Fluorinated TiO2 Hollow Spheres for Detecting Formaldehyde under UV Irradiation.

The fluorinated titanium dioxide (F-TiO2) hollow spheres with varying F to Ti molar ratios were prepared by a simple one-step hydrothermal method followed by thermal processing. The diameter of the F-TiO2-0.3 hollow spheres with a nominal ratio of F:Ti = 0.3:1 was about 200-400 nm. Compared with the sensor based on pristine TiO2 sensing materials, the F-TiO2-0.3 sensor displayed an enhanced sensing performance toward gaseous formaldehyde (HCHO) vapor at room temperature under ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. The F-TiO2-0.3 sensor demonstrated an approximately 18-fold enhanced response (1.56) compared to the pristine TiO2 sensor (0.085). The response and recovery times of the F-TiO2-0.3 sensor to 10 ppm HCHO were about 56 s and 64 s, respectively, and a limit-of-detection value of 0.5 ppm HCHO was estimated. The F-TiO2-0.3 sensor also demonstrated good repeatability and selectivity to HCHO gas under UV light irradiation. The outstanding HCHO gas-sensing properties of the F-TiO2-0.3 sensor were related to the following factors: the excitation effect caused by the UV light facilitated surface chemical reactions with analyte gas species; the hollow sphere structure provided sufficient active sites; and the surface fluoride (≡Ti-F) created additional chemisorption sites on the surface of the TiO2 material.

[Molecular Mechanism of a Rhesus D Variant Individual with RHD*845A/1227A].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the genetic mutation mechanism of a rare Rhesus D variant individual. METHODS: Regular serological assay was used for determination of Rh type for the sample. Indirect anti-human globulin test (IAT) was used to confirm the RhD antigen and screen the antibodies. D-screen reagent was used to analyze the RhD epitopes of the sample. RHD genotype and RHD zygosity testing of the sample were detected by palymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP). The full length coding region of RHD gene was sequenced. RHD mRNA was detected using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The PCR products were cloned and sequenced. RESULTS: The RhD blood group of the sample was determined as weak D, and the Rh phenotype was CcDEe. The antibody screening was negative. The sample tested with all monoclonal anti-Ds in D-screen showed the D epitope profiles as partial D types. The analysis of RHD gene sequence indicated that the individual with RHD c.845G/A and RHD c.1227G/A base heterozygosis. Three kinds of alternative splicing isoforms were obtained by TA cloning and sequencing. CONCLUSION: The object has RHD c.845G/A and RHD c.1227G/A mutation. This heterozygous mutation is responsible for the low expression of RhD antigen on the red blood cells of the sample.

Self-powered and broadband opto-sensor with bionic visual adaptation function based on multilayer γ-InSe flakes.

Visual adaptation that can autonomously adjust the response to light stimuli is a basic function of artificial visual systems for intelligent bionic robots. To improve efficiency and reduce complexity, artificial visual systems with integrated visual adaptation functions based on a single device should be developed to replace traditional approaches that require complex circuitry and algorithms. Here, we have developed a single two-terminal opto-sensor based on multilayer γ-InSe flakes, which successfully emulated the visual adaptation behaviors with a new working mechanism combining the photo-pyroelectric and photo-thermoelectric effect. The device can operate in self-powered mode and exhibit good human-eye-like adaptation behaviors, which include broadband light-sensing image adaptation (from ultraviolet to near-infrared), near-complete photosensitivity recovery (99.6%), and synergetic visual adaptation, encouraging the advancement of intelligent opto-sensors and machine vision systems.

Virulence of the fungal pathogen, Aspergillus oryzae XJ-1 to adult locusts (Orthoptera: Acrididae) in both laboratory and field trials.

