Dynamic carboxymethyl chitosan prodrug hydrogel precisely mediates robust therapy on wound infection.

Dynamic antibacterial polysaccharide prodrug hydrogels are in great demand for treatment of wound infection owing to their unique advantages such as excellent biocompatibility, superior antimicrobial property as well as favorable wound healing capacity. Herein, this work highlights the successful development of a dynamic carboxymethyl chitosan (CMC) prodrug hydrogel, which is facilely constructed through Schiffer base reaction between antibacterial components (amikacin and CMC) and crosslinker (dialdehyde PEG). Moderate dynamic imine linkages endow the hydrogel with excellent injectable and self-healing capability as well as targeted on-demand drug release in slightly alkaline condition at infected wound. All ingredients and their strong intermolecular interactions endow the hydrogel with favorable swelling and moisture retention capability. Moreover, the covalent and non-covalent interactions also endow the hydrogel with superior adhesion and mechanical property. These attractive characteristics enable hydrogel to effectively kill pathogens, promote wound healing and reduce side effects of amikacin. Thereby, such a dynamic CMC prodrug hydrogel may open a new avenue for a robust therapy on wound infection, greatly advancing their use in clinics.

Solution Processable CrN Thin Films: Thickness-Dependent Electrical Transport Properties.

Thickness is a very important parameter with which to control the microstructures, along with physical properties in transition-metal nitride thin films. In work presented here, CrN films with different thicknesses (from 26 to 130 nm) were grown by chemical solution deposition. The films are pure phase and polycrystalline. Thickness dependence of microstructures and electrical transport behavior were studied. With the increase of films thickness, grain size and nitrogen content are increased, while resistivity, zero-field sensitivity and magnetoresistance are decreased. In the temperature range of 5-350 K, all samples exhibited semiconductor-like properties with dρ/dT < 0. For the range above and below the Néel temperature, the resistivity can be fitted by the thermal activation model and the two-dimensional weak localization (2D-WL) model, respectively. The ultra-low magnetoresistance at a low temperature under high magnetic fields with a large zero-field sensitivity was observed in the CrN thin films. The zero-field sensitivity can be effectively tuned to 10-2 K-1 at 5 K with a magnetoresistance of less than 1% at 2 K under 14 T by reasonably controlling the thickness.

Vertical La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 nanorods tailored by high magnetic field assisted pulsed laser deposition.

La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LCMO) thin films on (LaAlO3)0.3(Sr2AlTaO6)0.7 (001) [LSAT (001)] single crystal substrates have been prepared by high magnetic field assisted pulsed laser deposition (HMF-PLD) developed by ourselves. Uniformly sized and vertically aligned nanorod structures can be obtained under an applied high magnetic field above 5 T, and the dimension size of the nanorods can be manipulated by varying the applied magnetic field. It is found that the magnetic anisotropy is strongly correlated to the dimension size of the nanorods. A significantly enhanced low-field magnetoresistance (LFMR) of -36% under 0.5 T at 100 K can be obtained due to the enhanced carrier scattering at the vertical grain boundaries between the nanorods for the LCMO films. The growth mechanism of the nanorods has been also discussed, which can be attributed to the variation of deposition rate, adatom surface diffusion, and nucleation induced by the application of a high magnetic field in the film processing. The successful achievements of such vertical nanorod structures will provide an instructive route to investigate the physical nature of these nanostructures and achieve nanodevice manipulation.

Development of a high magnetic field assisted pulsed laser deposition system.

A high magnetic field assisted pulsed laser deposition (HMF-PLD) system has been developed to in situ grow thin films in a high magnetic field up to 10 T. In this system, a specially designed PLD cylindrical vacuum chamber is horizontally located in the bore configuration of a superconducting magnet with a bore diameter of 200 mm. To adjust the focused pulsed laser into the target in such a narrow PLD vacuum chamber, an ingeniously built-in laser leading-in chamber is employed, including a laser mirror with a reflection angle of 65° and a damage threshold up to 3.4 J/cm(2). A laser alignment system consisting of a built-in video-unit leading-in chamber and a low-energy alignment laser is applied to monitor and align the pulsed laser propagation in the PLD vacuum chamber. We have grown La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) thin films on (LaAlO3)0.3(Sr2AlTaO6)0.7 (001) [LSAT (001)] substrates by HMF-PLD. The results show that the nanostructures of the LSMO films can be tuned from an epitaxially continuous film structure without field to a vertically aligned nanorod structure with an applied high magnetic field above 5 T, and the dimension size of the nanorods can be tuned by the strength of the magnetic field. The associated magnetic anisotropy is found to be highly dependent on the nanorod structures. We show how the HMF-PLD provides an effective route toward tuning the nanostructures and the physical properties of functional thin films, giving it an important role in development of nanodevices and their application.