Chiral Phosphoric Acid Catalyzed Atroposelective C−H Amination of Arenes

N‐arylcarbazole structures are important because of their prevalence in natural products and functional OLED materials. C?H amination of arenes has been widely recognized as the most efficient approach to access these structures. Conventional strategies involving transition‐metal catalysts suffer from confined substrate generality and the requirement of exogenous oxidants. Organocatalytic enantioselective C–N chiral axis construction remains elusive. Presented here is the first organocatalytic strategy for the synthesis of novel axially chiral N‐arylcarbazole frameworks by the assembly of azonaphthalenes and carbazoles. This reaction accommodates broad substrate scope and gives atropisomeric N‐arylcarbazoles in good yields with excellent enantiocontrol. This approach not only offers an alternative to metal‐catalyzed C–N cross‐coupling, but also brings about opportunities for the exploitation of structurally diverse N‐aryl atropisomers and OLED materials.     

Effect of Butyl α-Hydroxymethyl Acrylate Monomer Structure on the Morphology Produced via Aqueous Emulsion Polymerization-induced Self-assembly

Polymerization-induced self-assembly(PISA) is an efficient and versatile method to afford polymeric nano-objects with polymorphic morphologies. Compared to dispersion PISA syntheses based on soluble monomers, the vast majority of emulsion PISA formulations using insoluble monomers leads to kinetically-trapped spheres. Herein, we present aqueous emulsion PISA formulations generating worms and vesicles besides spheres. Two monomers with different butyl groups, n-butyl(n BHMA) and tert-butyl(t BHMA) α-hydroxymethyl acrylate, and thus possessing different water solubilities were synthesized via Baylis-Hillman reaction. Photoinitiated aqueous emulsion polymerizations of n BHMA and t BHMA employing poly(ethylene glycol) macromolecular chain transfer agents(macro-CTAs, PEG45-CTA, and PEG113-CTA) at 40 °C were systematically investigated to evaluate the effect of monomer structure and solubility on the morphology of the generated block copolymer nano-objects. Higher order morphologies including worms and vesicles were readily accessed for t BHMA, which has a higher water solubility than that of n BHMA. This study proves that plasticization of the core-forming block by water plays a key role in enhancing chain mobility required for morphological transition in emulsion PISA.     

Controlled Synthesis of Ni-Doped MoS2 Hybrid Electrode for Synergistically Enhanced Water-Splitting Process

The development of high-efficiency, low-cost, and earth-abundant electrocatalysts for overall water splitting remains a challenge. In this work, Ni-modified MoS₂ hybrid catalysts are grown on carbon cloth (Ni-Mo-S@CC) through a one-step hydrothermal treatment. The optimized Ni-Mo-S@CC catalyst shows excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity with a low overpotential of 168 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm⁻² in 1.0 m KOH, which is lower than those of Ni-Mo-S@CC (1:1), Ni-Mo-S@CC (3:1), and pure MoS₂. Significantly, the Ni-Mo-S@CC hybrid catalyst also displays outstanding oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity with a low overpotential of 320 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm⁻², and remarkable long-term stability for 30 h at a constant current density of 10 mA cm⁻². Experimental results and theoretical analysis based on density functional theory demonstrate that the excellent electrocatalytic performance can be attributed mainly to the remarkable conductivity, abundant active sites, and synergistic effect of the Ni-doped MoS₂. This work sheds light on a unique strategy for the design of high-performance and stable electrocatalysts for water-splitting electrolyzers.     

Efficient Ultraviolet Nanosources Based on Third-Harmonic Generation in Dielectric–Metal Composite Nanodisks

Dielectric materials with high indices have recently attracted much attention in the community of nanophotonics. Severe optical losses in visible–ultraviolet (UV) region, however, limit their applications. This article proposes dielectric–metal nanocomposites as alternative high-index materials for Mie-resonance-based applications. Such composite materials have high indices in the range of wavelength longer than plasmon resonance of inclusion metal nanoparticles, while they have much lower losses in the range from blue-violet down to near-UV compared with commonly used high-index materials such as silicon, enabling near-UV generation with high efficiency based on third-harmonic generation (THG). The numerical results show that ZnO nanodisk containing silver nanoparticles can generate near-UV radiation at 351.3 nm via THG with an efficiency about 20 times higher compared with silicon nanodisk under same pumping condition. Significantly high THG efficiency of 0.015% has been predicted with such a composite nanodisk supported by aluminum substrate under pumping with a peak intensity of 20 GW cm⁻², a spot size of 0.8 $\mu \mathrm{m}$, a duration of 50 fs at 1054 nm, respectively.     

