Chemical Kinetics of Metal Single Atom and Nanocluster Formation on Surfaces: An Example of Pt on Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Popov, Ilya; Ghaderzadeh, Sadegh; Kohlrausch, Emerson C.; Norman, Luke T.; Slater, Thomas J. A.; Aliev, Gazi N.; Alhabeadi, Hanan; Kaplan, Andre; Theis, Wolfgang; Khlobystov, Andrei N.; Fernandes, Jesum Alves; Besley, Elena

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01968

All Outputs (8)

Two-Dimensional One-Atom-Thick Gold Grown on Defect-Engineered Graphene (2025)
Journal Article
Joudi, W., Ghaderzadeh, S., Trentino, A., Mizohata, K., Mustonen, K., Besley, E., Kotakoski, J., & Åhlgren, E. H. (2025). Two-Dimensional One-Atom-Thick Gold Grown on Defect-Engineered Graphene. ACS Nano, 19(24), 22032–22043. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c01538

In this work, a general route to creating two-dimensional, one-atom-thick metal layers, metallene, on functionalized graphene is proposed. To explore its viability, low-energy ion irradiation is performed to introduce vacancies into initially pristin... Read More about Two-Dimensional One-Atom-Thick Gold Grown on Defect-Engineered Graphene.

Timing the escape of a photoexcited electron from a molecular cage (2025)
Journal Article
Fields, C., Foerster, A., Ghaderzadeh, S., Popov, I., Huynh, B., Junqueira, F., James, T., Alonso Perez, S., Duncan, D. A., Lee, T.-L., Wang, Y., Bloodworth, S., Hoffman, G., Walkey, M., Whitby, R. J., Levitt, M. H., Kiraly, B., O’Shea, J. N., Besley, E., & Moriarty, P. (2025). Timing the escape of a photoexcited electron from a molecular cage. Nature Communications, 16, Article 5062. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60260-z

Charge transfer is fundamentally dependent on the overlap of the orbitals comprising the transport pathway. This has key implications for molecular, nanoscale, and quantum technologies, for which delocalization (and decoherence) rates are essential f... Read More about Timing the escape of a photoexcited electron from a molecular cage.

A descriptor guiding the selection of catalyst supports for ammonia synthesis (2025)
Journal Article
Weilhard, A., Popov, I., Kohlrausch, E. C., Aliev, G. N., Blankenship, L. S., Norman, L. T., Ghaderzadeh, S., Smith, L., Isaacs, M., O'Shea, J., Lanterna, A. E., Theis, W., Morgan, D., Hutchings, G. J., Besley, E., Khlobystov, A. N., & Alves Fernandes, J. (2025). A descriptor guiding the selection of catalyst supports for ammonia synthesis. Chemical Science, 16(11), 4851-4859. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sc08253b

The efforts to increase the active surface area of catalysts led to reduction of metal particle size, down to single metal atoms. This results in increasing importance of support-metal interactions. We demonstrate the mechanisms through which the sup... Read More about A descriptor guiding the selection of catalyst supports for ammonia synthesis.

Evolution of amorphous ruthenium nanoclusters into stepped truncated nano-pyramids on graphitic surfaces boosts hydrogen production from ammonia (2025)
Journal Article
Chen, Y., Young, B. J., Aliev, G. N., Kordatos, A., Popov, I., Ghaderzadeh, S., Liddy, T. J., Cull, W. J., Kohlrausch, E. C., Weilhard, A., Hutchings, G. J., Besley, E., Theis, W., Alves Fernandes, J., & Khlobystov, A. N. (2025). Evolution of amorphous ruthenium nanoclusters into stepped truncated nano-pyramids on graphitic surfaces boosts hydrogen production from ammonia. Chemical Science, 16(6), 2648-2660. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4sc06382a

Atomic-scale changes can significantly impact heterogeneous catalysis, yet their atomic mechanisms are challenging to establish using conventional analysis methods. By using identical location scanning transmission electron microscopy (IL-STEM), whic... Read More about Evolution of amorphous ruthenium nanoclusters into stepped truncated nano-pyramids on graphitic surfaces boosts hydrogen production from ammonia.

Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction (2024)
Journal Article
Burwell, T., Thangamuthu, M., Aliev, G. N., Ghaderzadeh, S., Kohlrausch, E. C., Chen, Y., Theis, W., Norman, L. T., Alves Fernandes, J., Besley, E., Licence, P., & Khlobystov, A. N. (2024). Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction. Communications Chemistry, 7(1), Article 140. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-024-01218-y

A key strategy for minimizing our reliance on precious metals is to increase the fraction of surface atoms and improve the metal-support interface. In this work, we employ a solvent/ligand/counterion-free method to deposit copper in the atomic form d... Read More about Direct formation of copper nanoparticles from atoms at graphitic step edges lowers overpotential and improves selectivity of electrocatalytic CO2 reduction.

Strain-modulated defect engineering of two-dimensional materials (2024)
Journal Article
Santra, P., Ghaderzadeh, S., Ghorbani-Asl, M., Komsa, H.-P., Besley, E., & Krasheninnikov, A. V. (2024). Strain-modulated defect engineering of two-dimensional materials. npj 2D Materials and Applications, 8(1), Article 33. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-024-00472-x

Strain- and defect-engineering are two powerful approaches to tailor the opto-electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials, but the relationship between applied mechanical strain and behavior of defects in these systems remains elusive. Us... Read More about Strain-modulated defect engineering of two-dimensional materials.

Direct Deposition of Copper Atoms onto Graphitic Step Edges Lowers Overpotential and Improves Selectivity of Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction (2024)
Preprint / Working Paper
Thangamuthu, M., Burwell, T., Aliev, G., Ghaderzadeh, S., Kohlrausch, E., Chen, Y., Theis, W., Norman, L., Fernandes, J., Besley, E., Licence, P., & Khlobystov, A. Direct Deposition of Copper Atoms onto Graphitic Step Edges Lowers Overpotential and Improves Selectivity of Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction

Minimizing our reliance on bulk precious metals is to increase the fraction of surface atoms and improve the metal-support interface. In this work, we employ a solvent/ligand/counterion-free method to deposit copper in the atomic form directly onto a... Read More about Direct Deposition of Copper Atoms onto Graphitic Step Edges Lowers Overpotential and Improves Selectivity of Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction.

Chemical Kinetics of Metal Single Atom and Nanocluster Formation on Surfaces: An Example of Pt on Hexagonal Boron Nitride (2023)
Journal Article
Popov, I., Ghaderzadeh, S., Kohlrausch, E. C., Norman, L. T., Slater, T. J. A., Aliev, G. N., Alhabeadi, H., Kaplan, A., Theis, W., Khlobystov, A. N., Fernandes, J. A., & Besley, E. (2023). Chemical Kinetics of Metal Single Atom and Nanocluster Formation on Surfaces: An Example of Pt on Hexagonal Boron Nitride. Nano Letters, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01968

The production of atomically dispersed metal catalysts remains a significant challenge in the field of heterogeneous catalysis due to coexistence with continuously packed sites such as nanoclusters and nanoparticles. This work presents a comprehensiv... Read More about Chemical Kinetics of Metal Single Atom and Nanocluster Formation on Surfaces: An Example of Pt on Hexagonal Boron Nitride.