Ternary oxide nanocrystals (TONs) have received growing attention for their great potential applications in optoelectronics and electrochemistry despite the current scarcity of universal, facile, and green synthesis methods. Here, we introduce a universal laser‐hydrothermal approach for various TONs and demonstrate their potential for high‐performance photodetectors (PDs) and pseudocapacitors. The obtained clean surface is derived by laser ablation in liquid (LAL) and subsequent hydrothermal growth. The LAL‐generated precursors contain many kinds of highly reactive species, including H+, OH−, metal ions, and clusters, which facilitate the fast and facile formation of various TONs in the subsequent hydrothermal process. The universality of the method is systematically proven by the synthesis of a series of TONs, including Zn2GeO4, NiCo2O4, Zn2SnO4, ZnFe2O4, ZnMnO3, and Fe2GeO4. Significantly, the absence of chemical additives, such as surfactants, guarantees highly clean surfaces, which further benefits the electron transport through the nanocrystals, and thus in the resultant devices. This is also exemplified by a Zn2GeO4‐nanorod‐based, deep‐ultraviolet PD and NiCo2O4 nanocrystal supercapacitors.

The typical two‐dimensional (2D) semiconductors MoS2, MoSe2, WS2, WSe2 and black phosphorus have garnered tremendous interest for their unique electronic, optical, and chemical properties. However, all 2D semiconductors reported thus far feature band gaps that are smaller than 2.0 eV, which has greatly restricted their applications, especially in optoelectronic devices with photoresponse in the blue and UV range. Novel 2D mono‐elemental semiconductors, namely monolayered arsenene and antimonene, with wide band gaps and high stability were now developed based on first‐principles calculations. Interestingly, although As and Sb are typically semimetals in the bulk, they are transformed into indirect semiconductors with band gaps of 2.49 and 2.28 eV when thinned to one atomic layer. Significantly, under small biaxial strain, these materials were transformed from indirect into direct band‐gap semiconductors. Such dramatic changes in the electronic structure could pave the way for transistors with high on/off ratios, optoelectronic devices working under blue or UV light, and mechanical sensors based on new 2D crystals.

Graphene with a sp2-honeycomb carbon lattice has drawn a large amount of attention due to its excellent properties and potential applications in many fields. Similar to the structure of graphene, two-dimensional semiconductors are its two-dimensional and isostructural counterparts based on the typical layer-structured semiconductors, such as boron nitride (h-BN) and transition metal dichalcogenides (e.g. MoS2 and WS2), whose layers are bound by weak van der Waals forces. Unlike the semi-metal features of graphene, the two-dimensional semiconductors are natural semiconductors with thicknesses on the atomic scale. When one of the dimensions is extremely reduced, the two-dimensional semiconductors exhibit some unique properties, such as a transition from indirect to direct semiconductor properties, and hence have great potential for applications in electronics, energy storage, sensors, catalysis and composites, which arise both from the dimension-reduced effect and from the modified electronic structure. In this feature article, recent developments in the synthesis, properties and applications of two-dimensional semiconductors are discussed. The reported virtues and novelties of two-dimensional semiconductors are highlighted and the current problems in their developing process are clarified, in addition to their challenges and future prospects.

The strong ionic character endows all‐inorganic CsPbX3 (X = Cl, Br, I) perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) with different chemical features from classical Cd‐based NCs, especially when considering their interaction with polar solvents and surfactants. This has aroused intensive interest, but is still short of comprehensive understanding. More significantly, above characteristic may be used to improve the quality of perovskite thin films, which is crucial for the carrier transport inside optoelectronic devices. Here, an interesting recyclable dissolution–recyrstallization phenomenon of all‐inorganic pervoskite, as well as its application on room temperature (RT) self‐healing of compact and smooth carrier channels in ambient atmosphere for high‐performance PDs with high stability is reported. First, according to solubility equilibrium principle, the size of CsPbBr3 crystals can be reversibly tuned in the range of 10 nm–1 μm through washing with polar solvent or stirring with assistance of surfactants at RT. Second, such phenomenon is applied for significant film quality improvement by forming a liquid circumstance within films, which can transport matter at surface and sharp parts into the gaps, healing themselves at RT. This strategy results in large‐area, crack‐free, low‐roughness perovskite thin films. Obviously, such improvement facilitates transport and extraction of carriers in the channels of devices, which has been evidenced by the improvement of performances of the corresponding PDs at ambient condition.

High concentrations of defects are introduced into nanoscale ZnO through non‐equilibrium processes and resultant blue emissions are comprehensively analyzed, focusing on defect origins and broad controls. Some ZnO nanoparticles exhibit very strong blue emissions, the intensity of which first increase and then decrease with annealing. These visible emissions exhibit strong and interesting excitation dependences: 1) the optimal excitation energy for blue emissions is near the bandgap energy, but the effective excitation can obviously be lower, even 420 nm (2.95 eV < Eg = 3.26 eV); in contrast, green emissions can be excited only by energies larger than the bandgap energy; and, 2) there are several fixed emitting wavelengths at 415, 440, 455 and 488 nm in the blue wave band, which exhibit considerable stability in different excitation and annealing conditions. Mechanisms for blue emissions from ZnO are proposed with interstitial‐zinc‐related defect levels as initial states. EPR spectra reveal the predominance of interstitial zinc in as‐prepared samples, and the evolutions of coexisting interstitial zinc and oxygen vacancies with annealing. Furthermore, good controllability of visible emissions is achieved, including the co‐emission of blue and green emissions and peak adjustment from blue to yellow.