The mesoscale fabrication of silicon hyperuniform disordered materials with a broad and pronounced photonic gap in the shortwave infrared is reported. Due to their unique structure and their high refractive index, these fascinating materials are predicted to possess a complete photonic bandgap in the absence of any long-range order.

Following the graphene isolation, strong interest in two dimensional (2D) materials has been driven by their outstanding properties. Their typical intrinsic structure, including strong in-plane covalent bonding and weak out-of-plane Van der Waals interaction, makes them highly promising in diverse areas such as electronics, catalysis, and environment. Growth of 2D materials requires a synthesis approach able to control the deposition onto a support at the atomic scale. Thanks to their simplicity, versatility and ability to control thickness at the angstrom level, atomic layer deposition (ALD) and its variant atomic layer etching (ALET) appear as ones of the most suited techniques to synthesize 2D materials. The development of ALD technique for fabricating 2D materials in the last ten years justifies reviewing its most recent groundbreaking discoveries and progresses. Particular attention will be paid to stable 2D materials especially graphene, h-BN, Mo and W dichalcogenides and few monolayered metal oxides. Specificities and outputs of ALD for 2D material as well as emerging directions and remaining technical challenges will be highlighted.

A one-pot non-aqueous synthesis of crystalline SnO₂- and Fe₃O₄-based graphene heterostructures in just a few minutes is introduced. The combined properties of the microwave heating and the “benzyl alcohol route” allow the selective growth of metal oxide nanoparticles at the surface of graphene oxide, which is reduced during synthesis. The as-fabricated nanostructures show good lithium intercalation–deintercalation performances at high rate and good cycling stability compared to the separated nano-building blocks.