Volume 9 Issue 6, June 2017

The dc-ngCA-silk hydrogel is a highly protective biocatalytic matrix fabricated through bioinspired photoinduced chemical and dehydration-mediated physical dual-crosslinking of silk fibroin and carbonic anhydrase. The fabricated silk hydrogel exhibited significantly high toughness, resiliency and stability with good catalytic activity, which enabled its successful use as a robust biocatalyst for CO₂ sequestration.

New enzyme catalyst consisting of pyrenecarboxaldehyde (PCA) and glucose oxidase (GOx) immobilized on polyethyleneimine and carbon nanotube (CNT/PEI/[PCA/GOx]) is developed with performance and stability evaluations of enzymatic biofuel cell (EBC) using the new catalyst. By employment of PCA, the amount of immobilized GOx increases and electron transfer of CNT/PEI/[PCA/GOx] is facilitated. With that, superior EBC performance, long-lasting stability and excellent catalytic activities are gained. Such results are attributed to effects of (i) electron collection by hydrophobic interactions, (ii) electron transfer by π-conjugated bonds and (iii) enzyme stabilization by π-hydrogen bonds. Validity of such three positive effects is proved by various measurements.

SbCrSe₃, described as a quasi-1D structure with CrSe₆ double chains, possesses an intrinsic low thermal conductivity due to the large anharmonicity and weak chemical bonds. By substituting Sb with Pb, a peak ZT= 0.46 at 900 K is obtained in Pb_0.05Sb_0.95CrSe₃ sample. This is about 24 times larger value than measured on pristine SbCrSe₃.

We designed various bending hydrogels with symmetric structure that responds to temperature gradient, with inspiration from pine cone. We verified the motion changes based on the amount of content, alignment angle and shape of the layer. The developed system can be applied to various fields, because the direction and curvature can be controlled easily.

In a typical thermal explosion process, a single-phase CuFeS₂ is obtained in a very short time and the thermoelectric performance of the fully condensed bulk samples is better than that of the samples synthesized by the traditional methods. The presence of phase boundaries in the CuFeS_2−x has an effect on the transport properties: phase boundaries scatter low-frequency phonons and reduce the thermal conductivity of a composite structure. Moreover, large differences in the carrier concentration in CuFeS₂ and Cu_1.1Fe_1.1S₂ drive a redistribution of electrons in the composite and lead to an enhancement in the electronic transport properties.

Having a well aligned monodomain is critical to performing fundamental studies on liquid crystals as well as exploiting them for technological applications. Unlike conventional nematics, lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals are notoriously hard to align. Here, we report on the homogeneous planar alignment of Sunset Yellow in a flat rectangular capillary. Counterintuitively, the in-plane director aligns perpendicular to the long axis of the rectangular capillary. We rationalize the evolution of this configuration from a metastable twisted configuration by considering the coupling of the curvature of the edges of the rectangle to the Frank free energy via the saddle-splay contribution.

We experimentally demonstrate that the spin-wave propagation in the hard-axis direction of an epitaxial Fe waveguide with a cubic anisotropy shows an enhanced spin-wave signal by improving spin-wave amplitude as well as group velocity and attenuation length. Schematic illustrations of a, easy-easy case (both directions of the magnetization and spin-wave propagation are in the easy axis) and b, hard-hard case (both directions of the magnetization and spin-wave propagation are in the hard axis). Magnetic-field dependences of spin-wave amplitude for c, easy-easy case and d, hard-hard case. e, Spin-wave attenuation length and f, group velocity as a function of the magnetic field.

A full-color, solid-state, volumetric display based on second harmonic generation in a transparent glass-ceramic (GC) containing second-order optical nonlinear crystals is described. The device uses infrared femtosecond laser beams that focus inside the GC to address red, green and blue voxels. Three-dimensional images are drawn by scanning the point of focus of the lasers inside of the material. The prototype device is demonstrated using conventional focusing optics and mechanical scanners, and the image is bright enough to be seen in ambient room lighting conditions.

A flash-evaporation printing technology is developed that employs freestanding carbon nanotubes as a flash evaporator. The target materials precoated on the flash evaporator are printed onto substrates by gas-phase transportation. This methodology offers a printable solution for hybrid perovskite thin films, and can also be used to print patterns and a wide variety of materials on large panels.

Initially formed amorphous GeTe layer crystallizes during growth by molecular beam epitaxy, as critical film thickness is reached. A remarkable change in bonding mechanism and improvement in atomic order are observed, in striking contrast to conventional lattice-matched epitaxial systems. Supported by density function theory calculations, resonant bonding is shown to be less favorable in an ultrathin GeTe film.

Formulation of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and chitosan (CHI) hydrogel containing curcumin-loaded microcapsules (Cur-M) are developed for intratumoral injection. The Cur-M-loaded CMC and CHI (CCH) formulation forms a Cur-M-loaded CCH depot after mixing via electrostatic interactions between the anionic CMC and cationic CHI. The Cur-M-loaded CCH depot lead to greater inhibition of tumor growth.