Formation of a nanometer-scale oxide surface layer is common when a material is exposed to oxygen-containing environment. Employing aberration-corrected analytical transmission electron microscopy and using single crystal SnSe as an example, we show that for an alloy, a second thin amorphous layer can appear underneath the outmost oxide layer. This inner amorphous layer is not oxide based, but instead originates from solid-state amorphization of the base alloy when its free energy rises to above that of the metastable amorphous state; which is a result of the composition shift due to the preferential depletion of the oxidizing species, in our case, the outgoing Sn reacting with the oxygen atmosphere.

An explicit difference scheme is described, analyzed and tested for numerically approximating stochastic elastic equation driven by infinite dimensional noise. The noise processes are approximated by piecewise constant random processes and the integral formula of the stochastic elastic equation is approximated by a truncated series. Error analysis of the numerical method yields estimate of convergence rate. The rate of convergence is demonstrated with numerical experiments.

Bifunctional electrocatalytic films were prepared employing a layer-by-layer assembly approach. The cation, metalloporphyrin (MP), and the anion, potassium tetrachloroaurate (KAuCl4) were alternatively assembled on glass or indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) supports. The assembled AuCl4- ions were then converted to gold nanoparticles (Aun) under the exposure to ultraviolet light. Film growth at each adsorption step was monitored by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The formation of gold nanoparticles was characterized by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Bifunctional electrocatalytic activity of the film was demonstrated in the oxidative detection of nitric oxide (NO) over Aun and the reductive detection of oxygen (O2) over Co(II)P in the same CV scan.