Original Article in 2013

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  • By applying temperature gradient on the temperature-responsive wettablitity surface of block copolymer, water droplet movement by the nonmechanical origin forces is realized on the surface with high hysteresis, due to the binary collaboration effect of wettability gradient force and Marangoni force. The results help to understand the motion of droplets on the surface with high hysteresis and also provide potential application in microfluidic devices.

    • Yongping Hou
    • Baolong Xue
    • Lei Jiang
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • A simple and universal DNA-based platform is developed to implement the required two logic gates of a half adder (or a half subtractor) in parallel triggered by the same set of inputs. The developed half adder and half subtractor are operated with the same DNA platform in an enzyme-free system. The investigations provide a new way for the prototypical DNA-based arithmetic operations and also the development of advanced circuits.

    • Shanling Xu
    • Hailong Li
    • Erkang Wang
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • In this work, transformation optics technique was applied to the thermodynamic area by using the coordinate transformation to the time-dependent heat diffusion equation, which enables the manipulation of the heat flux by predefined diffusion paths. A transient thermal cloaking device engineered with effective thermal materials was experimentally demonstrated by hiding a centimeter-sized vacuum cavity. To facilitate the fabrication a rescaled heat equation taking into account of all the pertinent parameters of various ingredient materials was proposed to guide the practical design of complex transformed thermal devices.

    • Yungui Ma
    • Lu Lan
    • Sailing He
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • β-MnO2 nanorods with exposed tunnel structures have been successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method. The as-prepared β-MnO2 nanorods have exposed {111} crystal planes with a high density of (1 × 1) tunnels, leading to facile Na-ion insertion and extraction. When applied as cathode materials in Na-ion batteries, the β-MnO2 nanorods exhibited a superior electrochemical performance with a high initial Na-ion storage capacity of 350 mAh g−1.β-MnO2 nanorods also demonstrated an excellent high rate capability and a good cyclability.

    • Dawei Su
    • Hyo-Jun Ahn
    • Guoxiu Wang
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • We demonstrate a LEGO-like assembly of free-standing film of individually operable components encapsulated in a polymer overcoat layer, leading to the integrated architecture without additional electrical connection. The free-standing components are produced by the peeling-off process. The sticky nature of polymer layer enables the construction of supercapacitor arrays and simple RLC circuits through interlocking the individual components.

    • Sangkyu Lee
    • Jaehwan Ha
    • Ungyu Paik
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • Demonstration of a tunable conductivity of the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces by field effect drew significant attention to the development oxide-based electronics. Increase in the gate capacitance of LaAlO3/SrTiO3-based field-effect transistor is particularly important to the conductivity modulation and the development of logic device. Here, we demonstrate that annihilation of quantum capacitance and colossal capacitance enhancement (about 1000%) in the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures by DC gate voltage at room temperature, which we attribute to the motion of oxygen vacancies through the LaAlO3 layer thickness. The capacitor devices would provide a platform for the further development and application of metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor devices.

    • Shuxiang Wu
    • Guangheng Wu
    • Shuwei Li
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • Soft Material Helps Cancer-Cell Capture: Soft polystyrene (PS) polymer nanotube substrate has been developed to realize rapid and highly efficient breast cancer-cell capture from whole-blood samples with high cell viability, by integrating the soft nature of PS with specific capture agents and surface structures to mimic the cell microenvironment. It is anticipated that this soft material-based substrate will provide a potentially optimal candidate for high-quality breast cancer-cell capture and detection technologies, and open a new view to design cell-material interfaces for advanced cell-based diagnostic and therapeutic platforms.

    • Xueli Liu
    • Li Chen
    • Lei Jiang
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • A universal process for transferring planar, transparent functional oxide thin films on to elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates is demonstrated. This overcomes the challenge of incorporating high-temperature-processed crystalline oxide materials with low-temperature organic substrates. The process is demonstrated using indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films to realise fully transparent and flexible resistors and zinc oxide thin films. The ITO thin films on PDMS are shown to withstand uniaxial strains of 15%, enabled by microstructure tectonics. This ubiquitous process will pave the way for touch sensing and energy harvesting for displays and electronics with flexible and transparent characteristics.

    • Philipp Gutruf
    • Charan M Shah
    • Madhu Bhaskaran
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) derived from double-walled carbon nanotubes with strong emission were prepared through solution chemistry. The introduction of GQDs in a bulk heterojunction polymer solar cell based on Poly (3-hexylthiophene):(6,6)-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) resulted in the significant enhancement of power conversion efficiency (PCE). The efficiency can be further improved by adjusting the PCBM content in the active layer, with the highest PCE of 5.24%.

    • Fushan Li
    • Lijie Kou
    • Tailiang Guo
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • A novel heterojunction structure combining three kinds of semiconductors was designed and fabricated. The heterojunction structure can be used as a two-input OR gate with the combination of two diodes on the two interfaces of the organic/inorganic semiconductor. The research will have great influence in both the fundamental research field of nanoscience and the device application field of nanotechnology.

