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This review highlights the very recent examples of near infrared contrast agents employed for multivariate diagnostics, multimodal imaging, and theranostic. Considerations on how to further advance these probes towards real-life use are also given.
Li 2 CuO 2 was evaluated as a possible catalyst for the NO selective catalytic reduction (NO SCR) by CO. The initial idea was supported by ab initio thermodynamic analysis. This analysis showed that NO SCR was favored by using Li 2 CuO 2 as a catalyst, based on the calculated heat of reaction and Gibbs free energy. The NO SCR reaction was evaluated under dynamic, isothermal and cyclic conditions using different NO : CO ratios (2 : 1, 1 : 1 and 1 : 2). The dynamic and isothermal experiments showed that Li 2 CuO 2 does reduce NO in the presence of CO to reach higher conversions (>90%) between 400 and 450 °C. However, it must be mentioned that the catalytic process was reduced once some of the produced CO 2 was captured on the ceramic. At that point, Li 2 CuO 2 acts as a bifunctional material, catalyzing the NO SCR reaction and capturing some of the produced CO 2 . Moreover, cyclic experiments evidenced high NO reduction. Finally, a different set of experiments showed that this catalytic reduction performed differently if NO and CO were previously fed. Finally, when lithium cuprate is previously carbonated (initial CO feed), the catalytic reaction does not complete. In contrast, when there was a previous nitrate formation (initial NO feed), the reaction reached 100% efficiency.
The room temperature growth of two-dimensional van der Waals (2D-vdW) materials is indispensable for state-of-the-art nanotechnology. Low temperature growth supersedes the requirement of elevated growth temperatures accompanied with high thermal budgets. Moreover, for electronic applications, low or room temperature growth reduces the possibility of intrinsic film-substrate interfacial thermal diffusion related deterioration of the functional properties and the consequent deterioration of the device performance. Here, we demonstrated the growth of ultrawide-bandgap boron nitride (BN) at room temperature by using the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process, which exhibited various functional properties for potential applications. Comprehensive chemical, spectroscopic and microscopic characterizations confirmed the growth of ordered nanosheet-like hexagonal BN (h-BN). Functionally, the nanosheets show hydrophobicity, high lubricity (low coefficient of friction), and a low refractive index within the visible to near-infrared wavelength range, and room temperature single-photon quantum emission. In conclusion, our work unveils an important step that brings a plethora of potential applications for these room temperature grown h-BN nanosheets as the synthesis can be feasible on any given substrate, thus creating a scenario for “h-BN on demand” under a frugal thermal budget.
A universal synthesis strategy of coating crystalline core colloidal nanoparticles with amorphous metallic glass shell. We can form conformal CoB and NiB shell coatings with controlled thicknesses on different sized Au and Pt core nanoparticles.
A single sorbent-catalytic (non-noble metal) material has been developed for the integrated direct air capture and catalytic conversion of captured CO 2 into C-C coupled products.
Bioplastics have emerged as a tangible solution to the plastic waste crisis.
NbN thin films are considered as a promising alternative candidate to conventional Al superconducting electrodes for Josephson junction devices, superconducting qubits and quantum logic circuits. Herein, by co-growing ferromagnetic Co with superconducting NbN, self-assembled NbN–Co vertically aligned nanocomposite (VAN) thin films have been successfully deposited on a MgO substrates, with NbN in its cubic superconducting phase. The obtained VAN metamaterials exhibit epitaxial growth of NbN with uniformly dispersed Co nanoplates. Further physical property characterization reveals that the NbN–Co VAN presents ferromagnet properties with strong out-of-plane magnetic anisotropy and optical anisotropy. This hybrid metamaterial system could find future applications in superconducting spintronic devices and quantum computing devices.
Direct air capture (DAC), which captures CO 2 from ambient air, is a critical technology to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in order to avoid climate disasters.
