Preparation of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide for NO2 detection at room temperature

In this work, the two-dimensional MoS₂ film was prepared by sulfuring the molybdenum atomic layer on SiO₂/Si substrate. The reaction temperature, heating rate, holding time and carrier gas flow rate were investigated comprehensively. The quality of MoS₂ film was characterized by optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The characterization results showed that the optimum synthesis parameters were heating rate of 25 °C/min, reaction temperature of 750 °C, holding time of 30 min and carrier gas velocity of 100 sccm. The MoS₂ gas sensor was fabricated and its gas sensing performance was tested. The test results indicated that the sensor had a good response to both reducing gas (NH₃) and oxidizing gas (NO₂) at room temperature. The sensitivity to 100 ppm of NO₂ was 31.3%, and the response/recovery times were 4 s and 5 s, respectively. In addition, the limit of detection could be as low as 1 ppm. This work helps us to develop low power and integrable room temperature NO₂ sensors.     

H2S gas sensor based on integrated resonant dual-microcantilevers with high sensitivity and identification capability

Detection of trace-level hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) gas is of great importance whether in industrial production or disease diagnosis. This research presents a novel H₂S gas sensor based on integrated resonant dual-microcantilevers which can identify and detect trace-level H₂S in real-time. The sensor consists of two integrated resonant microcantilever sensors with different functions. One cantilever sensor can identify H₂S by outputting positive frequency shift signals, while the other cantilever sensor will detect H₂S as a normally used cantilever sensor with negative frequency shifts. Combined the two cantilever sensors, the proposed gas sensor can distinguish H₂S from a variety of common gases, and the detection limit to H₂S of the sensor is as sensitive as below 1 ppb.     

Getting to the bottom morphology of block copolymer thin films

We demonstrate a general approach for attaining the bottom morphology of block copolymer(BCP) thin films. In our former measurements on PS-b-PMMA films, surface morphology maps of the BCP films revealed distinct ordering regimes where the cylinders orient predominantly perpendicular or parallel to the interface and an ‘intermediate' regime where these morphologies coexist. However, this earlier work did not explore the bottom morphology of BCP thin films. In this study, we investigated the block copolymer morphology near the solid substrate in the cast block copolymer film having a perpendicular cylinder morphology on the surface.     

Comparison of the implementation of three common types of coupled CFD-DEM model for simulating soil surface erosion

Soil erosion is a common process studied by soil science, environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, coastal engineering, and many other fields. In the areas of hydraulic engineering, the geotechnics of soil erosion remains a high priority topic as the bridge scour is a common cause of bridge failures. Accurate predictions of scour depth and soil erosion rate remain challenging, due to the limitations of existing scaled experimental approach in fulfilling the hydrological and hydrodynamic similarity requirements. Computational model offers a promising alternative to further the microscale understanding of soil erosion which can help to develop engineering tools in practice. Computational model that couples Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Discrete Element Method (DEM) to simulate the behaviors of fluid-solid systems is promising to advance the current tools for soil erosion analyses. Different mathematical forms for laminar fluid flows exist for the coupled CFD-DEM model as documented in published literatures and implemented in commercial and open-source software; each of them is based on certain physics assumptions and corresponding mathematical treatments. There are, however, no direct comparison of the results of CFD-DEM models based on these seemingly different mathematical formulations, which would help researchers to select the proper simulation tool. This study implemented coupled CFD-DEM models based on three most common types of mathematical formats used in the previous modeling work. The results of different CFD-DEM models are firstly validated by comparing the results of simulating the free settling of a particle in fluid. A case study is then designed to compare the models in simulating the surface erosion of cohesionless soil inside a pipe flow using laminar flow equations. Comparison indicates that for a relatively sparse particle-fluid system, the difference of the three models is negligible. For a dense particle-fluid system, simulation with the three different mathematical formats can predict different results (as large as 10% in the fluid velocity and 20% in the particle drag force for the simulation case study analyzed). The results of this case study indicate that the three CFD-DEM models achieved comparable results for simulating soil erosion from an engineering perspective, however, the differences between these models, which originate from their underlying physics assumptions, must be kept in mind in selecting an appropriate simulation model as well as in comparing the results from different models.     

基于B样条的TERS形貌成像背景扣除方法

在针尖增强拉曼光谱(TERS)形貌成像过程中，由于针尖与扫描台无法绝对平行、样品电子密度骤变处针尖快速升降以及扫描控制系统响应时间特性差等综合原因的影响，往往使形貌图中带有倾斜或边界面卷曲的成像背景。成像背景对样品形貌的识别和分析带来十分不利的影响，而背景扣除就是解决该问题的重要手段，也是形貌成像预处理的重要组成部分。背景扣除的原理一般是通过拟合背景的方法来扣除成像中的背景。传统的背景扣除方法是利用多项式拟合的方法对成像进行逐行的基线校正，但是该方法在处理形貌成像时常常会由于过拟合而造成样品形貌的失真，同时容易在图片上留下明显的线条纹理。针对传统方法的缺点，本文提出采用B样条曲面拟合方法，直接对样品形貌图进行曲面背景拟合，发挥B样条低阶光滑的优点，能够有效克服传统方法的缺陷。在实验中，同时利用传统方法和该方法对金单晶和合成金片的形貌图进行背景扣除，实验结果表明，两种方法都能够扣除样品形貌图中的成像背景，但与传统方法相比，所提出的方法不会造成样品形貌的失真，且不会留下线条纹理，获得了更加良好的背景扣除效果，为进一步分析样品形貌特征提供了更准确可靠的信息，是一种更加有效的TERS形貌成像背景扣除算法。     

