Chongqing University of Technology

Ultralong room temperature phosphorescence (URTP) emitted from pure amorphous organic molecules is very rare. Although a few crystalline organic molecules could realize URTP with long lifetimes (>100 ms), practical applications of these crystalline organic phosphors are still challenging because the formation and maintenance of high-quality crystals are very difficult and complicated. Herein, we present a rational design for minimizing the vibrational dissipation of pure amorphous organic molecules to achieve URTP. By using this strategy, a series of URTP films with long lifetimes and high phosphorescent quantum yields (up to 0.75 s and 11.23%, respectively) were obtained from amorphous organic phosphors without visible fluorescence and phosphorescence under ambient conditions. On the basis of the unique features of URTP films, a new green screen printing technology without using any ink was developed toward confidential information encryption and decryption. This work presents a breakthrough strategy in applying amorphous organic materials for URTP.

Abstract Magnesium alloys are very biocompatiable and show promise for use in orthopaedic implant. Significant progress of research on bioabsorbable magnesium stents and orthopaedic bones has been achieved in recent years. The issues on degradation, hydrogen evolution, and corrosion fatigue and erosion corrosion of magnesium alloys and various influencing factors in simulated body fluid (SBF) are discussed. The research progress on magnesium and its alloys as biomaterials and miscellaneous approaches to enhancement in corrosion resistance is reviewed. Finally the challenges and strategy for their application as orthopaedic biomaterials are also proposed.

Coffee is a valuable beverage crop due to its characteristic flavor, aroma, and the stimulating effects of caffeine. We generated a high-quality draft genome of the species Coffea canephora, which displays a conserved chromosomal gene order among asterid angiosperms. Although it shows no sign of the whole-genome triplication identified in Solanaceae species such as tomato, the genome includes several species-specific gene family expansions, among them N-methyltransferases (NMTs) involved in caffeine production, defense-related genes, and alkaloid and flavonoid enzymes involved in secondary compound synthesis. Comparative analyses of caffeine NMTs demonstrate that these genes expanded through sequential tandem duplications independently of genes from cacao and tea, suggesting that caffeine in eudicots is of polyphyletic origin.

Polymer-based room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials with high flexibility and large-area producibility are highly promising for applications in organic electronics. However, achieving such photophysical materials is challenging because of difficulties in populating and stabilizing susceptible triplet excited states at room temperature. Herein large-area, flexible, transparent, and long-lived RTP systems prepared by doping rationally selected organic chromophores in a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) matrix were realized through a hydrogen-bonding and coassembly strategy. In particular, the 3,6-diphenyl-9H-carbazole (DPCz)-doped PVA film shows long-lived phosphorescence emission (up to 2044.86 ms) and a remarkable duration of afterglow (over 20 s) under ambient conditions. Meanwhile, the 7H-dibenzo[c,g]carbazole (DBCz)-doped PVA film exhibits high absolute luminance of 158.4 mcd m2 after the ultraviolet excitation source is removed. The RTP results not only from suppressing the nonradiative decay by abundant hydrogen-bonding interactions in the PVA matrix but also from minimizing the energy gap (ΔEST) between the singlet state and the triplet state through the coassembly effect. On account of the outstanding mechanical properties and the afterglow performance of these RTP materials, they were applied in the fabrication of flexible 3D objects with repeatable folding and curling properties. Importantly, the multichannel afterglow light-emitting diode arrays were established under ambient conditions. The present long-lived phosphorescent systems demonstrate a bright opportunity for the production of large-area, flexible, and transparent emitting materials.

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are short peptides (fewer than 30 amino acids) that have been predominantly used in basic and preclinical research during the last 30 years. Since they are not only capable of translocating themselves into cells but also facilitate drug or CPP/cargo complexes to translocate across the plasma membrane, they have potential applications in the disease diagnosis and therapy, including cancer, inflammation, central nervous system disorders, otologic and ocular disorders, and diabetes. However, no CPPs or CPP/cargo complexes have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Many issues should be addressed before translating CPPs into clinics. In this review, we summarize recent developments and innovations in preclinical studies and clinical trials based on using CPP for improved delivery, which have revealed that CPPs or CPP-based delivery systems present outstanding diagnostic therapeutic delivery potential.

The extensive research of two-dimensional layered materials has revealed that valleys, as energy extrema in momentum space, could offer a new degree of freedom for carrying information. Based on this concept, researchers have predicted valley-Hall topological insulators that could support valley-polarized edge states at non-trivial domain walls. Recently, several kinds of photonic and sonic crystals have been proposed as classical counterparts of valley-Hall topological insulators. However, direct experimental observation of valley-polarized edge states in photonic crystals has remained difficult until now. Here, we demonstrate a designer surface plasmon crystal comprising metallic patterns deposited on a dielectric substrate, which can become a valley-Hall photonic topological insulator by exploiting the mirror-symmetry-breaking mechanism. Topological edge states with valley-dependent transport are directly visualized in the microwave regime. The observed edge states are confirmed to be fully valley-polarized through spatial Fourier transforms. Topological protection of the edge states at sharp corners is also experimentally demonstrated.

ConspectusLong-lived organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have recently drawn extensive attention because of their promising applications in information security, biological imaging, optoelectronic devices, and intelligent sensors. In contrast to conventional fluorescence, the RTP phenomenon originates from the slow radiative transition of triplet excitons. Thus, enhancing the intersystem crossing (ISC) rate from the lowest excited singlet state (S1) to the excited triplet state and suppressing the nonradiative relaxation channels of the lowest excited triplet state (T1) are reasonable methods for realizing highly efficient RTP in purely organic materials. Over the past few decades, many strategies have been designed on the basis of the above two crucial factors. The introduction of heavy atoms, aromatic carbonyl groups, and other heteroatoms with abundant lone-pair electrons has been demonstrated to strengthen the spin–orbit coupling, thereby successfully facilitating the ISC process. Furthermore, the rigid environment is commonly constructed through crystal engineering to restrict intramolecular motions and intermolecular collisions to decrease excited-state energy dissipation. However, most crystal-based organic RTP materials suffer from poor processability, flexibility, and reproducibility, becoming a thorny obstacle to their practical application.Amorphous organic polymers with long-lived RTP characteristics are more competitive in materials science. The intertwined structures and long chains of polymers not only ensure the rigid environment with multiple interactions but also protect triplet excitons from the surroundings, which are conducive to realizing ultralong and bright RTP emission. Exploring the fabrication strategies, intrinsic mechanisms, and practical applications of organic long-lived RTP polymers is highly desirable but remains a formidable challenge. In particular, intelligent organic RTP polymer systems that are capable of dynamically responding to external stimuli (e.g., light, temperature, oxygen, and humidity) have been rarely reported. To develop multifunctional RTP materials and expand their potential applications, a great amount of effort has been expended.This Account gives a summary of the significant advances in amorphous organic RTP polymer systems, especially smart stimulus-responsive ones, focusing on the construction of a rigid environment to suppress nonradiative deactivation by abundant inter/intramolecular interactions. The typical interactions in RTP polymer systems mainly include hydrogen bonding, ionic bonding, and covalent bonding, which can change the molecular electronic structures and affect the energy dissipation channels of the excited states. An in-depth understanding of intrinsic mechanisms and an extensive exploration of potential applications for excitation-dependent color-tunable, ultraviolet (UV) irradiation-activated, temperature-dependent, water-responsive, and circularly polarized RTP polymer systems are distinctly illustrated in this Account. Furthermore, we propose some detailed perspectives in terms of materials design, mechanism exploration, and promising application potential with the hope to provide helpful guidance for the future development of amorphous organic RTP polymers.

Evening out the heat The conversion of precursors into the active layer of perovskite solar cells normally occurs by heating the underlying substrate. Conversion tends to occur near the top of the film, where solvent is lost, and unwanted preheating of reactants occurs near the substrate before the reaction. Li et al . show that the use of a surrounding heat transfer oil (anisole) leads to more rapid and even heating, removes solvent, and avoids air and water contamination effects. The larger grains and more uniform films led a much greater retention of efficiency in moving from small-area to large-area devices. —PDS

A single-base pair resolution silkworm genetic variation map was constructed from 40 domesticated and wild silkworms, each sequenced to approximately threefold coverage, representing 99.88% of the genome. We identified ~16 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms, many indels, and structural variations. We find that the domesticated silkworms are clearly genetically differentiated from the wild ones, but they have maintained large levels of genetic variability, suggesting a short domestication event involving a large number of individuals. We also identified signals of selection at 354 candidate genes that may have been important during domestication, some of which have enriched expression in the silk gland, midgut, and testis. These data add to our understanding of the domestication processes and may have applications in devising pest control strategies and advancing the use of silkworms as efficient bioreactors.

Inflammatory arthritis is a major cause of disability in the elderly. This condition causes joint pain, loss of function, and deterioration of quality of life, mainly due to osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Currently, available treatment options for inflammatory arthritis include anti-inflammatory medications administered via oral, topical, or intra-articular routes, surgery, and physical rehabilitation. Novel alternative approaches to managing inflammatory arthritis, so far, remain the grand challenge owing to catastrophic financial burden and insignificant therapeutic benefit. In the view of non-targeted systemic cytotoxicity and limited bioavailability of drug therapies, a major concern is to establish stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems using nanomaterials with on-off switching potential for biomedical applications. This review summarizes the advanced applications of triggerable nanomaterials dependent on various internal stimuli (including reduction-oxidation (redox), pH, and enzymes) and external stimuli (including temperature, ultrasound (US), magnetic, photo, voltage, and mechanical friction). The review also explores the progress and challenges with the use of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials to manage inflammatory arthritis based on pathological changes, including cartilage degeneration, synovitis, and subchondral bone destruction. Exposure to appropriate stimuli induced by such histopathological alterations can trigger the release of therapeutic medications, imperative in the joint-targeted treatment of inflammatory arthritis.

