Janus Particles with Flower-like Patches Prepared by Shadow Sphere Lithography.

A general strategy for generating various Janus particles (JPs) based on shadow sphere lithography (SSL) by varying incident and azimuthal angles, as well as deposition numbers is introduced, forming well-identified flower-like patches on microsphere monolayers. An in-house simulation program is worked out to predict the patch morphology with complicated fabrication parameters. The predicted patch morphology matches quite well that of experimentally produced JPs. The relationships between patch shape/area/size/and incident angle/deposition numbers are quantitatively determined by calculating morphology and transmission spectrum correlations, which facilitated further implementation of SSL in fabricating more varieties of JPs. Such an SSL strategy can be used to create JPs with anticipated patch morphology and uniformity that may be used for self-assembly, drug delivery, or plasmonic sensors as well as exploring some fundamental principles relating to the properties of nanostructures.

Unlocking Predictive Capability and Enhancing Sensing Performances of Plasmonic Hydrogen Sensors via Phase Space Reconstruction and Convolutional Neural Networks.

This study innovates plasmonic hydrogen sensors (PHSs) by applying phase space reconstruction (PSR) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), overcoming previous predictive and sensing limitations. Utilizing a low-cost and efficient colloidal lithography technique, palladium nanocap arrays are created and their spectral signals are transformed into images using PSR and then trained using CNNs for predicting the hydrogen level. The model achieves accurate predictions with average accuracies of 0.95 for pure hydrogen and 0.97 for mixed gases. Performance improvements observed are a reduction in response time by up to 3.7 times (average 2.1 times) across pressures, SNR increased by up to 9.3 times (average 3.9 times) across pressures, and LOD decreased from 16 Pa to an extrapolated 3 Pa, a 5.3-fold improvement. A practical application of remote hydrogen sensing without electronics in hydrogen environments is actualized and achieves a 0.98 average test accuracy. This methodology reimagines PHS capabilities, facilitating advancements in hydrogen monitoring technologies and intelligent spectrum-based sensing.