CdSSe nanowire-chip based wearable sweat sensor.

BACKGROUND: Sweat, as an easily accessible bodily fluid, is enriched with a lot of physiological and health information. A portable and wearable sweat sensor is an important device for an on-body health monitoring. However, there are only few such devices to monitor sweat. Based on the fact that sweat is mainly composed of moisture and salt which is much more abundant than other trace ions in sweat, a new route is proposed to realize wearable sweat sensors using CdSSe nanowire-chips coated with a polyimide (PI) membrane. RESULTS: Firstly, the composition-graded CdS1-xSex (x = 0-1) nanowire-chip based sensor shows good photo-sensitivity and stress sensitivity which induces linear humidity dependent conductivity. This indicates good moisture response with a maximum responsivity (dI/I) 244% at 80% relative humidity (RH) even in the dark. Furthermore, the linear current decrease with salt increase illustrates the chip sensor has a good salt-sensing ability with the best salt dependent responsivity of 80%, which guarantees the high prediction accuracy in sweat sensing. The sensor current is further proven to nonlinearly correlate to the amount of sweat with excellent stability, reproducibility and recoverability. The wearable sweat sensor is finally applied on-body real-time sweat analysis, showing good consistence with the body status during indoor exercise. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that this CdSSe nanowire-chip based PI-coated integrated sensor, combined with inorganic and organic functional layers, provides a simple and reliable method to build up diverse portable and wearable devices for the applications on healthcare and athletic status.

Small GSH-Capped CuInS2 Quantum Dots: MPA-Assisted Aqueous Phase Transfer and Bioimaging Applications.

An efficient ligand exchange strategy for aqueous phase transfer of hydrophobic CuInS2/ZnS quantum dots was developed by employing glutathione (GSH) and mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) as the ligands. The whole process takes less than 20 min and can be scaled up to gram amount. The material characterizations show that the final aqueous soluble samples are solely capped with GSH on the surface. Importantly, these GSH-capped CuInS2/ZnS quantum dots have small size (hydrodynamic diameter <10 nm), moderate fluorescent properties (up to 34%) as well as high stability in aqueous solutions (stable for more than three months in 4 °C without any significant fluorescence quenching). Moreover, this ligand exchange strategy is also versatile for the aqueous phase transfer of other hydrophobic quantum dots, for instance, CuInSe2 and CdSe/ZnS quantum dots. We further demonstrated that GSH-capped quantum dots could be suitable fluorescence markers to penetrate cell membrane and image the cells. In addition, the GSH-capped CuInS2 quantum dots also have potential use in other fields such as photocatalysis and quantum dots sensitized solar cells.

Red emissive CuInS2-based nanocrystals: a potential phosphor for warm white light-emitting diodes.

We here report the integration of red emissive CuInS(2) based nanocrysals as a potential red phosphor for warm light generation. By combining red emissive CuInS(2) based nanocrysals with commercial yellow emissive YAG:Ce and green emissive Eu(2+) doped silicate phosphors, we fabricated warm white light-emitting diodes with high color rendering index up to ~92, high luminous efficiency of 45~60 lm/W and color temperature less than 4000K.

Color-changeable optical transport through Se-doped CdS 1D nanostructures.

The optical-transport properties of 1D Se-doped CdS nanostructures with different doping contents and/or crystallization degrees are reported. The locally excited photoluminescence shows a significant redshift during the transport along the long axis of the 1D structures and can leave enough PL intensity for detection. The magnitude of the redshift is found to be highly dependent on the content of doping and the crystallization degree. The experimental results are compared with theoretical calculations based on the fundamental absorption rule of the semiconductor, which demonstrates that the redshift is related to the optical reabsorption effects induced by the local structural disorder in the semiconductors. Such optical properties of 1D semiconductor structures might be of interest for potential applications in color-tunable nanosized light-emitting and/or frequency-converting devices.

A new route to zinc-blende CdSe nanocrystals: mechanism and synthesis.

We report the possible mechanism of forming of CdSe nanocrystals in the high boiling point solvents with long alkane chains and a novel Non-TOP-Based route to zinc-blende CdSe nanocrystals. A new mechanism shows that there exits a redox reaction in the long alkane chain solvents: Se is reduced to H2Se gas; at the same time, the long alkane chains are oxidated to alkene chains; then, the Cd complex reacts with H2Se to form CdSe nanocrystals. Possible chemical reaction equations involved in the process of forming the CdSe nanocrystals have been discussed. The alkene chain and H2Se were detected respectively by a series of experiments to support the new mechanism. Under the guidance of this mechanism, we have developed a much cheaper and greener Non-TOP-Based route for the synthesis of a size series of high-quality zinc-blende (cubic) CdSe nanocrystals. Low-cost, green, and environmentally friendlier reagents are used, without use of expensive solvents such as trioctylphosphine (TOP) or tributylphosphine (TBP). The new route enables us to achieve high-quality CdSe nanocrystals with sharp ultraviolet and visible (UV-vis) absorption peaks, controllable size (2.0-5.0 nm), bright photoluminescence (PL), narrow PL full width of half-maximum (fwhm) (29-48 nm), and high PL quantum yield (up to 60%) without any size sorting.