Plasmonic nanostructures for local field enhancement in the UV region

In this work we describe an ultraviolet subwavelength focusing in plasmonic nanostructures. A system which provides a 20–25 times local field enhancement at a wavelength of 350 nm is proposed. This system represents a metalized V-shaped groove in a surface of a dielectric medium. Subwavelength focusing is achieved by a plasmon wave propagation along the surface of metal film and by the transfer of electromagnetic field through the dielectric medium. The influence of system parameters on a local field enhancement is investigated. A simplified model that allows for determining the geometric parameters of an optimized resonator is proposed.     

A strategy for multivariate calibration based on modified single-index signal regression: Capturing explicit non-linearity and improving prediction accuracy

In this paper, a modified single-index signal regression (mSISR) method is proposed to construct a nonlinear and practical model with high-accuracy. The mSISR method defines the optimal penalty tuning parameter in P-spline signal regression (PSR) as initial tuning parameter and chooses the number of cycles based on minimizing root mean squared error of cross-validation (RMSECV). mSISR is superior to single-index signal regression (SISR) in terms of accuracy, computation time and convergency. And it can provide the character of the non-linearity between spectra and responses in a more precise manner than SISR. Two spectra data sets from basic research experiments, including plant chlorophyll nondestructive measurement and human blood glucose noninvasive measurement, are employed to illustrate the advantages of mSISR. The results indicate that the mSISR method (i) obtains the smooth and helpful regression coefficient vector, (ii) explicitly exhibits the type and amount of the non-linearity, (iii) can take advantage of nonlinear features of the signals to improve prediction performance and (iv) has distinct adaptability for the complex spectra model by comparing with other calibration methods. It is validated that mSISR is a promising nonlinear modeling strategy for multivariate calibration.     

Thermal Behavior of Polypropylene-g-glycidyl Methacrylate Prepared by Melt Grafting

The thermal behaviors of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA)-grafted polypropylene (PP) (PP-g-GMA) with two different grafting degrees, namely, GPP1 and GPP2, were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarized optical microscopy (POM), wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and thermogravimetrical analysis (TGA). DSC results suggested that the GMA grafted PP exhibited higher crystallization temperature T_c, higher melting temperature T_m, and higher crystallinity compared with the neat PP. The isothermal crystallization kinetics was analyzed with the Avrami equation and the total crystallization activation energy was calculated. It was concluded that the crystallization processes of PP and the grafted PP were controlled by nucleation and the values of the crystallization activation energy of PP and the grafted PP were almost identical. POM results suggested that the GMA grafted PP exhibited smaller spherulites size compared with the neat PP. WAXD patterns indicated that the neat PP encouraged the formation of γ phase, compared with the grafted PP, during the crystallization process. DMA results showed that melt grafting did not induce a clear effect on the γ-transition and β-transition of the amorphous phase but resulted in a decrease in mobility of the PP chains in the crystals. TGA curves suggested that the melt grafting slightly improved the thermal stability of PP.     

Crystal orientation and melting behavior of poly(ɛ-Caprolactone) under one-dimensionally “hard” confined microenvironment

Crystal orientation and melting behavior of poly(ε-caprolactone) in a diblock copolymer of poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(2,5-bis[4-methoxyphenyl]oxycarbonyl)styrene) (PCL-b-PMPCS) was investigated. The degrees of polymerization of the PCL and PMPCS block are 200 and 98, respectively. With the PMPCS in a columnar liquid crystalline phase, the diblock is rod-coil one, which exhibits a lamellar phase morphology with the PCL layer thickness of 15.2 nm. Since the glass transition temperature of PMPCS block is much higher than the melting temperature of PCL, the crystallization of PCL is in a one-dimensionally "hard" confinement environment. Mainly on the basis of two-dimensional wide-angle X-ray diffraction experiments, we identified the orientation of PCL isothermally crystallized at various crystallization temperatures (Tcs). At high Tcs (Tc≥10℃), the c-axis of the PCL crystal is along the layer normal of the microphase-separated sturcture. Decreasing Tc can result in the tilting of PCL c-axis with respect to the layer normal. The lower the Tc is, the more the c-axis inclines. Meanwhile, the b-axis of PCL remains perpendicular to the layer normal. At a very low Tc of -78℃, the orientation of the PCL crystals is completely random. For the samples isothermally crystallized at Tc≤10℃, double melting behavior can be observed. While the low temperature endotherm reflects the melting of the crystals originally formed at the Tc applied, the high temperature one is associated with the crystals subjected to the process of recrystallization/reorganization upon heating due to the annealing effect.