BACKGROUND: Locusts and grasshoppers are pests of many agricultural crops, and their frequent outbreaks worldwide threaten food security. Microbial control agents are currently used to suppress the early (nymphal) stages of pests, but they are often less effective against adults, which are primarily responsible for locust plagues. The fungal pathogen Aspergillus oryzae XJ-1 has high pathogenicity in locust nymphs. To assess its potential for controlling locust adults, we evaluated the virulence of A. oryzae XJ-1 (i.e., locust Aspergillus, LAsp) in locust adults using laboratory, field-cage experiments, and a field trial. RESULTS: The lethal concentration of LAsp in adult Locusta migratoria was 3.58 ± 0.09 × 105 conidia mL-1 15 days after inoculation in the laboratory. A field-cage experiment showed that the mortalities of adult L. migratoria were 92.0 ± 4.6% and 90.1 ± 3.2% 15 days after inoculation with 3 × 105 and 3 × 103 conidia m-2 of LAsp, respectively. A large-scale field trial of 666.6 ha was conducted, in which a LAsp water suspension was applied at a concentration of 2 × 108 conidia mL-1 in 15 L ha-1 by aerial spraying via drones. The densities of mixed populations of L. migratoria and Epacromius spp. were significantly reduced by 85.4 ± 7.9%-94.9 ± 5.1%. In addition, the infection rates of surviving locusts collected from the treated plots were 79.6% and 78.3% on the 17th and 31st day after treatment, respectively. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that A. oryzae XJ-1 is highly virulent in adult locusts and that it has high potential for the control of locusts. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

Directed exfoliating and ordered stacking of transition-metal-dichalcogenides.

Two-dimensional van der Waals crystals provide a limitless scope for designing novel combinations of physical properties by controlling the stacking order or twist angle of individual layers. Lattice orientation between stacked monolayers is significant not only for breaking the engineering symmetry but also for the study of many-body quantum phases and band topology. Thus far the state-of-the-art exfoliation approaches focus on the achievements of quality, size, yield, and scalability, while lacking sufficient information on lattice orientation. Consequently, interlayer alignment is usually determined by later experiments, such as the second harmonic generation spectroscopy, which increase the number of trials and errors for a designed artificial ordering and hampered the efficiency of systematic study. Herein, we report a lattice orientation distinguishable exfoliation method via gold favor epitaxy along the specific atomic step edges, meanwhile, fulfilling the requirements of high-quality, large-size, and high-yield monolayers. Hexagonal- and rhombohedral-stacking configurations of bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides are built directly at once as a result of foreseeing the lattice orientation. Optical spectroscopy, electron diffraction, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy are used to study crystal quality, symmetric breaking, and band tuning, which support the exfoliating mechanism we proposed. This strategy shows the ability to facilitate the development of ordering stacking especially for multilayers assembling in the future.

Giant moiré trapping of excitons in twisted hBN.

Excitons in van der Waals (vdW) stacking interfaces can be trapped in ordered moiré potential arrays giving rise to the attractive phenomena of quantum optics and bosonic many-body effects. Compared to the prevalent transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) systems, due to the wide bandgap and low dielectric constant, excitons in twist-stacked hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are anticipated trapped in deeper moiré potential, which enhances the strength of interactions. However, constrained by the common low detectivity of weak light-emitting in the deep-ultraviolet (DUV) bands, the moiré excitons in twist-hBN remain elusive. Here, we report that a remarkable DUV emitting band (peak located at ∼260 nm) only emerges at the twisted stacking area of hBN, which is performed by a high collection efficiency and spatially-resolved cathodoluminescence (CL) at room temperature. Significant peak red shifting contrast to defect-bound excitons of bulk hBN indicates the giant trapping effects of moiré potential for excitons. The observation of deeply trapped excitons motivates further studies of bosonic strongly correlation physics based on the twist-hBN system.

Electron-hole plasma Fabry-Perot lasing in a Ga-incorporated ZnO microbelt via Ag nanoparticle deposition.

In this work, individual ZnO via Ga-doped (ZnO:Ga) microbelts with excellent crystallinity and smooth facets can enable the realization of lateral microresonator Fabry-Perot (F-P) microlasers, and the F-P lasing action originates from excitonic state. Interestingly, introducing Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) deposited on the microbelt can increase F-P lasing characteristics containing a lower threshold and enhanced lasing output. Especially for the large size AgNPs (the diameter d is approximately 200 nm), the lasing features also exhibit a significant redshift of each lasing peak and an observable broadening of the spectral line width with an increase of the excitation fluence. And the remarkable lasing characteristics are belonging to the electron-hole plasma (EHP) luminescence. The behavior and dynamics of the stimulated radiation in an AgNPs@ZnO:Ga microbelt are studied, suggesting the Mott-transition from the excitonic state to EHP state that is responsible for the F-P lasing. These features can be attributed to the working mechanism that the hot electrons created by the large size AgNPs through nonradiative decay can fill the conduction band of nearby ZnO:Ga, leading to a downward shift of the conduction band edge. This novel filling influence can facilitate bandgap renormalization and result in EHP emission. The results provide a comprehensive understanding of the transition between excitonic and EHP states in the stimulated emission process. More importantly, it also can provide new scheme to developing high efficiency and ultra-low threshold microlasing diodes.