Bi{sub 2}ZnOB{sub 2}O{sub 6} nonlinear optical single crystals were grown by means of the Kyropoulos method from stoichiometric melt. The second and third harmonic generation (SHG/THG) of Bi{sub 2}ZnOB{sub 2}O{sub 6} crystals were investigated by the SHG/THG Maker fringes technique. Moreover, SHG microscopy studies were carried out providing two-dimensional SHG images as a function of the incident laser polarization. The high nonlinear optical efficiency combined with the possibility to grow high quality crystals make Bi{sub 2}ZnOB{sub 2}O{sub 6} an excellent candidate for photonic applications.
Using multi-functional oxide films, we report on the development of an integration strategy for scalable manufacturing of graphene-based transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) for organic electronics. A number of fundamental and process challenges exists for efficient graphene-based TCEs, in particular, environmentally and thermally stable doping, interfacial band engineering for efficient charge injection/extraction, effective wetting, and process compatibility including masking and patterning. Here, we show that all of these challenges can be effectively addressed at once by coating graphene with a thin (>10 nm) metal oxide (MoO{sub 3} or WO{sub 3}) layer. We demonstrate graphene electrode patterning without the need for conventional lithography and thereby achieve organic light emitting diodes with efficiencies exceeding those of standard indium tin oxide reference devices.
We report the real-space voltage response of InSb/AlInSb micro-Hall devices to local photo-excitation, electric, and magnetic fields at room temperature using scanning probe microscopy. We show that the ultrafast generation of localised photocarriers results in conductance perturbations analogous to those produced by local electric fields. Experimental results are in good agreement with tight-binding transport calculations in the diffusive regime. The magnetic, photo, and charge sensitivity of a 2 μm wide probe are evaluated at a 10 μA bias current in the Johnson noise limit (valid at measurement frequencies > 10 kHz) to be, respectively, 500 nT/√Hz; 20 pW/√Hz (λ = 635 nm) comparable to commercial photoconductive detectors; and 0.05 e/√Hz comparable to that of single electron transistors. These results demonstrate the remarkably versatile sensing attributes of simple semiconductor micro-Hall devices that can be applied to a host of imaging and sensing applications.
Materials that possess low density, low thermal conductivity, and high stiffness are desirable for engineering applications, but most materials cannot realize these properties simultaneously due to the coupling between them. Nanotrusses, which consist of hollow nanoscale beams architected into a periodic truss structure, can potentially break these couplings due to their lattice architecture and nanoscale features. In this work, we study heat conduction in the exact nanotruss geometry by solving the frequency-dependent Boltzmann transport equation using a variance-reduced Monte Carlo algorithm. We show that their thermal conductivity can be described with only two parameters, solid fraction and wall thickness. Our simulations predict that nanotrusses can realize unique combinations of mechanical and thermal properties that are challenging to achieve in typical materials.
Hierarchically macro-porous lumino-magnetic yttrium aluminium oxide (YAlO:- YAT: tetragonal; YAG: garnet; YAM: monoclinic) ceramic nanophosphors doped with trivalent cerium (Ce) ions have been synthesized by a novel and versatile self assembly route without the need of any external templates. X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies confirm the presence of dopant and its valence state. Room temperature ferromagnetism in undoped and YAlO:Ce suggest an intrinsic nature of ferromagnetism dependent on host lattice imperfection along with yellow photoluminescence emission explicitly arising due to Ce doping established the non-interfering character of the two phenomena. Such a porous morphology has the potential of the biocarriers and could be engineered to make it suitable for spintronic applications by incorporation of dielectric into the pores and in conjunction with blue light emitting devices which could be used to obtain white light.
We have investigated electrical-transport, magneto-transport, magnetic and thermal properties of the hole doped La{sub 0.7}Ca{sub 0.24}Sr{sub 0.06}MnO{sub 3} (LCSMO) and La{sub 0.88}Ca{sub 0.12}MnO{sub 3} (LCMO) single crystals, prepared using floating zone technique. The crystallographic direction dependence of metal to insulator transition (T{sub P}) occurs at 290 K along c-axis and T{sub P} = 280 K along ab-plane for LCSMO single crystal, while no electronic transition was observed over the whole temperature range under the magnetic field at 8 T for LCMO single crystal. Resistivity study shows that the T{sub P} is higher along the c-axis as compared to that in the ab-plane, so signifying more favorable hoping of electrons is along the c-axis in LCSMO. The ac-susceptibility study confirms that these crystals, revealing ferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition temperature (T{sub C}) at 277 K for LCSMO and T{sub C} = 118 K for LCMO single crystals, which is close to the sharp peak around T{sub C} in heat capacity data. For magneto-electric device application point of view, these crystals show the maximum MR of 80% and 65% for LCSMO and LCMO single crystals at 8 T applied magnetic field respectively.