Abstract The control of polarization and wavefront plays an important role in many optical systems. In this work, a monolayer metasurface is proposed to simultaneously realize circular asymmetric transmission (AT) and wavefront shaping based on asymmetric spin–orbit interactions. Circularly polarized incidence, accompanied with arbitrary wavefront modulation, experiences spin‐selected destructive or constructive interference. An extinction ratio of ≈10:1 and an AT parameter of ≈0.69 at 9.6 µm, as well as a full width half‐maximum of ≈2.9 µm (≈30% of the peak wavelength), are measured with the designed metasurface. These measured results are more than four times of those achieved with previous monolayer chiral structures. As far as it is known, this is the first report on the realization of simultaneous giant AT and arbitrary wavefront modulation with only one metasurface. Due to its fabrication simplicity and the multifunctionality of the designed metasurface, this work may provide a promising route to replace bulky cascading optical components with only one ultrathin metasurface for chiroptical spectroscopy, chiral imaging, optical communication, and so forth.

Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is a visible light photocatalyst, limited by low activity mainly caused by rapid recombination of charge carriers. In the present work, honeycomb-like g-C3N4 was synthesized via thermal condensation of urea with addition of water at 450 °C for 1 h. Prolonging the condensation time caused the morphology of g-C3N4 to change from a porous honeycomb structure to a velvet-like nanoarchitecture. Unlike in previous studies, the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4 decreased with increasing surface area. The honeycomb-like g-C3N4 with a relatively low surface area showed highly enhanced photocatalytic activity with an NO removal ratio of 48%. The evolution of NO2 intermediate was dramatically inhibited over the honeycomb-like g-C3N4. The short and long lifetimes of the charge carriers for honeycomb-like g-C3N4 were unprecedentedly prolonged to 22.3 and 165.4 ns, respectively. As a result, the honeycomb-like g-C3N4 was highly efficient and stable in activity and could be used repeatedly. Addition of water had the following multiple positive effects on g-C3N4: (1) formation of the honeycomb structure, (2) promotion of charge separation and migration, (3) enlargement of the band gap, (4) increase in production yield, and (5) decrease in energy cost. These advantages make the present preparation method for highly efficient g-C3N4 extremely appealing for large-scale applications. The active species produced from g-C3N4 under illumination were confirmed using DMPO-ESR spin-trapping, the reaction intermediate was monitored, and the reaction mechanism of photocatalytic NO oxidation by g-C3N4 was revealed. This work could provide an attractive alternative method for mass-production of highly active g-C3N4-based photocatalysts for environmental and energetic applications.

Organic room temperature luminescent materials present a unique phosphorescence emission with a long lifetime. However, many of these materials only emit single blue or green color in spite of external stimulation, and their color tunability is limited. Herein, we report a rational design to extend the emission color range from blue to red by controlling the doping of simple pyrene derivatives into a robust polymer matrix. The integration of these pyrene molecules into the polymer films enhances the intersystem crossing pathway, decreases the first triplet level of the system, and ensures the films show a sensitive response to excitation energy, finally yielding excitation-dependent long-life luminescent polymeric systems under ambient conditions. These materials were used to construct anti-counterfeiting patterns with multicolor interconversion, presenting a promising application potential in the field of information security.

Abstract Dual‐ion batteries (DIBs) have attracted increasing attention owing to their merits of high working voltage, low cost, and especially environmental friendliness. However, the cycling stability of most DIBs is still unsatisfying due to the decomposition of conventional liquid carbonate electrolytes under high working voltages. Exploration of gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) with good electrochemical stability at high voltage is a possible strategy to optimize their cycling stability. A high‐performance flexible DIB based on a poly(vinylidene fluoride‐hexafluoro propylene) GPE codoped with poly(ethylene oxide) and graphene oxide via weak bond interactions is herein reported for the first time. The prepared polymer electrolyte shows a 3D porous network with significantly improved ionic conductivity up to 2.1 × 10 −3 S cm −1 , which is favorable for fast ionic transportation of both cations and anions. As a result, this DIB exhibits excellent cycling stability with a capacity retention of 92% after 2000 cycles at a high current rate of 5C (1C is corresponding to 100 mA g −1 ), which is among the best performances of DIBs. Moreover, good flexibility and thermal stability (up to 90 °C) are also achieved for this battery, indicating its potential applications for high‐performance flexible energy storage devices.

