Instant Interfacial Self-Assembly for Homogeneous Nanoparticle Monolayer Enabled Conformal ‘lift on’ Thin Film Technology

Thin film fabrication is of great importance in the modern engineering. Here, we propose a universal and conformal thin film technique enabled by the wetting empowered interfacial self-assembly. By tailoring the contact angle of nanoparticle (NP), a NP monolayer can be assembled instantly (within 5 seconds) with an excellent harvesting efficiency (up to 97.5 wt). This self-assembly strategy presents a universal applicability on various materials, e.g. non-metal, metal and core-shell structures, and can achieve a monolayer with same in-plane area as 4-inch wafer in a single process, indicating great potential for scale-up manufacturing. Through a template transfer, we coat the surface of different substrates (plastic, paper, etc.) with the assembled film in a conformal and non-destructive ‘lift-on’ manner and subsequently demonstrate fluorescent micropatterns. This self-assembly strategy has great implications in advancing thin film technology with a user-friendly and cost-effective fashion, for the applications in anti-counterfeiting, actuators, and wearable/flexible electronic

DSCA-PSPNet: Dynamic spatial-channel attention pyramid scene parsing network for sugarcane field segmentation in satellite imagery

Sugarcane plays a vital role in many global economies, and its efficient cultivation is critical for sustainable development. A central challenge in sugarcane yield prediction and cultivation management is the precise segmentation of sugarcane fields from satellite imagery. This task is complicated by numerous factors, including varying environmental conditions, scale variability, and spectral similarities between crops and non-crop elements. To address these segmentation challenges, we introduce DSCA-PSPNet, a novel deep learning model with a unique architecture that combines a modified ResNet34 backbone, the Pyramid Scene Parsing Network (PSPNet), and newly proposed Dynamic Squeeze-and-Excitation Context (D-scSE) blocks. Our model effectively adapts to discern the importance of both spatial and channel-wise information, providing superior feature representation for sugarcane fields. We have also created a comprehensive high-resolution satellite imagery dataset from Guangxi’s Fusui County, captured on December 17, 2017, which encompasses a broad spectrum of sugarcane field characteristics and environmental conditions. In comparative studies, DSCA-PSPNet outperforms other state-of-the-art models, achieving an Intersection over Union (IoU) of 87.58%, an accuracy of 92.34%, a precision of 93.80%, a recall of 93.21%, and an F1-Score of 92.38%. Application tests on an RTX 3090 GPU, with input image resolutions of 512 × 512, yielded a prediction time of 4.57ms, a parameter size of 22.57MB, GFLOPs of 11.41, and a memory size of 84.47MB. An ablation study emphasized the vital role of the D-scSE module in enhancing DSCA-PSPNet’s performance. Our contributions in dataset generation and model development open new avenues for tackling the complexities of sugarcane field segmentation, thus contributing to advances in precision agriculture. The source code and dataset will be available on the GitHub repository https://github.com/JulioYuan/DSCA-PSPNet/tree/main

Light-controlled synthesis of gold nanoparticles using a rigid, photoresponsive surfactant

We report a new strategy for shape control over the synthesis of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by using a photoresponsive surfactant based on a modified seed growth method. Owing to photoresponsive properties of the azo group, the designed surfactant, N1,N3,N5-tris[(4′-azobenzene-4-sulphonic acid)phenyl]benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide, exhibits a distinctive molecular configuration under light leading to different growth processes of AuNPs. As a result, the blackberry-like, spherical AuNPs and multilayered Au plates were successfully prepared in high yield under visible and UV light. The size and morphological control of Au nanocrystals are described and the synthesized Au nanocrystals are evaluated for SERS applications

Plate-like Cr2O3 for highly selective sensing of nitric oxide

Selective sensing of nitric oxide (NO) in exhaust for so far reported exhaust gas sensors, particularly, without any interference from the coexist hydrocarbons (e.g., C3H6) is still a challengeable issue. In this research, Cr2O3 with various microstructures were successfully synthesized via hydrothermal route and used as sensing-electrodes (SEs) for detection of NO at high temperatures. Surprisingly, Cr2O3 with plate-like microstructure demonstrated high selectivity towards NO against C3H6. In addition, the sensing performance of the plate-like Cr2O3 towards NO was found to be unaffected by the change of oxygen concentration at 475 degrees C. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Sensing mechanism of the zirconia-based highly selective NO sensor by using a plate-like Cr2O3 sensing electrode

