Rapid electrophoretic deposition of biocompatible graphene coatings for high-performance recording neural electrodes.

The electrical and biological interfacial properties of invasive electrodes have a significant impact on the performance and longevity of neural recordings in the brain. In this study, we demonstrated rapid electrophoretic deposition and electrochemical reduction of graphene oxide (GO) on metal-based neural electrodes. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and other characterizations confirmed the existence of a uniform and effectively reduced graphene oxide coating. Electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ErGO) coated Pt/Ir neural electrodes exhibited 15.2-fold increase in charge storage capacity (CSC) and 90% decrease in impedance with only 3.8% increase in electrode diameter. Patch clamp electrophysiology and calcium imaging of primary rat hippocampus neurons cultured on ErGO demonstrated that there was no adverse impact on the functional development of neurons. Immunostaining showed a balanced growth of excitatory and inhibitory neurons, and astrocytes. Acute recordings from the auditory cortex and chronic recordings (19 days) from the somatosensory cortex found ErGO coating improved the performance of neural electrodes in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and amplitude of signals. The proposed approach not only provides an in-depth evaluation of the effect of ErGO coating on neural electrodes but also widens the coating methods of commercial neural electrodes.

Supertransport of excitons in atomically thin organic semiconductors at the 2D quantum limit.

Long-range and fast transport of coherent excitons is important for the development of high-speed excitonic circuits and quantum computing applications. However, most of these coherent excitons have only been observed in some low-dimensional semiconductors when coupled with cavities, as there are large inhomogeneous broadening and dephasing effects on the transport of excitons in their native states in materials. Here, by confining coherent excitons at the 2D quantum limit, we first observed molecular aggregation-enabled 'supertransport' of excitons in atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) organic semiconductors between coherent states, with a measured high effective exciton diffusion coefficient of ~346.9 cm2/s at room temperature. This value is one to several orders of magnitude higher than the values reported for other organic molecular aggregates and low-dimensional inorganic materials. Without coupling to any optical cavities, the monolayer pentacene sample, a very clean 2D quantum system (~1.2 nm thick) with high crystallinity (J-type aggregation) and minimal interfacial states, showed superradiant emission from Frenkel excitons, which was experimentally confirmed by the temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) emission, highly enhanced radiative decay rate, significantly narrowed PL peak width and strongly directional in-plane emission. The coherence in monolayer pentacene samples was observed to be delocalised over ~135 molecules, which is significantly larger than the values (a few molecules) observed for other organic thin films. In addition, the supertransport of excitons in monolayer pentacene samples showed highly anisotropic behaviour. Our results pave the way for the development of future high-speed excitonic circuits, fast OLEDs, and other optoelectronic devices.

Preparation of hydroxylated lecithin complexed iodine/carboxymethyl chitosan/sodium alginate composite membrane by microwave drying and its applications in infected burn wound treatment.

Improving the antibacterial properties of membrane wound dressings of natural polymers is crucial. Iodine is an important safe inorganic antibacterial agent, but was confined in the composition with polymer membranes due to the challenges of homogeneity and stability during drying. In the present work, iodine was complexed with hydroxylated lecithin (HL) to improve its stability and complexing efficiency for the composition with carboxymethly chitosan/sodium alginate. With the aid of microwave drying, hydroxylated lecithin complexed iodine/carboxymethly chitosan/sodium alginate (HLI/CMCS/SA) composite membranes with homogeneously distributions of HLI, high contents of activated iodine, good mechanical and swelling properties, proper water vapor permeability, pH controllable iodine release and excellent antibacterial properties were prepared. The composite membranes exhibited high repairing efficiencies for the infection of a rat model of the seawater immersed wound infection of deep partial-thickness burns. This novel antibacterial composite membrane can be potentially used as a high performance wound dressing for treating and repairing open trauma infections.

Modulated interlayer charge transfer dynamics in a monolayer TMD/metal junction.

The performance of optoelectronic devices based on monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenide (mTMD) semiconductors is significantly affected by the contact at the mTMD-metal interface, which is dependent on interlayer interactions and coupling. Here, we report a systematic optical method to investigate the interlayer charge transfer and coupling in a mTMD-metal heterojunction. Giant photoluminescence (PL) quenching was observed in a monolayer MoS2/Pd (1L MoS2/Pd) junction which is mainly due to the efficient interlayer charge transfer between Pd and MoS2. 1L MoS2/Pd also exhibits an increase in the PL quenching factor (η) as the temperature decreases, due to a reduction of the interlayer spacing. Annealing experiments were also performed which supported interlayer charge transfer as the main mechanism for the increase of η. Moreover, a monolayer MoS2/Au (1L MoS2/Au) junction was fabricated for engineering the interlayer charge transfer. Interestingly, a narrowing effect of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) was encountered as the junctions changed from 1L MoS2/SiO2 → 1L MoS2/Au → 1L MoS2/Pd, possibly originating from a change of the doping level induced weakening of exciton-carrier scattering. Our results deepen the understanding of metal-semiconductor junctions for further exploring fundamental phenomena and enabling high-performance devices using mTMD-metal junctions.

Efficient and Layer-Dependent Exciton Pumping across Atomically Thin Organic-Inorganic Type-I Heterostructures.

The fundamental light-matter interactions in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides might be significantly engineered by hybridization with their organic counterparts, enabling intriguing optoelectronic applications. Here, atomically thin organic-inorganic (O-I) heterostructures, comprising monolayer MoSe2 and mono-/few-layer single-crystal pentacene samples, are fabricated. These heterostructures show type-I band alignments, allowing efficient and layer-dependent exciton pumping across the O-I interfaces. The interfacial exciton pumping has much higher efficiency (>86 times) than the photoexcitation process in MoSe2 , although the pentacene layer has much lower optical absorption than MoSe2 . This highly enhanced pumping efficiency is attributed to the high quantum yield in pentacene and the ultrafast energy transfer between the O-I interface. Furthermore, those organic counterparts significantly modulate the bindings of charged excitons in monolayer MoSe2 via their precise dielectric environment engineering. The results open new avenues for exploring fundamental phenomena and novel optoelectronic applications using atomically thin O-I heterostructures.