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Nanoheterostructures (NHSs) have fostered structural diversity and functional multiplicity owing to a combination of two nanosegments and the consequent charge carrier redistribution. In this article, we review the recent progress in the combinative study of the NHSs from both the experimental and theoretical perspectives in terms of the growth mechanisms down to the atomic level and the electronic structure from ab initio.
A vesicant-assisted gas-foaming strategy has been reported to achieve 3D h-BN white graphene (WG) foams without any catalysts or templates. This technique could provide large-scale, high-yield and ultralight 3D WG foams with a very low density of 2.1 mg cm−3. The WG foams present hierarchical pores and ultrathin walls with single or several atomic layers. The WG foams present superhigh adsorption properties for organic solvents and oils with an adsorption capacity of up to 70–190 times its own weight for organic pollutants and oils. This study promotes a new design strategy to create 3D WG foams for high-performance pollutant removal applications in water treatment.
Hydrogenated NiCo2O4 double-shell hollow spheres, combining large specific surface area and high conductivity, are prepared. A specific capacitance increase of >62%, from 445 to 718 F g−1, is achieved at a current density of 1 A g−1. A full cell combined with NiCo2O4 and activated carbon is assembled, and an energy density of 34.8 Wh kg−1 is obtained at a power density of 464 W kg−1.
Plasmonic gold nanoparticles with open eccentric cavity are fabricated by selectively adapting the structure of non-plasmonic nanoparticles via acid-induced chemical transformation. Because of strong near-field enhancement occurring at the mouth of the open cavity and very rough surfaces resulting from uniformly covered hyperbranched sharp multi-tips as well as free access of SERS molecules inside the nanoparticles without diffusion limitation, adenine, one of four bases in DNA, in an extremely diluted aqueous solution (1.0 pM) was successfully detected with excellent reproducibility at a laser excitation with 785 nm wavelength.
Taking advantage of DNA hybridization, we fabricated a series of nonarithmetic logic circuits on a simple and universal molecular beacon platform, including multiplexer, demultiplexer, encoder and decoder. Multiple fluorescence outputs were generated in parallel on the same set of inputs. The advantages of the enzyme-free DNA systems here include high flexibility, reconfigurability, massive parallelism and scalability, offering an opportunity to construct multi-component devices on a single biomolecular platform.
We report nature-inspired drug-DNA adducts (DDAs) as a simple yet programmable platform for site-specific drug-DNA conjugation and application in targeted anticancer drug delivery. With multiple copies of drugs conjugated on one DNA, the DDAs were nuclease-resistant and stable for storage, yet gradually released drugs at physiological temperature. Designer DDAs were able to form nanoadducts by hybridization and fold into drug-aptamer adducts (DAAs) for specific recognition of cancer cells and targeted anticancer drug delivery. In a tumor xenograft mouse model, DAAs significantly inhibited tumor growth and reduced side effects, as verified by tissue analysis of tumors and hearts.