Plate-like Cr2O3 has been proved to be highly selective in sensing of nitric oxide (NO), while the sensing response of irregular shape and cubic-like Cr2O3 toward NO was significantly interfered by hydrocarbons (HCs), e.g. C3H6. In this paper, sensing mechanism of the plate-like Cr2O3 for selective sensing of NO (against HCs) was studied via crystallographic phase analysis, lattice fringes investigation and evaluation of the catalytic activity (gas-phase catalytic activity & electrochemical catalytic activity). The Cr2O3 samples with plate-like, irregular shape and cubic-like microstructures have been confirmed to be the same crystallographic phase through XRD measurements, however, significant difference in the lattice fringes of these Cr2O3 samples were observed via high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) & selected-area electron diffraction (SAED). The comparison results of catalytic activity for plate-like, irregular shape and cubic-like Cr2O3 indicated that the unique selectivity for the plate-like Cr2O3 was mainly caused by the electrochemical reaction specifically toward NO, which occurred near the interface between plate-like Cr2O3 and zirconia-based electrolyte. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Covalently capped seed-mediated growth : a unique approach toward hierarchical growth of gold nanocrystals

Hierarchical metal nanostructures have attracted increasing interest due to their unique morphology-dependent properties. Here, we introduce a new and efficient method to synthesize hierarchical gold nanostructures in different shapes using the covalently capped seed-mediated growth approach.Published versio

Bismuth Oxyhalide Induced Growth of Pt Nanoparticles within Mesoporous Alumina Films and their Use as Reusable Catalyst for Chromium(VI) Reduction

Green and efficient immobilization of catalytically active metal nanoparticles into porous supporting materials and their successful application in environmental remediation is of important scientific interest in practice. Herein, we established a new role of bismuth oxyhalides (BiOX) to produce Pt NPs inside mesoporous alumina to develop the nanocomposite film (Pt- BiOCl0.8Br0.2/Al2O3) using ethanol as reducing agent. Those films were applied as reusable catalysts for the reduction of highly toxic Cr-VI ions into Cr-III by formic acid at room temperature. Different amounts of bismuth oxyhalides were loaded with alumina to generate Pt NPs and found 2mol% BiOCl0.8Br0.2 loaded film showed optimum activity towards Pt generation and highest catalytic conversion of Cr-VI with the rate constant 0.177min(-1) which is very high considering any thin film as catalyst

Flexible Plasmonic Biosensors for Healthcare Monitoring: Progress and Prospects

The noble metal nanoparticle has been widely utilized as a plasmonic unit to enhance biosensor, by leveraging its electric and/or optical properties. Integrated with the ‘flexible’ feature, it further enables opportunities in developing healthcare products in a conformal and adaptive fashion, such as wrist pulse tracer, body temperature tracker, blood glucose monitor, etc. In this work, we present a holistic review of the recent advance of flexible plasmonic biosensors for the healthcare sector. The technical spectrum broadly covers the design and selection of flexible substrate, the process to integrate flexible and plasmonic units, the exploration of different type of flexible plasmonic biosensors to monitor human temperature, blood glucose, ions, gas, motion indicators, as well as their applications for Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and colorimetric detections. Their fundamental working principles and structural innovations are scoped and summarised. The challenges and prospects are articulated regarding the critical importance for continued progress of flexible plasmonic biosensors to improve living quality

Macroscopic two-dimensional monolayer films of gold nanoparticles: fabrication strategies, surface engineering and functional applications

In the last few decades, two-dimensional monolayer films of gold nanoparticles (2D MFGS) have attracted increasing attention in various fields, due to their superior attributes of macroscopic size and accessible fabrication, controllable electromagnetic enhancement, distinctive optical harvesting and electron transport capabilities. This review will focus on the recent progress of 2D monolayer films of gold nanoparticles in construction approaches, surface engineering strategies and functional applications in the optical and electric fields. The research challenges and prospective directions of 2D MFGS are also discussed. This review would promote a better understanding of 2D MFGS and establish a necessary bridge among the multidisciplinary research fields

Tunable scattered colors over a wide spectrum from a single nanoparticle

By controlling the thickness of the silver shell, Au–Ag core–shell nanorods with quadruple plasmonic peaks corresponding to red, green, violet and deep violet regions have been prepared. Additionally, under polarized light, we achieved tunability of scattered colors from a single nanoparticle over an exceptionally wide wavelength range. The observed colors include red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple