Von Willebrand factor A1 domain affinity for GPIbα and stability are differentially regulated by its O-glycosylated N-linker and C-linker

Hemostasis in the arterial circulation is mediated by binding of the A1 domain of the ultralong protein von Willebrand factor to GPIbα on platelets to form a platelet plug. A1 is activated by tensile force on VWF concatemers imparted by hydrodynamic drag force. The A1 core is protected from force-induced unfolding by a long-range disulfide that links cysteines near its N and C-termini. The O-glycosylated linkers between A1 and its neighboring domains, which transmit tensile force to A1, are reported to regulate A1 activation for binding to GPIb, but the mechanism is controversial and incompletely defined. Here, we study how these linkers, and their polypeptide and O-glycan moieties, regulate A1 affinity by measuring affinity, kinetics, thermodynamics, hydrogen deuterium exchange (HDX), and unfolding by temperature and urea. The N-linker lowers A1 affinity 40-fold with a stronger contribution from its O-glycan than polypeptide moiety. The N-linker also decreases HDX in specific regions of A1 and increases thermal stability and the energy gap between its native state and an intermediate state, which is observed in urea-induced unfolding. The C-linker also decreases affinity of A1 for GPIbα, but in contrast to the N-linker, has no significant effect on HDX or A1 stability. Among different models for A1 activation, our data are consistent with the model that the intermediate state has high affinity for GPIbα, which is induced by tensile force physiologically and regulated allosterically by the N-linker.

Study of the Relationships Between Optical and Physical Properties for Nanostructure TiO2 Thin Film

Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique was performed to deposit the pure Titanium oxide (TiO2) nanoparticles on the glass substrate of temp. (100 - 400°C), using the doubled frequency of Nd: YAG laser wavelength of 532nm at (10) Hz rate, 10 nanosecond duration pulses and a constant laser energy 800 mJ. The optical measurements obtained by UV-Vis transmittance on deposited TiO2 films indicate the highest transparency in the visible wavelength region with an average transmittance of 80%. Estimated the relationship between the refractive index of TiO2 thin films with substrate temperature was n = 2.49 at 400 oC. Moreover, the calculated empirical relation between the energy gap and refractive index have similar to the work results.

Recent Advances in Doped Bi2O3 and its Photocatalytic Activity: A Review

Bismuth Oxide (Bi2O3) has a very promising photocatalytic ability to degrade waste pollutants under visible light irradiation because it has a small energy gap of around 2.85-2.58 eV. Although it has excellent potential as a photocatalyst, Bi2O3 has the disadvantage of a high electron-hole pair recombination rate, which will reduce its photocatalytic activity. To overcome these problems, surface modifications, defect recognition, or doping of Bi2O3 are carried out to obtain a more effective and efficient photocatalyst to degrade waste pollutants under visible light irradiation. Several studies by researchers have been described for the modification of Bi2O3 by doping. Various types of doping are given, such as doping in elements or doping in the form of compounds to form composites. Based on several studies that have been described, appropriate doping has been shown to increase the photocatalytic activity of Bi2O3. Keywords: Bi2O3, Photocatalyst, Doping

Guest-host doped strategy for constructing ultralong-lifetime near-infrared organic phosphorescence materials for bioimaging

Organic near-infrared room temperature phosphorescence materials have unparalleled advantages in bioimaging due to their excellent penetrability. However, limited by the energy gap law, the near-infrared phosphorescence materials (>650 nm) are very rare, moreover, the phosphorescence lifetimes of these materials are very short. In this work, we have obtained organic room temperature phosphorescence materials with long wavelengths (600/657–681/732 nm) and long lifetimes (102–324 ms) for the first time through the guest-host doped strategy. The guest molecule has sufficient conjugation to reduce the lowest triplet energy level and the host assists the guest in exciton transfer and inhibits the non-radiative transition of guest excitons. These materials exhibit good tissue penetration in bioimaging. Thanks to the characteristic of long lifetime and long wavelength emissive phosphorescence materials, the tumor imaging in living mice with a signal to background ratio value as high as 43 is successfully realized. This work provides a practical solution for the construction of organic phosphorescence materials with both long wavelengths and long lifetimes.

Controlling magnetic-semiconductor properties of the Si- and Al-doped blue phosphorene monolayer

Doping has been widely employed as an efficient method to diversify the materials properties. In this work, the structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of pristine, aluminum(Al)-, and silicon(Si)-doped blue phosphorene monolayer are investigated using first-principles calculations. Pristine monolayer is a non-magnetic wide gap semiconductor with a band gap of 1.81 eV. The 1Si-doped system is a ferromagnetic semiconductor. However, the magnetism is turned off when increasing the dopant composition with small Si-Si distance. Further separating the dopants recovers step by step the magnetic properties, and an antiferromagnetic(AFM)-ferromagnetic(FM) state transition will take place at large dopants separation. In contrast, Al doping retains the non-magnetic semiconductor behavior of blue phosphorene. However, significant energy gap reduction is achieved, where this parameter exhibits a strong dependence on the dopant concentration and doping configuration. Such control may also induce the indirect-direct gap transition. Our results introduce prospective two-dimensional (2D) materials for applications in spintronic and optoelectronic nano devices, which can be realized and stabilized in experiments as suggested by the calculated formation and cohesive energies.