Back-Reflected Performance-Enhanced Flexible Perovskite Photodetectors through Substrate Texturing with Femtosecond Laser.

Recently, enhancing the performance of flexible perovskite photodetectors through facile and effective means has gained greater attention. In contrast to typical approaches through modifying light-active materials, we present here a simple but effective design by improving light-matter interactions through near-field optical interference on a back-reflected substrate, whose architecture includes a morphologically flat top surface and a backscattering surface textured with micro/nanostructures by the femtosecond laser direct writing. A CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite film and poly(ethylene terephthalate) are selected as the light-active and base materials, respectively. Under a 1 V bias voltage actuation and 532 nm laser irradiation at an intensity of 10 mW cm-2, the flexible device exhibits excellent performance in photoresponsivity (47.1 mA W-1), detectivity (3.7 × 1011 Jones), and on/off ratio (4600). Due to the near-field optical enhancement of the substrate and the strong light-matter interaction, the above performance parameters are enhanced by at least 5 times over a wide spectral range of 220-780 nm. Such enhancement behaviors are independent of active material properties and therefore can be compatible with other operations such as crystalline transformation, doping, and interface modification. Moreover, the alteration of stress distribution on the structured substrate facilitates the bending robustness and stability. These features highlight the potential of back-reflected design in the development of flexible perovskite photoelectric devices, which are especially suitable for large-scale industrial production.

High-Performance Planar-Type Ultraviolet Photodetector Based on High-Quality CH3NH3PbCl3 Perovskite Single Crystals.

A hybrid perovskite MAPbCl3 (MA = CH3NH3+) single crystal is considered to be one of the most viable candidates for the development of photodetectors because of its outstanding optoelectronic properties. However, the relatively lower crystalline quality of the reported MAPbCl3 single crystals fabricated by the traditional one-step inverse temperature crystallization results in momentous degradation in the performance of their photodetectors. Here, we present a novel two-step temperature process to fabricate high-quality MAPbCl3 single crystals, namely, lower temperature nucleation and higher temperature crystallization. These MAPbCl3 single crystals present low defect density (∼7.9 × 109 cm-3) commensurate with the best-quality crystals of hybrid organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites reported so far. Moreover, a high-performance ultraviolet photodetector was demonstrated on MAPbCl3 single crystals. At 30 V, the peak responsivity at 415 nm of the photodetector is as high as 3.73 A W-1 (light intensity = 1 mW cm-2), ∼2-3 orders of magnitude higher than that of the previously reported MAPbCl3 photodetectors. Meanwhile, the device has an ultrafast response speed with a rise time of 130 ns, which is one of the shortest values of MAPbX3-based photodetectors. Our findings open a new way to obtain high-quality perovskite single crystals and their high-performance photodetectors.

Controlled compensation via non-equilibrium electrons in ZnO.

Doping wide-band-gap semiconductor with impurities always accompanied spontaneous compensation of opposite charged intrinsic defects, which lead to invalid control of the type of free carriers. We demonstrate an effectual route to overcoming such detrimental defects formation during doping by suppressing Fermi level shifting using non-equilibrium carriers gathering on the polar epitaxial surfaces. Non-equilibrium carriers are generated by ultraviolet light excited interband transitions (photon energy greater than bandgap). Because the p-type dopants are compensated by non-equilibrium electrons at metal-polar surfaces, donor-type native defects are inhibited. This new doping strategy provides an attractive solution to self-compensation problems in wide-band-gap semiconductors with spontaneous polarization of the future.

Piezophototronic-Effect-Enhanced Electrically Pumped Lasing.

This study demonstrates significant improvements of ZnO nanowire lasers by the piezophototronic effect. The laser output power can be enhanced by a factor of 4.96, and the threshold voltage can be decreased from 48 to 20 V by applying pressure. The mechanism of the improved performance can be attributed to the enhanced carrier injection and recombination due to the piezophototronic effect.

