Graphene oxide affected root growth, anatomy, and nutrient uptake in alfalfa.

The increasing application of carbon nanomaterials has resulted in their inevitable release into the environment. Their toxic effects on plant roots require careful investigation. In the present study, alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) was exposed to graphene oxide (GO) at levels of 0.2 %, 0.4 %, and 0.6 % (w/w) in potting soil. This study aims to better understand the impact of GO on the root growth, structure, and physiology of alfalfa in the soil matrix. The results demonstrated that GO significantly affected the development and structure of alfalfa roots, and the effect varied with GO level. The highest level of GO (0.6 %) reduced the root length, diameter, volume, dry weight, number of lateral roots, and root activity by 36.1 %, 31.3 %, 60.0 %, 89.6 %, 55.8 %, and 72.3 % (p < 0.05), respectively, and the vascular cylinder diameter, periderm thickness, vessel diameter, and phellem thickness decreased by 51.5 %, 50.7 %, 80.9 %, and 49.1 % (p < 0.05), respectively. These observations might be associated with GO-induced oxidative stress, which was indicated by the activity of antioxidant enzymes. Furthermore, high GO levels (0.4 % and 0.6 %) inhibited the uptake of N, P, K, Mg, Zn, Fe, Mo, Si, and B in roots. Our findings indicate that GO at high levels has a negative impact on root growth and development by inducing oxidative stress, structural impairment, and nutritional imbalance. Careful soil GO management should be emphasized.

Design of a Tunable Snapshot Multispectral Imaging System through Ray Tracing Simulation.

Research on snapshot multispectral imaging has been popular in the remote sensing community due to the high demands of video-rate remote sensing system for various applications. Existing snapshot multispectral imaging techniques are mainly of a fixed wavelength type, which limits their practical usefulness. This paper describes a tunable multispectral snapshot system by using a dual prism assembly as the dispersion element of the coded aperture snapshot spectral imagers (CASSI). Spectral tuning is achieved by adjusting the air gap displacement of the dual prism assembly. Typical spectral shifts of about 1 nm at 400 nm and 12 nm at 700 nm wavelength have been achieved in the present design when the air-gap of the dual prism is changed from 4.24 mm to 5.04 mm. The paper outlines the optical designs, the performance, and the pros and cons of the dual-prism CASSI (DP-CASSI) system. The performance of the system is illustrated by TraceProTM ray tracing, to allow researchers in the field to repeat or to validate the results presented in this paper.