A series of novel Fe-Cd co-doped ZnO nanoparticle based photocatalysts are successfully synthesized by sol-gel route and characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray emission (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) techniques. The photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles doped with various atomic weight fraction of Fe and Cd has been investigated under visible light irradiation using the Methylene Blue and Rhodamine B dye in aqueous solution. The FeCd (2%):ZnO (ZFC-1) exhibit the highest photocatalytic activity in terms of rate constant as K_MB = 0.01153 min⁻¹ and K_RhB = 0.00916 min⁻¹). Further, the re-usability of the ZFC-1 photocatalyst is studied which confirms that it can be reused up to five times with nearly negligible loss of the photocatalytic efficiency. Moreover, the role of photoactive species investigated using a radical scavenger technique. The present investigations show that the doping concentration plays significant role in photocatalytic performance. The visible light absorption shown by Fe-Cd co-doped ZnO nanoparticles is much higher than that of undoped body probably due to co-doping, and the charge carrier recombination is decreased effectively which yields a higher photocatalytic performance. The mechanism for the enhancement of photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation is also proposed.

A new anode material, Fe₃S₄, shows superior electrochemical performance and a novel mechanism for sodium storage.

A MoS₂nanosphere memristor with lateral gold electrodes was found to show photoresistive switching. The new device can be controlled by the polarization of nanospheres, which causes resistance switching in an electric field in the dark or under white light illumination. The polarization charge allows to change the switching voltage of the photomemristor, providing its multi-level operation. The device, polarized at a voltage 6 V, switches abruptly from a high resistance state (HRS_L6) to a low resistance state (LRS_L6) with the On/Off resistance ratio of about 10 under white light and smooth in the dark. Analysis of device conductivity in different resistive states indicates that its resistive state could be changed by the modulation of the charge in an electric field in the dark or under light, resulting in the formation/disruption of filaments with high conductivity. A MoS₂photomemristor has great potential as a multifunctional device designed by using cost-effective fabrication techniques.