Enhanced inflammatory damage by microRNA-136 targeting Klotho expression in HK-2 cells by modulating JAK/STAT pathway.

MiR-136 acts as a tumor suppressor by promoting cell apoptosis and downregulating Bcl-2 in glioma cells. Hence, an attempt has been made to evaluate the role of miR-136 in regulation of inflammatory damage in HK-2 cells. HK-2 cells were cultured and assessed for viability. The cells were then transfected with miR-136 mimic, si- miR-136, si-Klotho, and NC. Dual luciferase test was performed to confirm the target of miR-136 which was assumed to be Klotho. Cell viability, apoptosis, expressions of inflammatory cytokines like TNF-α, IL-1ß, IL-6 and IL-8 were assessed in HK-2 cells with overexpressing miR-136 or with knocked down miR-136 activities, following exposure to LPS. LPS induced inflammatory damage decreased cell viability, induced cell apoptosis, and increased the expression of different inflammatory cytokines. It was found that LPS decreased the expression of miR-136. Over-expression of miR-136 inhibited cell viability, enhanced apoptosis, and increased expression of inflammatory cytokines while knockdown of miR-136 showed opposite results with p-values < 0.05. MiR-136 negatively regulated the expression of Klotho with p-value < 0.05. Over-expression of miR-136 inhibited the expression of Klotho and activated JAK/STAT and mTOR signaling pathways and vice versa. Hence, it can be concluded that miR-136 enhances inflammatory damage probably by targeting klotho as has been observed in luciferase assay by inactivation of JAK/STAT and mTOR signaling pathways.

Transparent ultraviolet photovoltaic cells.

Photovoltaic cells have been fabricated from p-GaN/MgO/n-ZnO structures. The photovoltaic cells are transparent to visible light and can transform ultraviolet irradiation into electrical signals. The efficiency of the photovoltaic cells is 0.025% under simulated AM 1.5 illumination conditions, while it can reach 0.46% under UV illumination. By connecting several such photovoltaic cells in a series, light-emitting devices can be lighting. The photovoltaic cells reported in this Letter may promise the applications in glass of buildings to prevent UV irradiation and produce power for household appliances in the future.

Ultra-low threshold avalanche gain from solar-blind photodetector based on graded-band-gap-cubic-MgZnO.

A larger ratio of conduction-band offset to valence-band offset is the unique character for Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O alloys. For this reason, it is feasible to build a quasi-electric forces, caused by the spatial gradient of the conduction edge, exerting on the electrons. In this paper, a novel graded band gap cubic-MgZnO-based solar-blind photodetector is successfully fabricated from Graded-Band-Gap-Cubic-MgZnO/i-MgO/p-Si heterojunction, via changing stoichiometry spatial gradient. Due to quasi-electric fields in non-uniform MgZnO, the multiple carriers are generated under ultra-low threshold bias voltage. The photodetector showed high performance, namely, high responsivity, quantum efficiency, high sensitivity and selectivity towards the solar-blind spectrum, and fast response times.

Enhanced solar-blind responsivity of photodetectors based on cubic MgZnO films via gallium doping.

We report on gallium (Ga) doped cubic MgZnO films, which have been grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition. It was demonstrated that Ga doping improves the n-type conduction of the cubic MgZnO films. A two-orders of magnitude enhancement in lateral n-type conduction have been achieved for the cubic MgZnO films. The responsivity of the cubic MgZnO-based photodetector has been also enhanced. Depletion region electric field intensity enhanced model was adopted to explain the improvement of quantum efficiency in Ga doped MgZnO-based detectors.

Enhanced responsivity of photodetectors realized via impact ionization.

To increase the responsivity is one of the vital issues for a photodetector. By employing ZnO as a representative material of ultraviolet photodetectors and Si as a representative material of visible photodetectors, an impact ionization process, in which additional carriers can be generated in an insulating layer at a relatively large electric field, has been employed to increase the responsivity of a semiconductor photodetector. It is found that the responsivity of the photodetectors can be enhanced by tens of times via this impact ionization process. The results reported in this paper provide a general route to enhance the responsivity of a photodetector, thus may represent a step towards high-performance photodetectors.