Injectable dual glucose-responsive hydrogel-micelle composite for mimicking physiological basal and prandial insulin delivery

For type 1 and advanced type 2 diabetic patients, insulin replacement therapy with simulating on-demand prandial and basal insulin secretion is the best option for optimal glycemic control. However, there is no insulin delivery system yet could mimic both controlled basal insulin release and rapid prandial insulin release in response to real-time blood glucose changes. Here we reported an artificial insulin delivery system, mimicking physiological basal and prandial insulin secretion, to achieve real-time glycemic control and reduce risk of hypoglycemia. A phenylboronic acid(PBA)/galactosyl-based glucose-responsive insulin delivery system was prepared with insulin-loaded micelles embedded in hydrogel matrix. At the hyperglycemic state, both the hydrogel and micelles could swell and achieve rapid glucose-responsive release of insulin, mimicking prandial insulin secretion.When the glucose level returned to the normal state, only the micelles partially responded to glucose and still released insulin gradually. The hydrogel with increased crosslinking density could slow down the diffusion speed of insulin inside, resulting in controlled release of insulin and simulating physiological basal insulin secretion. This hydrogel-micelle composite insulin delivery system could quickly reduce the blood glucose level in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes, and maintain normal blood glucose level without hypoglycemia for about 24 h. This kind of glucose-responsive hydrogel-micelle composite may be a promising candidate for delivery of insulin in the treatment of diabetes.     

Synthesis and investigation of surface active properties of green glucosyl esters

We here reported on the regioselective biosynthesis of green glucosyl monoesters surfactants which were confirmed by chemical analysis methods using immobilized enzyme catalysis with N-fatty acyl amino acid and D-glucose as substrate. Lipozyme 435 was the most efficient lipase to catalyze the transesterification reaction in t-butanol at 50?°C. The target compounds showed good surface properties. The CMC values of glucosyl esters 15-22 were 4.97, 3.96, 1.87, 0.48?mmol/L, and 4.70, 3.53, 1.58 and 0.42?mmol/L at 25?°C, respectively. It was noteworthy that the micellization physiochemical parameters were calculated and the micellization was exothermic process. Meanwhile, it was entropy driven in the formation of micelles related to the structure of glucosyl esters at different temperature.     

Manipulation of multi-transparency windows and fast-slow light transitions in a hybrid cavity optomechanical system

We study the generation of quadruple-transparency windows and the implementation of a conversion between slow and fast light in a hybrid optomechanical system. By demonstrating the generation of these transparency windows one by one, we analyze the physical mechanism through which each transparency window forms in detail. Additionally, we discuss how the system parameters affect the formation of transparency windows and conclude that the location, width, and absorption of each transparency window can be arbitrarily manipulated by varying the appropriate parameters. Moreover, when the pump field is changed from red to blue detuning, conversions between slow and fast light occur in the output field. These interesting properties of the output field can be applied to achieve the coherent control and manipulation of light pulses using cavity optomechanical system.     

强反馈光纤光栅外腔半导体激光器

在理论上对强外腔反馈情形的半导体激光器线宽压窄效应进行了分析，对消反膜剩余反射率，外腔反射率，外腔腔长对线宽压缩的影响进行了研究，在实验上采用光纤光栅作为反馈元件，与一端镀有消反膜的１．５μｍ波段的常规多纵模交导体激光器耦合，构成强反馈光纤光栅外腔半导体激光器，得到单频窄线宽的激光输出，静态下边模抑制比大于３０ｄＢ，线宽小于１２０ｋＨｚ。     

Interaction between excitons in 3D and 2D laser-excited semiconductors

Analytical expressions of the exciton-exciton interaction in 3D and 2D laser-excited semiconductors are approximately derived in rather easy-to-handle forms which enable us to study in detail their dependences on the exciton momenta, the momentum transferred between two excitons and the electron-hole mass ratio.We would like to thank Prof. Nguyen Van Hieu and Prof. Dao Vong Due for their support given to us in the research of highly excited media.