Nanocrystalline lanthanum ferrite has been synthesized by adopting modified Pechini route. No evidence of impurity or secondary phase has been detected up to the detection of error limit of X-ray diffractometer (XRD). Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction pattern reveals orthorhombic crystal system with space group Pnma (62).Crystallite size and lattice strain was found to be ∼42.8nm and 0.306% respectively. Optical band gap was found to be 2.109 eV, by UV-Visible diffused reflectance spectrum (DRS). Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) surface area was found to be ∼3.45 m{sup 2}/g. Magnetization-hysteresis (M-H) loop was recorded at room temperature (300K) reveals weak ferromagnetism in Nanocrystalline lanthanum ferrite. The weak ferromagnetism in lanthanum ferrite is due to the uncompensated antiferromagnetic spin ordering. Ferroelectric loop hysteresis observed at room temperature at 100Hz depicts the presence of ferroelectric ordering in LaFeO{sub 3}.Simultanious presence of magnetic and ferroelectric ordering at room temperature makes it suitable candidate of Multiferroic family.
The self-assembly of multiblock copolymers in solutions is controlled by a delicate balance between inherent phase segregation due to incompatibility of the blocks and the interaction of the individual blocks with the solvent. The current study elucidates the association of pentablock copolymers in a mixture of selective solvents which are good for the hydrophobic segments and poor for the hydrophilic blocks using small angle neutron scattering (SANS). The pentablock consists of a center block of randomly sulfonated polystyrene, designed for transport, tethered to poly-ethylene-r-propylene and end-capped by poly-t-butyl styrene, for mechanical stability. We find that the pentablock forms ellipsoidal core-shell micelles with the sulfonated polystyrene in the core and Gaussian decaying chains of swollen poly-ethylene-r-propylene and poly-t-butyl styrene tertiary in the corona. With increasing solution concentration, the size of the micelle, the thickness of the corona, and the aggregation number increase, while the solvent fraction in the core decreases. As a result, in dilute solution the micelle increases in size as the temperature is increased, however, temperature effects dissipate with increasing solution concentration.
Structurally regular nanopore arrays fabricated to contain independently controllable annular electrodes represent a new kind of architecture capable of electrochemically addressing small collections of matter—down to the single entity (molecule, particle, and biological cell) level. Furthermore, these nanopore electrode arrays (NEAs) can also be interrogated optically to achieve single entity spectroelectrochemistry. Larger entities such as nanoparticles and single bacterial cells are investigated by dark-field scattering and potential-controlled single-cell luminescence experiments, respectively, while NEA-confined molecules are probed by single molecule luminescence. By carrying out these experiments in arrays of identically constructed nanopores, massively parallel collections of single entities can be investigated simultaneously. The multilayer metal–insulator design of the NEAs enables highly efficient redox cycling experiments with large increases in analytical sensitivity for chemical sensing applications. NEAs may also be augmented with an additional orthogonally designed nanopore layer, such as a structured block copolymer, to achieve hierarchically organized multilayer structures with multiple stimulus-responsive transport control mechanisms. Finally, NEAs constructed with a transparent bottom layer permit optical access to the interior of the nanopore, which can result in the cutoff of far-field mode propagation, effectively trapping radiation in an ultrasmall volume inside the nanopore. Furthermore, the bottom metal layer may be used as both a working electrode and an optical cladding layer, thus, producing bifunctional electrochemical zero-mode waveguide architectures capable of carrying out spectroelectrochemical investigations down to the single molecule level.
Abstract not provided