The Polymorphisms of Oligonucleotide Probes in Wheat Cultivars Determined by ND-FISH

Non-denaturing fluorescence in situ hybridization (ND-FISH) has been used to distinguish wheat chromosomes and to detect alien chromosomes in the wheat genome. In this study, five different oligonucleotide probes were used with ND-FISH to examine 21 wheat cultivars and lines. These oligonucleotide probes distinguished 42 wheat chromosomes and also detected rye chromatin in the wheat genome. Moreover, the signal patterns of the oligonucleotide probes Oligo-pTa535-1 and Oligo-pSc119.2-1 showed high polymorphism in the wheat chromosomes. A total of 17.6% of the A group chromosomes, 25.9% of the B group chromosomes and 8.9% of the D group chromosomes showed obvious mutations when they were compared to the standard ND-FISH signal patterns, and most of them were Oligo-pSc119.2-1 mutants. The results suggested that these polymorphisms could be induced by the crossing of wheat cultivars. The results provided more information for the further application of oligonucleotide probes and ND-FISH

Plasmonic Hot-Electron Injection Driving Ultrafast Phase Transition in Self-Supported VO₂ Films for All-Optical Modulation

VO2 has been widely used in optical modulation devices due to its large change in permittivity across its first-order metal–semiconductor phase transition. People have proved that VO2’s phase transition can be driven by plasmonic hot-electron injection, providing a new approach to realizing ultrafast all-optical devices with a low pump fluence. Here, we report on ultrafast VO2 all-optical modulation with a dramatically low pump fluence utilizing the composite structure of a self-supported VO2 film on a gold nanoshell grating. Plasmonic hot electrons in the gold excited by femtosecond pulses are injected into the VO2 film and trigger its phase transition, reducing the pump fluence threshold for the structural transformation to only 147.8 μJ/cm2. With a pump fluence above this threshold, ultrafast phase transition can be triggered within 1 ps, and a high modulation depth of 50% can be achieved. Moreover, an ultrafast modulation with an on–off time of 650 fs can also be achieved using a pump fluence below the threshold. This work may explore new applications of plasmonic hot-electron-driven phase transition in optical modulation devices and configurable devices

A Non-Conjugated Polymer Acceptor for Efficient and Thermally Stable All-Polymer Solar Cells

A non-conjugated polymer acceptor PF1-TS4 was firstly synthesized by embedding a thioalkyl segment in the mainchain, which shows excellent photophysical properties on par with a fully conjugated polymer, with a low optical band gap of 1.58 eV and a high absorption coefficient >10(5) cm(-1), a high LUMO level of -3.89 eV, and suitable crystallinity. Matched with the polymer donor PM6, the PF1-TS4-based all-PSC achieved a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.63 %, which is approximate to 45 % higher than that of a device based on the small molecule acceptor counterpart IDIC16. Moreover, the PF1-TS4-based all-PSC has good thermal stability with approximate to 70 % of its initial PCE retained after being stored at 85 degrees C for 180 h, while the IDIC16-based device only retained approximate to 50 % of its initial PCE when stored at 85 degrees C for only 18 h. Our work provides a new strategy to develop efficient polymer acceptor materials by linkage of conjugated units with non-conjugated thioalkyl segments