    • Nan Chen
    • Songhua Chen
    • Yuliang Li
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • The work functions of indium tin oxide terminated with Cl and F have been studied using DFT calculations. The results show that the work function of Cl-terminated ITO is much higher than that of F-terminated ITO despite the fact that F is more electronegative than Cl. Detailed analysis through visualization of the atomic-scale charge transfer at these adatom–oxide interfaces reveals that both high electronegativity and atomic size are crucial to increase the work function of ITO.

    • Peng-Ru Huang
    • Yao He
    • Zheng-Hong Lu
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • In this article, we propose several kinds of simple nano-structures constructed by BP and SiC nanoribbons, which show peculiar electronic properties and might have promising applications in nano-electronics. SiC-BP-SiC nanoribbons are found to exhibit not only significant field-effect characteristics but also tunable negative differential resistance. ‘Y’- and ‘Δ’-shaped SiC-BP structures show significant spin polarization at their edges. Under the transverse electric field, the non-magnetic direct bandgap zigzag BP nanoribbons can change to non-magnetic indirect bandgap semiconductors, ferrimagnetic semiconductors or half-metals depending on the field strength and direction. These findings reveal the possibility of using SiC-BP nano-structures to construct multi-functional electronics.

    • Jichen Dong
    • Hui Li
    • Li Li
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • The influence of hydrophilic additives on the underlying factors and mechanisms that govern the release of the hydrophobic drug PCTX from a blended system was investigated. The incorporation of hydrophilic PEG additives resulted in a phase-separated system with randomly distributed PCTX–PEG-rich domains in the continuous PLGA matrix. Owing to their preferential association in these domains, the enhanced release of PCTX can be controlled and modulated by varying the concentration and MW of PEG additives. The extensive porosity due to the dissolution of PCTX–PEG domains created a significant reduction in the tensile strength of these films as evaluated under constant aqueous conditions.

    • Charlotte L Huang
    • Terry WJ Steele
    • Joachim SC Loo
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • We have developed a simple, effective, one-step, catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition method for the synthesis of high-quality LaB6 nanostructure nanowire arrays. Field-emission (FE) measurements at room temperature (RT) show that LaB6 nanowire arrays possess the best FE characteristics among all one-dimensional LaB6 nanostructures, exhibiting with a low turn-on electric field, a low threshold electric field, a high current and a good stability. Temperature-dependent FE on the nanowire arrays shows that the turn-on and threshold electric fields decreased rapidly whereas the emission current density increases significantly in the ambient temperature from RT to 723 K.

    • Junqi Xu
    • Guanghua Hou
    • Dmitri Golberg
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • Natural systems employ energy converters in the form of chlorophores or chemical entities to transform light into a mechanical response, which allows them to open and close pores. Inspired by nature, in this work, we used metallic nanoparticles as opto-thermal energy converters to switch thermally responsive polymers incorporated into nanporous membranes to open and close fluid flow.

    • J Rubén Morones-Ramírez
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • A novel marine silk fiber (named aneroin) from sea anemone has been discovered, and wet-spun and electrospun silk fibers from purified recombinant aneroins have been successfully fabricated. Aneroin fibers have promising mechanical properties, suggesting that this protein has potential for use as a novel fibrous biomaterial. Its use would expand the applications of silk in the development of multifunctional and bio-inspired materials.

    • Yun Jung Yang
    • Yoo Seong Choi
    • Hyung Joon Cha
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • We report on the promising thermoelectric performance of p-type polycrystalline BiCuSeO, which is a layered oxyselenide composed of conductive (Cu2Se2)2− layers that alternate with insulating (Bi2O2)2+ layers. Electrical transport properties can be optimized by substituting Bi3+ with Ca2+. Moreover, BiCuSeO shows very low thermal conductivity in the temperature ranges of 300 (∼0.9 W m−1K−1) to 923 K (∼0.45 W m−1 K−1). These intrinsically low thermal conductivity values may result from the weak chemical bonds of the material as well as the strong anharmonicity of the bonding arrangement. The combination of the optimized power factor and the intrinsically low thermal conductivity results in a high ZT of ∼0.9 at 923 K for Bi0.925Ca0.075CuSeO.

    • Yan-Ling Pei
    • Jiaqing He
    • Li-Dong Zhao
    Original ArticleOpen Access
  • Modulating the drug release from polyester matrices independently from the material properties would be beneficial to those designing biodegradable medical implants, such as drug delivery devices, stents and screws. We propose that modulated drug release can be obtained via an additive-free mechanism in polyesters by simply controlling polymer erosion through acidic terminal functional groups. The formulations can be tuned to produce large ranges in drug release with relatively small changes in terminal acidic functional groups. For example, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) 53/47 thin films could be tuned to have 10–90% drug release at 20 days, depending on the concentration of acidic terminal groups.

    • Terry W J Steele
    • Charlotte L Huang
    • Subbu S Venkatraman
    Original ArticleOpen Access