Plasmonic Bound States in the Continuum Metasurface-Semiconductor-Metal Architecture Enables Efficient Hot-Electron-Based Photodetector.

Plasmonic hot-electron-based photodetectors (HEB-PDs) have received widespread attention for their ability to realize effective carrier collection under sub-bandgap illumination. However, due to the low hot electron emission probability, most of the existing HEB-PDs exhibit poor responsivity, which significantly restricts their practical applications. Here, by employing the binary-pore anodic alumina oxide template technique, we proposed a compact plasmonic bound state in continuum metasurface-semiconductor-metal-based (BIC M-S-M) HEB-PD. The symmetry-protected BIC can manipulate a strong gap surface plasmon in the stacked M-S-M structure, which effectively enhances light-matter interactions and improves the photoresponse of the integrated device. Notably, the optimal M-S-M HEB-PD with near-unit absorption (∼90%) around 800 nm delivers a responsivity of 5.18 A/W and an IPCE of 824.23% under 780 nm normal incidence (1 V external bias). Moreover, the ultrathin feature of BIC M-S-M (∼150 nm) on the flexible substrate demonstrates excellent stability under a wide range of illumination angles from -40° to 40° and at the curvature surface from 0.05 to 0.13 mm-1. The proposed plasmonic BIC strategy is very promising for many other hot-electron-related fields, such as photocatalysis, biosensing, imaging, and so on.

Saliency Detection of Light Field Images by Fusing Focus Degree and GrabCut.

In the light field image saliency detection task, redundant cues are introduced due to computational methods. Inevitably, it leads to the inaccurate boundary segmentation of detection results and the problem of the chain block effect. To tackle this issue, we propose a method for salient object detection (SOD) in light field images that fuses focus and GrabCut. The method improves the light field focus calculation based on the spatial domain by performing secondary blurring processing on the focus image and effectively suppresses the focus information of out-of-focus areas in different focus images. Aiming at the redundancy of focus cues generated by multiple foreground images, we use the optimal single foreground image to generate focus cues. In addition, aiming at the fusion of various cues in the light field in complex scenes, the GrabCut algorithm is combined with the focus cue to guide the generation of color cues, which realizes the automatic saliency target segmentation of the image foreground. Extensive experiments are conducted on the light field dataset to demonstrate that our algorithm can effectively segment the salient target area and background area under the light field image, and the outline of the salient object is clear. Compared with the traditional GrabCut algorithm, the focus degree is used instead of artificial Interactively initialize GrabCut to achieve automatic saliency segmentation.

Achieving Low Contact Resistance by Engineering a Metal-Graphene Interface Simply with Optical Lithography.

High-performance graphene-based transistors crucially depend on the creation of the high-quality graphene-metal contacts. Here we report an approach for achieving ultralow contact resistance simply with optical lithography by engineering a metal-graphene interface. Note that a significant improvement with optical lithography for the contact-treated graphene device leads to a contact resistance as low as 150 Ω·µm. The residue-free sacrificial film impedes the photoresist from further doping graphene, and all of the source and drain contact regions defined by optical lithography remain intact. This approach, being compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication processes regardless of the source of graphene, would hold promise for the large-scale production of graphene-based transistors with optical lithography.

The role of immunohistochemistry in the diagnosis of flat urothelial lesions: a study using CK20, CK5/6, P53, Cd138, and Her2/Neu.

Although differentiating reactive urothelial atypia from urothelial carcinoma in situ (CIS) relies primarily on histologic evaluation, confirming the morphologic impression using immunohistochemistry (IHC) has been increasingly used in routine clinical practice. The aims of this study are to confirm the utility of commonly used markers (CK20, P53) and to test the performance of CK5/6, CD138, and Her2/Neu in the diagnosis of CIS. Using a tissue microarray comprising 52 cases of normal/reactive urothelium and 45 cases of CIS, the IHC evaluation of 5 markers was undertaken. Although the individual specificity of CK20, P53, and Her2/Neu was high (94%, 90%, and 93%, respectively), their sensitivity for CIS detection was lower, with the most sensitive marker being HER2/Neu (63%). Whereas 78% of CIS shows positivity of at least 2 of those 3 markers, only 1 case of reactive urothelium shows positivity for 2 of those 3 markers. The discriminatory performance of CK5/6 and CD138 was poor. In conclusion, HER2/Neu can be added to a panel of CK20 and P53 to help differentiate reactive atypia from CIS in difficult cases. Positive staining for at least 2 of the 3 antibodies (CK20, P53, and HER2/Neu) is strongly associated with CIS. However, the histologic findings should be a primary determinant in the diagnosis of flat urothelial lesions, with IHC playing a supportive confirmatory role.

Prognostic factors in T1 bladder urothelial carcinoma: the value of recording millimetric depth of invasion, diameter of invasive carcinoma, and muscularis mucosa invasion.

pT1 bladder urothelial carcinomas represent a heterogeneous group of tumors with different biologic behaviors, and identifying the subset of tumors that carries a high risk of disease recurrence and progression is therefore important. We evaluated the prognostic significance of substaging 86 cases of pT1 bladder urothelial carcinoma based on different pathologic parameters. The mean tumor depth was 1.1 mm, and the mean diameter of the invasive focus was 2.2 mm. The mean number of tissue fragments with invasion was 4.4. Lymphovascular invasion and concomitant carcinoma in situ were present in 13% and 45% of cases, respectively. Although 56% of patients recurred, 18% experienced disease progression. Multivariate analysis showed a significant association between muscularis mucosa invasion (P = .007), depth of invasion (P = .0001), diameter of invasive focus (P = .014), and progression. Furthermore, depth of invasion more than 3 mm was significantly associated with progression of disease, achieving a sensitivity of 31%, specificity of 99%, and predictive value of 79%. In comparison, the cutoff values for the diameter of invasive carcinoma that correlated best with outcome was 6 mm for progression. Lastly, combining both variables showed a strong prognostic accuracy where it predicted 94% of recurrences. Importantly, all cases with depth of invasion more than 3 mm and diameter more than 6 mm progressed. Lymphovascular invasion or concomitant carcinoma in situ did not correlate with outcome. From the current data, we do recommend reporting muscularis mucosa invasion whenever possible. Alternatively, tumor depth and tumor diameter should be included in the final pathology report in individual cases in which muscularis mucosa invasion cannot be assessed.