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A skin-like stretchable multi-functional sensor array based on a combination of PU foam and MWCNT-PANI nanocomposite is demonstrated to simultaneously detect pressure, temperature and ammonia gas with high sensitivity. The integrated sensor array with printed liquid metal interconnections operates stably under applied strain due to its attachment to the skin and under a biaxial strain up to 50%.
Nanostructural modifications, in particular nanoparticle (NP) additions, have been shown to have great success in improving energy-related material performance. We show how an economically viable method, namely metal organic deposition, can be used to obtain tunable small size (7 nm) and high number density NPs (8 × 1022 m−3) while maintaining the crystallinity of the perovskite-composite cuprate superconductor film matrix. Critical current density Jc(H) measurements demonstrate that the NPs are highly effective as pinning centers, decreasing vortex motion and fluctuation effects for all temperatures, magnetic field strengths and orientations measured. Our synthesis method can be applied to other perovskite-composite materials to improve their functionality.
An accurate method, with detailed analytical equations, is developed to extract the spin–orbit (SO) effective fields through analysis of the results of harmonic Hall voltage measurements. Both the z component of the applied magnetic field (its directions, together with the axes and the Hall bars, are shown in the left figures) and the second-order perpendicular magnetic anisotropy are taken into account. The contour plots (right figures) showing the deviation (in %) from input values of the damping-like (ΔHDL) and field-like (ΔHFL) SO effective fields clearly demonstrate a significant improvement in the accuracy of the results obtained from the new refined method.
Iron oxides were designed to the rice-grain-shaped hollow structures with hierarchical pores and highly aligned nano/micro-structures using silk fibrous templates to impose multi-functional materials for the electrocatalysts for Li-O2 batteries and the adsorbents of organic pollutants.
Physico-chemical properties of the cargo as well as the actual conditions during encapsulation interfere during formulation of nanoparticular cargo–carrier systems. We demonstrate altered chain conformations in the different micelles due to different cargo–carrier interactions leading to different localization of model drugs within the carrier. Finally, these changes lead to differences in pharmacokinetics and biodistribution in vivo, showing the relevance of such effects in a translational manner.
Ultrathin Bi2Se3-CS-RGD NSs with excellent tumor-targeting ability and potent radiosensitization efficiency are constructed for imaging-guided cancer radiotherapy. The NSs in combination with X-ray irradiation inhibit HeLa cell growth by inducing G0/G1 cycle arrest and mitochondria-mediated intrinsic cell apoptosis, inhibiting TrxR and activating downstream ROS-mediated signaling pathways. Moreover, RGD coating enables the NSs to aggregate in the tumor regions quickly enabling efficient PAI of the entire tumor to facilitate radiotherapy of cervical cancer. Taken together, this study provides an effective and safe theranostic agent for next-generation cancer radiotherapy.
A new class of self-powered and flexible biomimetic NEMS flow sensor is developed that can detect minute fluid flows with ultrahigh sensitivity. The hydrogel-VACNT structure closely mimics the mechanical and material properties of the gelatinous cupula found in many biological flow sensors. This work illustrates how such a nature-inspired design when implemented in NEMS sensor through nanofabrication enhances the sensitivity of the flow sensor.
Our work contributes to synthesize a vehicle based on lipid nanoparticles, which can effectively deliver Cas9/sgRNA-fused plasmid DNA in vitro and in vivo. This approach mediated successful transfection of Cas9/sgRNA plasmids in multiple cell lines in vitro. The vehicle carrying Cas9/sgRNA targeting PLK-1 resulted in significant down-regulation of PLK-1 protein and suppression of melanoma growth in vivo.
A novel ultra-thin-walled ZnO microtube cavity with a wall thickness of ~750 nm, supporting multiple types of optical modes, including in-tube Fabry–Perot modes, in-wall Fabry–Perot modes and wave-guided whispering gallery modes is fabricated via optical vapor supersaturated precipitation. The intensities of near-band edge and X-band emission are therefore increased at least one order of magnitude in the temperature range of 0–500 °C. The ultra-thin-walled ZnO microtube demonstrates unprecedented applications, for example, temperature-sensitive multicolor luminescence, low-threshold ultravoilet (UV) lasing and high-performance recyclable on-chip photodegradation, within one platform. It provides new opportunities to design multifunctional tailored wide bandgap semiconductor devices for a variety of optoelectronic applications in micro/nanophotonics.
A gallium-based liquid metal integrated system that combines soft electronics materials and engineering designs with advanced near-field-communication (NFC) functionality is reported. Electro-mechanical characterization of the device reveals their behaviors under large uniaxial tensile and compressive strains, as well as more complex modes of deformation. Demonstrations of these devices involve their use in monitoring of various human motions in a purely wireless fashion.
