Adsorbable and self-supported 3D AgNPs/G@Ni foam as cut-and-paste highly-sensitive SERS substrates for rapid in situ detection of residuum.

We have proposed a synthetic approach to produce self-supported and bendable surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based 3D chemical sensors with high adsorptivity. Such 3D substrates consist of foam-like graphene macrostructures obtained by template-directed chemical vapour deposition on nickel foams (interconnected 3D scaffold of nickel) and uniform and high-density Ag nanoparticles wrapping around the foam graphene, via seed-mediated in situ growth process. Such 3D AgNPs/G@Ni foam substrates show high-quality SERS performance in terms of Raman signal reproducibility and sensitivity for the analyte, resulting from the high density and homogeneity of "hot spots" on AgNPs/G@Ni foam, multiple cascaded amplication (localized surface plasmon mode and optical standing waves or optical refraction) of incident laser to the 3D foam structures and powerful support from nickel scaffold. Moreover, in virtue of the high adsorptivity and sensitivity of AgNPs/G@Ni foam, the low-concentration crystal violet molecules can be easily traced in the curvilinear fish surface, by simply swabbing the surface to achieve molecules concentration effect in the practical applicability. This work shows promising potential in developing the applications of SERS in the foodstuffs processing and security field.

Effects of clouds and aerosols on ecosystem exchange, water and light use efficiency in a humid region orchard.

Investigating the patterns of water and carbon dynamics in agro-ecosystems in response to clouds and aerosols can shed new insights in understanding the biophysical impacts of climate change on crop productivity and water consumption. In this study, the effects of clouds and aerosols as well as other environmental factors on ecosystem water and carbon fluxes were examined based on three-year eddy covariance measurements under different sky conditions (quantified as the clearness index, Kt, i.e., the ratio of global solar radiation to extraterrestrial solar radiation) in a kiwifruit plantation in the humid Sichuan Basin of China. Results showed that evapotranspiration (ET) and canopy transpiration (Tc, measured by sap flow sensors) increased, while ecosystem light use efficiency (eLUE) and ecosystem water use efficiency (eWUE) decreased with increasing Kt. GPP presented a parabolic relationship with increasing Kt. The path analysis revealed that surface conductance (Gs) and canopy conductance (Gc) were the most dominant variables directly regulated carbon (GPP) and water (ET and Tc) fluxes. The effect path of Kt on ET and Tc was converted from through diffuse photosynthetic active radiation (PARdif) to direct PAR (PARdir) when the sky became clearer. The effect path of Kt on GPP was primarily through PARdif under different sky conditions. The declined eWUE with increasing Kt was caused by the different responses of GPP and ET to PARdir under clear skies. The declined eLUE resulted from the sharp decrease in GPP/PARdir, which surpassed the slight increase of GPP/PARdif with increasing PAR. The Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory ET model (PT-JPL) incorporating Kt with an exponential function produced more reliable Tc estimates but minor improvement in ET. Further, the LUE-GPP model incorporating Kt with a linear function obtained much better GPP estimates. Our study shed light on how sky conditions modulate water and carbon dynamics between the biosphere and atmosphere, highlighting the necessity of the inclusion of sky conditions for better modeling regional water and carbon budgets.

Graphene-Based Flexible and Transparent Tunable Capacitors.

We report a kind of electric field tunable transparent and flexible capacitor with the structure of graphene-Bi1.5MgNb1.5O7 (BMN)-graphene. The graphene films with low sheet resistance were grown by chemical vapor deposition. The BMN thin films were fabricated on graphene by using laser molecular beam epitaxy technology. Compared to BMN films grown on Au, the samples on graphene substrates show better quality in terms of crystallinity, surface morphology, leakage current, and loss tangent. By transferring another graphene layer, we fabricated flexible and transparent capacitors with the structure of graphene-BMN-graphene. The capacitors show a large dielectric constant of 113 with high dielectric tunability of ~40.7 % at a bias field of 1.0 MV/cm. Also, the capacitor can work stably in the high bending condition with curvature radii as low as 10 mm. This flexible film capacitor has a high optical transparency of ~90 % in the visible light region, demonstrating their potential application for a wide range of flexible electronic devices.