The field of computer vision is experiencing a great-leap-forward development today. This paper aims at providing a comprehensive survey of the recent progress on computer vision algorithms and their corresponding hardware implementations. In particular, the prominent achievements in computer vision tasks such as image classification, object detection and image segmentation brought by deep learning techniques are highlighted. On the other hand, review of techniques for implementing and optimizing deep-learning-based computer vision algorithms on GPU, FPGA and other new generations of hardware accelerators are presented to facilitate real-time and/or energy-efficient operations. Finally, several promising directions for future research are presented to motivate further development in the field.

The oral route is the most preferred route for systemic and local drug delivery. However, the oral drug delivery system faces the harsh physiological and physicochemical environment of the gastrointestinal tract, which limits the bioavailability and targeted design of oral drug delivery system. Innovative pharmaceutical approaches including nanoparticulate formulations, biomimetic drug formulations, and microfabricated devices have been explored to optimize drug targeting and bioavailability. In this review, the anatomical factors, biochemical factors, and physiology factors that influence delivering drug via oral route are discussed and recent advance in conventional and novel oral drug delivery approaches for improving drug bioavailability and targeting ability are highlighted. We also address the challenges and opportunities of oral drug delivery systems in future.

Room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) has drawn extensive attention in recent years. Efficient stimulus-responsive phosphorescent organic materials are attractive, but are extremely rare because of unclear design principles and intrinsically spin-forbidden intersystem crossing. Herein, we present a feasible and facile strategy to achieve ultraviolet irradiation-responsive ultralong RTP (IRRTP) of some simple organic phosphors by doping into amorphous poly(vinyl alcohol) matrix. In addition to the observed green and yellow afterglow emission with distinct irradiation-enhanced phosphorescence, the phosphorescence lifetime can be tuned by varying the irradiation period of 254 nm light. Significantly, the dynamic phosphorescence lifetime could be increased 14.3 folds from 58.03 ms to 828.81 ms in one of the obtained hybrid films after irradiation for 45 min under ambient conditions. As such, the application in polychromatic screen printing and multilevel information encryption is demonstrated. The extraordinary IRRTP in the amorphous state endows these systems with a highly promising potential for smart flexible luminescent materials and sensors with dynamically controlled phosphorescence.

Amino acids are basic nutrients for immune cells during organ development, tissue homeostasis, and the immune response. Regarding metabolic reprogramming in the tumor microenvironment, dysregulation of amino acid consumption in immune cells is an important underlying mechanism leading to impaired anti-tumor immunity. Emerging studies have revealed that altered amino acid metabolism is tightly linked to tumor outgrowth, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance through governing the fate of various immune cells. During these processes, the concentration of free amino acids, their membrane bound transporters, key metabolic enzymes, and sensors such as mTOR and GCN2 play critical roles in controlling immune cell differentiation and function. As such, anti-cancer immune responses could be enhanced by supplement of specific essential amino acids, or targeting the metabolic enzymes or their sensors, thereby developing novel adjuvant immune therapeutic modalities. To further dissect metabolic regulation of anti-tumor immunity, this review summarizes the regulatory mechanisms governing reprogramming of amino acid metabolism and their effects on the phenotypes and functions of tumor-infiltrating immune cells to propose novel approaches that could be exploited to rewire amino acid metabolism and enhance cancer immunotherapy.

Abstract Ammonia as an irreplaceable chemical has been widely demanded to keep the sustainable development of the modern society. However, its industrial production consumes huge energy and releases extraordinary green‐house gases, leading to various environmental issues. To achieve the green production of ammonia is a great challenge that has been extensively pursued recently. In the review, a most promising strategy, electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (e‐NO 3 RR) for the purpose is comprehensively investigated to give a full understanding of its development and mechanism and provide guidance for future directions. Particularly, the development of electrocatalysts is focused to realize the high ammonia yield rate and Faraday efficiency for industrial applications. The recent‐developed catalysts, including noble metallic materials, alloys, metal compounds, single‐metal‐atom catalysts, and metal‐free materials, are systematically discussed to review the effects of various factors on the catalytic performance in e‐NO 3 RR. Accordingly, the strategies, including defects engineering, coordination environment modulating, surface controlling, and hybridization, are carefully discussed to improve the catalytic performance, such as the intrinsic activity and selectivity. Finally, perspectives and challenges are given out. This review shall provide insightful guidance on the development of advanced catalytic systems for the production of green ammonia efficiently in the industry.

During the last few years, the preparation of novel fluorescent probes for the selective detection of chemical species inside mitochondria has attracted considerable attention because of their wide applications in chemistry, biology, and medical science. This feature article focuses on the recent advances in the design principles and recognition mechanisms of these kinds of fluorescent probes. In addition, their applications for the detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide, reactive sulfur species (RSS), thioredoxin (Trx), metal ions, anions, etc. in the mitochondrion is discussed as well.