled by the nanoparticle diameter. Simulations further confirm the VLS growth mechanism toward nanoribbons and its orders of magnitude higher growth speed compared to the conventional noncatalytic growth of flakes. Width-dependent Coulomb blockade oscillation observed in the transfer characteristics of the nanoribbons at temperatures up to 60 K evidences the value of this proposed synthesis strategy for future nanoelectronics.