A Hybrid Strategy-Based Ultra-Narrow Stretchable Microelectrodes with Cell-Level Resolution

Stretchable ultra-narrow (e.g., 10 µm in width) microelectrodes are crucial for the electrophysiological monitoring of single cells providing the fundamental understanding to the working mechanism of neuro network or other electrically functional cells. Current fabrication strategies either focus on the preparation of normal stretchable electrodes with hundreds of micrometers or millimeters in width by using inorganic conductive materials or develop conductive organic polymer gel for ultra-narrow electrodes which suffer from low stretchability and instability for long-term implantation, therefore, it is still highly desirable to explore bio-interfacial ultra-narrow stretchable inorganic electrodes. Herein, a hybrid strategy is reported to prepare ultra-narrow multi-channel stretchable microelectrodes without using photolithography or laser-assisting etching. A 10 µm × 10 µm monitoring window is fabricated with enhanced interfacial impedance by the special rough surface. The stretchability achieves to 120% for this 10 µm-width stretchable electrode. Supported by these superior properties, it is demonstrated that the stretchable microelectrodes can detect electrophysiological signals of single cells in vitro and collect electrophysiological signals more precisely in vivo. The reported strategy will open up the accessible preparation of the fine-size stretchable microelectrode. It will significantly improve the resolution of monitoring and stimulation of inorganic stretchable electrodes.     

Direct Freeform Laser Fabrication of 3D Conformable Electronics

3D conformable electronic devices on freeform surfaces show superior performance to the conventional, planar ones. They represent a trend of future electronics and have witnessed exponential growth in various applications. However, their potential is largely limited by a lack of sophisticated fabrication techniques. To tackle this challenge, a new direct freeform laser (DFL) fabrication method enabled by a 5-axis laser processing platform for directly fabricating 3D conformable electronics on targeted arbitrary surfaces is reported. Accordingly, representative laser-induced graphene (LIG), metals, and metal oxides are successfully fabricated as high-performance sensing and electrode materials from different material precursors on various types of substrates for applications in temperature/light/gas sensing, energy storage, and printed circuit board for circuit. Last but not the least, to demonstrate an application in smart homes, LIG-based conformable strain sensors are fabricated and distributed in designated locations of an artificial tree. The distributed sensors have the capability of monitoring the wind speed and direction with the assistance of well-trained machine-learning models. This novel process will pave a new and general route to fabricating 3D conformable electronic devices, thus creating new opportunities in robotics, biomedical sensing, structural health, environmental monitoring, and Internet of Things applications.     

基于铌酸锂薄膜的Y波导集成调制器设计

近年来,基于薄膜铌酸锂（TFLN）平台的高性能电光调制器以其小体积、低能量损耗等特点受到广泛关注。本文提出了一种新的具有垂直电极结构的Y波导铌酸锂薄膜电光调制器。研究了调制器的半波电压与缓冲层厚度之间的关系,优化了Y波导的设计参数,最后设计得到插入损耗<5 dB, 半波电压<1.5 V的高性能调制器。本文不仅为基于TFLN平台的小型化波导的设计和实现提供了思路,而且为制造高性能和多功能的电光调制器提供了实验依据。     

An improved U-Net for cell confluence estimation

Cell confluence is an important metric to determine the growth and the best harvest time of adherent cells. At present, the evaluation of cell confluence mainly relies on experienced labor, and thus it is not conducive to the automated cell culture. In this paper, we proposed an improved U-Net algorithm (called DU-Net) for the segmentation of adherent cells. First, the general convolution was replaced by the dilated convolution to expand the receptive fields for feature extraction. Then, the convolutional layers were combined with the batch normalization layers to reduce the dependence of the network on initialization. As a result, the segmentation accuracy and F1-score of the proposed DU-Net for adherent cells with low confluence (<50%) reached 96.94% and 93.87%, respectively, and for those with high confluence (≥50%), they reached 98.63% and 98.98%, respectively. Further, the paired t-test results showed that the proposed DU-Net was statistically superior to the traditional U-Net algorithm.     

双脉冲激光诱导铝等离子体的双波长干涉诊断

双脉冲激光诱导等离子体在激光加工、元素检测、材料去除等领域有广阔的应用前景和发展空间,对其进行诊断具有重要意义。针对延迟双脉冲激光诱导铝等离子体的作用效果和影响机理,采用双波长干涉法对其时间演化规律展开研究。基于马赫-曾德尔干涉仪搭建了双波长干涉诊断系统,得到了双脉冲激光诱导等离子体干涉图。通过对干涉图的处理和分析,得到了等离子体电子密度随双脉冲激光延迟时间的变化规律。结果表明,随着双脉冲激光延迟时间的增加,第二束脉冲激光对等离子体电子密度的增强效果先加强后减弱。其中,双脉冲激光延迟时间为10 ns时,对等离子体电子密度的增强效果最强,在30 ns时刻,其中心区域平均电子密度可达6.49×1019 cm?3,相较于同等能量单脉冲激光诱导等离子体提升了26%。同时研究了延迟时间对第二束脉冲激光作用机制的影响。研究结果为双脉冲激光诱导等离子体的优化方向提供了参考。     

HIGHLY SENSITIVE SPECTROPHOTOMETRY OF NIOBIUM

In pH2.0-3.0,niobium(V)forms molybdonlobic acid with sodiummolybdate.A spectrophotometric method has been developed for the deter-mination of niobium based on the formation of ion-associate compound ofmolybdoniobate with Butyl Rhodamine B in aqueous solution in the presenceof polyvinyl alcohol and 0.4-0.7 mol/L H_2SO_4.The maximum absorption ofion-associate compound exhioits at 85 nm and the molar absorptivity is7.5×1.0~5 L.mol~(-1).cm~(-1)for niobium.The new method has been applied tothe determination of microamounts niobium in silicate rock,when niobiumcontent is at the level of 8×10~(-3)%,with the relative standard deviationof about 3%.     

Novel structure-defined chiral bis(oxazolinyl)thiophenes for Ru-catalyzed asymmetric cyclopropanation

The novel structures of sulfur-containing chiral bis(oxazoline) compounds which have been synthesized have been determined by X-ray crystal diffraction analyses. A high enantioselectivity (ee >99%) in the asymmetric cyclopropanation of diphenylethene with diazoester using the bis(oxazoline)-Ru(II) catalyst was obtained.     

A novel and efficient ionic liquid supported synthesis of oligosaccharides

A novel and efficient ionic liquid supported synthesis of oligosaccharides with a general protocol of coupling and purification is described. The method represents an attractive alternative to the classical solid- and fluorous-phase synthesis strategies and combines the advantage of performing homogeneous chemistry on a relatively large scale while avoiding large excesses of reagents.