Theoretical studies on the two-photon absorption of II–VI semiconductor nano clusters

Semiconductor clusters, ZnnOn, ZnnSn, and CdnSn (n = 2–8), were optimized and the corresponding stable structures were acquired. The symmetry, bond length, bond angle, and energy gap between HOMO and LUMO were analyzed. According to reasonable calculation and comparative analysis for small clusters Zn2O2, Zn2S2, and Cd2S2, an effective method based on density function theory (DFT) and basis set which lay the foundation for the calculation of the large clusters have been obtained. The two-photon absorption (TPA) results show that for the nano clusters with planar configuration, sizes play important role on the TPA cross section, while symmetries determine the TPA cross section under circumstance of 3D stable structures. All our conclusions provide theoretical support for the development of related experiments.

Muon spin rotation and relaxation study on topological noncentrosymmetric superconductor PbTaSe2

Topological superconductivity is an exotic phenomenon due to the symmetry-protected topological surface state, in which a quantum system has an energy gap in the bulk but supports gapless excitations conned to its boundary. Symmetries including central and time-reversal, along with their relations with topology, are crucial for topological superconductivity. We report muon spin relaxation/rotation (μSR) experiments on a topological noncentrosymmetric superconductor PbTaSe2 to study its TRS and gap symmetry. Zero-field μSR experiments indicate the absence of internal magnetic eld in the superconducting state, consistent with previous μSR results. Furthermore, transverse-field μSR measurements reveals that the superconducting gap of PbTaSe2 is an isotropic three-dimensional fully-gapped single-band. The fully-gapped results can help understand the pairing mechanism and further classify the topological superconductivity in this system.

Smart Surfaces: Photocatalytic Degradation of Priority Pollutants on TiO2-Based Coatings in Indoor and Outdoor Environments—Principles and Mechanisms

Heterogeneous photocatalysis using semiconductor oxides such as TiO2, provides an up-and-coming solution for the degradation of environmental pollutants compared with other technologies. TiO2-containing construction materials and paints activated by UV/solar light destroy the ozone precursors NO and NO2 up to 80% and 30%, respectively. The majority of TiO2 materials developed so far are primarily for outdoor use. In recent years, substantial efforts have been made to investigate further the photocatalytic activity of materials containing TiO2 toward priority air pollutants such as NO, NO2, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) frequently accumulated at high concentration levels, particularly in indoor spaces. The intention of the investigations was to modify the titanium dioxide (TiO2), so that it may be activated by visible light and subsequently used as additive in building envelop materials and indoor paints. This has been achieved, to a high extent, through doping of TiO2 with transition metals such as V, Cr, Fe, Mn, Ni, Co, Cu, and Zn, which reduce the energy gap of TiO2, facilitating the generation of free electrons and holes, thus, extending the absorption spectral range of modified TiO2 to the area of visible light (bathochromic shift-redshift). A substantial problem using TiO2-containing paints and other building materials in indoor environments is the formation of byproducts, e.g., formaldehyde, through the heterogeneous photocatalytic reaction of TiO2 with organic matrices. This affects the air quality in confined spaces and, thus, becomes a possible risk for human health and wellbeing. This work describes the principles and mechanisms of the photocatalytic reactions at the air/catalyst interface of priority pollutants such as NO, benzene, and toluene as individual compounds or mixtures. Emphasis is placed on the reaction and recombination processes of the charge carriers, valence band positive holes (h+) and free electrons (e−), on the surface of TiO2, and on key factors affecting the photocatalytic processes, such as humidity. A hypothesis on the role of aromatic compounds in suppressing the recombination process (h+ and e−) is formulated and discussed. Furthermore, the results of the photocatalytic degradation of NO under visible light conditions using different admixtures of TiO2 and manganese doped (Mn–TiO2) are presented and discussed.

Numerical Investigation into Photovoltaic Performance of Organolead Trihalide Perovskite Quantum Dot Intermediate Band Solar Cell

In this work, an intermediate band solar cell (IBSC) model consisting of MAPbI3 quantum dots (QD) and MAPbCl3 barrier material is explored analytically with MATLAB. Titanium di-oxide (TiO2) is used as transport layer for electron and Spiro-OMeTAD (2,2',7,7'-tet-rakis (N,N'-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)–9,9' spirobifluorene) is used as transport layer for hole. Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) and Silver (Ag) is used as top and bottom contact. The impact of QD size and dot spacing on the key parameters of MAPbI3 QD-IBSC is illustrated throughout this paper. In order to identify the number of IB in a single regime, Schrödinger equation is solved as a function of host energy gap using Kronig–Penney model. The detailed balance limit assumptions with unity fill factor are applied to extract highest efficiency from the system. For any case, face centered cubic (FCC) crystal structure is assumed. The (100) crystal orientation is considered as charge carriers from n–region to p–region transport in this orientation. Major performance indicators of the device such as photocurrent intensity Jsc, open circuit voltage Voc and power conversion efficiency η have been delineated. Highest efficiency of 63% is attained for dot size of 4 nm and dot spacing of 1.5 nm.

Adjusting the energy gap and interface effect of titania nanosheets synergistically enhances the energy storage performance of PVDF based composites

Polymeric dielectric materials have recently attracted much attention due to their very high potential for use as advanced energy storage capacitors. However, it is still challenging to improve the inherent...