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Novelty Cu₂O multi-branched nanowires and nanoparticles with size ranging from $\sim$15nm to $\sim$60nm have been synthesized by one-step hydrothermal process. These Cu₂O nanostructures when used as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries exhibit the excellent electrochemical cycling stability and reduced polarization during the repeated charge/discharge process. The specific capacity of the Cu₂O nanoparticles, multi-branched nanowires and microscale are maintained at 201.2mAh/g, 259.6mAh/g and 127.4mAh/g, respectively, under the current density of 0.1A/g after 50 cycles. The enhanced electrochemical performance of the Cu₂O nanostructures compared with microscale counterpart can be attributed to the larger contact area between active Cu₂O nanostructures/electrolyte interface, shorter diffusion length of Li${}^{+}$ within nanostructures and the improved stress release upon lithiation/delithiation.

While carbon nanotubes have been put into massive practical industrial, environmental and biomedicine applications, the cytotoxicity effects or the effect to the ionic channels they bring into the living cells need to be thoroughly investigated. In this work, molecular dynamic simulations have been carried out to investigate the ionic diffusion through the single wall armchair carbon nanotube embedded right inside the cell membrane. By modeling a two-membrane system, we build a virtual cytoplasm environment including a cell chamber and an extracellular space, in which a certain amount of solute is dissolved. The system is first brought to its equilibrium by deployment of minimization and then simulated. The results suggested that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with size less than (12, 12) shall be less cytotoxic since it does not bring any ionic diffusion through the CNT channel, so as to maintain active cytoplasm environment. Another phenomenon we observed is a notable shifting angle of the carbon nanotube which was normal to the surface of cell membrane initially. In general, the inclination angle of the carbon nanotube increases with its radius.