Nature-inspired from the stimuli-responsive soft material in plants, multifunctional hybrid membrane with thermo-responsiveness and conductivity is synthesized by in situ formation of conductive PPy on a PNIPAm matrix. The hybrid membrane exhibits thermo-responsive electrical properties, thermo-responsive deformability, and a thermo-responsive charge effect. This simple yet efficient platform may open a new era of stimuli-responsive hydrogels to fabricate a variety of high performance electrical, electrochemical and biomedical devices
Highly flexible transparent conductive electrode (HFTCE) heater with multilayer structure based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO), carbon nanotube (CNT) and silver nanowire (AgNW). The electrical, chemical, thermal, mechanical and tribological characteristics of the HFTCE heater based on rGO/CNT/AgNW are vastly superior to those of the single layer of AgNW coating. The rGO- and CNT-based layers effectively protect AgNW against contact sliding motion as well as bending/folding. The layers are designed to reduce shear stress induced by friction and distribute the contact pressure. The HFTCE based on rGO, CNT and AgNW was applied to a heater, verifying its outstanding ability to remove frost.
A semitransparent intelligent skin-like sensor platform based on polyaniline nanowire arrays was constructed, which can act as bionic component by simultaneously sensing tactile stimuli and detecting colorless odorless gas. The highest gauge factor demonstrated is 149, making it a remarkable candidate in strain sensing applications. Simultaneously, we demonstrate the controlled olfaction ability of the sensor with the detection of methane with high sensitivity and fast response time. These results enable the realization of multifunctional and uncorrelated sensing capabilities that will have wide range applications to augment robotics, treatment, simulate skin, health and bionic system.
The redox half-reaction of wide bandgap silver chloride was utilised to promote the photo-emitted carriers from graphene and the photoresponsivity of the phototransistor, circumventing the limitation of semiconductor bandgap and facilitating the pronounced photoresponse to long wavelength photons far beyond the optical absorption edge of AgCl.
In this work, we report a novel Dean vortices-induced particle migration phenomenon in spiral inertial microfluidics, which can be utilized for high throughput size-based separation of sub-micrometer synthetic or biological components, aptly termed as high-resolution Dean flow fractionation (HiDFF). We demonstrated enhanced drug release effects in particle-based drug delivery system, as well as single-step purification of circulating extracellular microvesicles from whole blood for rapid immune and vascular health profiling.
The stretchable and transparent, large-area electrode using electrospun, ultra-long metal nanofibers (mNFs) shows excellent optoelectronic and mechanical properties. It is mass-producible because of the roll-to-roll process and its fast production speed. The optoelectronic properties can be controlled by adjusting area fraction of mNF network. The large-area heater based on the mNF network exhibits outstanding power efficiency and mechanical reliability. The wireless operation of the wearable heater using Bluetooth is demonstrated.
Ni ions can be aligned by a double-stranded DNA and form a Ni–DNA nanowire. By integrating with the semiconductor circuits it becomes a novel molecular device, which is the first real dual memelement that exhibits functionalities of novel resistor and capacitor with memory, and redox-induced negative differential resistance (NDR) properties. The working mechanism of this novel device is similar to the memcomputing in brain.
Solution-grown single crystals (SCs) of semiconducting methylammonium lead halide perovskites are promising materials for full-colour imaging. Here we show one-pixel photodetector prototype, constructed by stacking three layers of blue-, green- and red-sensitive MAPbCl3, MAPbBr3 and MAPb(Br/I)3 crystals, respectively. This layered structure concept has several advantages: imparting a two- to three-fold reduction in the number of required pixels, three times more efficient light utilization (and thus higher sensitivity) than common Bayer filters scheme, colour moiré suppression and no need for de-mosaic image processing. In addition, the direct band gap structure of perovskites results in optical absorption that is several orders of magnitude greater than silicon.
SnSe has a layered-like crystal structure and shows high thermoelectric performance along the b-crystal axis. Due to low textured degree, polycrystalline SnSe process poor electrical properties and overall thermoelectric performance. Here, we show that by increasing the textured degree, enhanced thermoelectric performance with a peak ZT of 1.3 at 793 K is achieved in Ag-doped SnSe polycrystals.
Learning from the antimalarial mechanism of artemisinin in nature, we explored the methemoglobin as a smart nanocarrier of artemisinin. While the methemoglobin reacts very slow with artemisinin, the upregulated reducing capacity of tumor tissue can work as an excellent biogenic trigger to reduce ferric iron in methemoglobin to ferrous state, hence turn on the free radical generation ability and cytotoxicity of artemisinin in situ. The bioinspired nanocarrier may pave a new way to achieve targeted toxicity to cancer cells with extremely low side effects.
