Influence of polyelectrolyte coating conditions on capillary coating stability and separation efficiency in capillary electrophoresis

Polyelectrolytes are widely used in capillary electrophoresis as coating agents of silica capillaries to prevent adsorption phenomena and improve the repeatability of peptide and protein analysis. A systematic study of the coating experimental conditions has been carried out to optimize coating stability and performance. The main experimental parameters studied were the type and concentration of polyelectrolytes used in several monolayer and multilayer coatings, the ionic strength of coating and stabilizing solutions, and the procedures used for coating and capillary storage. Electroosmotic flow magnitude, direction and repeatability were used to monitor coating stability. Coating ability to limit adsorption was investigated by monitoring variations of migration times, time-corrected peak areas and separation efficiency of test peptides. Capillary-to-capillary and batch-to-batch reproducibility was also studied. In addition, the separation performance of polyelectrolyte coatings were compared to those obtained with bare silica capillaries.     

Influence of assembling pH on the stability of poly(L-glutamic acid) and poly(L-lysine) multilayers against urea treatment

Polyelectrolyte multilayers of poly(L-glutamic acid) (PGA) and poly(L-lysine) (PLL) were built up using the layer-by-layer (LbL) technique in low pH (3.6, PM3.6) and in neutral pH (7.4, PM7.4) solutions. The multilayers were then treated with a concentrated urea (one kind of denaturant for proteins and polypeptides) solution (8M) and rinsed with corresponding buffer. The buildup and treatment processes were investigated by ultraviolet visible spectroscopy and ellipsometry. The surface morphology was observed by scanning force microscopy (SFM). The inner structures were determined by X-ray reflectometry and circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD). An exponential growth of the optical mass and the layer thickness was observed for both PM3.6 and PM7.4. After urea treatment, a significant mass loss for PM3.6 was found, while no mass change was recorded for PM7.4. The dominant driving force for PM7.4 is electrostatic interaction, resulting in multilayers with an abundant beta-sheet structure, which has higher stability against urea treatment. By contrast, the dominant driving force for PM3.6 is hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction, which are sensitive to the urea treatment. The mechanism is substantiated by molecular mechanics calculation. This has offered a convenient pathway to mediate the multilayer properties, which is of great importance for potential applications.     

基于毫米波辐射特性的水面植被检测方法

针对采用3mm波段辐射计对水面植被辐射特性进行检测的问题,在研究分析了水面的亮度温度和水面植被的介电特性的基础上,采用相干法建立了水面植被辐射特性的多层介质模型,与3层介质模型相比,仿真结果与实验数据更加吻合,表明多层介质模型能更精确地模拟水面植被的辐射特性。通过实验得出,在不同的入射角下,水面植被亮温相比水面亮温均有上升,说明水面相比植被具有亮温低、冷目标的毫米波辐射特征,可利用毫米波辐射特性监测区域内水面植被。     

Comparative study on the interaction of DNA with three different kinds of surfactants and the formation of multilayer films

The interactions between double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) and three different kinds of surfactants, i.e., cationic, anionic, and nonionic surfactants, were investigated by cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and UV-vis spectroscopy. Multilayer films composed of DNA and surfactants were prepared at gold electrode by electrostatic or hydrophobic interactions. It was found that the cationic surfactant, CTAB, can bind to DNA by electrostatic interaction, and the electron transfer resistance of CTAB-DNA complex film increases first and then decreases with CTAB concentration. The anionic surfactant, LAS, can bind to DNA but by hydrophobic interaction, and the electron transfer resistance of the complex film keeps decreasing with LAS concentration. Nonionic surfactants can also directly bind to DNA by hydrophobic interaction. All the three different kinds of surfactants can form multilayer films with DNA on the electrode surface. The chemical structure of DNA keeps unchanged during interacting with these surfactants. The binding modes of DNA with these three different kinds of surfactants were also deduced.     

Effect of surface hydrogenation on the topological properties of multilayer graphene

We have investigated effects of surface hydrogenation on the topological properties of multilayer graphene by using density functional theory calculations and a tight-binding model. Hydrogen adsorption on a dimer site of a surface layer decouples the surface layer from the rest of the layers. Hydrogen adsorption on a nondimer site introduces a band mixing between the hydrogenated graphene and the rest of the graphene layers. The valley Hall effects and spin-valley-resolved Chern numbers of multilayer graphene, calculated as a function of the sublattice potential and the potential perpendicular to the layers, was found to be sensitive to details of inversion symmetry-breaking potentials. While the topological invariant depends on the adsorption site and spin polarization, surface-hydrogenated M-layer graphene was found to be topologically equivalent to (M-1)-layer graphene under inversion symmetry-breaking potentials regardless of the adsorption site.     

Ordered conducting polymer multilayer films and its application for hole injection layers in organic light-emitting devices

We reported a controlled architecture growth of layer-ordered multilayer film of poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) (PEDOT) via a modified Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) method. An in situ polymerization of 3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene (EDOT) monomer in multilayer LB film occurred for the formation of ordered conducting polymer embedded multilayer film. The well-distribution of conducting polymer particles was characterized by secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). The conducting film consisting of ordered PEDOT ultrathin layers was investigated as a hole injection layer for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The results showed that, compared to conventional spin-coating PEDOT film and electrostatic self-assembly (ESA) film, the improved performance of OLEDs was obtained after using ordered PEDOT LB film as hole injection layer. It also indicated that well-ordered structure of hole injection layer was attributed to the improvement of OLED performance, leading to the increase of charged carrier mobility in hole injection layer and the recombination rate of electrons and holes in the electroluminescent layer.     

Stacking of multilayer InAs quantum dots with combination capping of InAlGaAs and high temperature grown GaAs

We are reporting the growth of multilayer stacks of quantum dots (10 periods) with a combination capping of In_0.21Al_0.21Ga_0.58As (30 Å) and GaAs (70–180 Å) grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) has been used for the insitu monitoring of quantum dot (QD) formation in heterostructure samples. The samples were also characterized by other exsitu techniques like cross sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM) and photoluminescence measurements (PL). For a heterostructure sample with thin barrier thickness (<100 Å), an XTEM image showed the stacking of QDs only up to the 5th layer and in the upper layers there was hardly any formation of dots. We presume the stoppage of dot formation is due to the uneven surface of the InAlGaAs alloy overgrown on the InAs QDs, as a result of the local compositional deviations of the Group-III atoms. Samples grown with thicker barriers (>100 Å of GaAs) showed good stacking of islands until the tenth layer. The thick GaAs layer overgrown on the InAlGaAs at 590 ^°C is believed to remove the surface modifications of the quaternary layer thereby creating a smoother surface front for the growth of subsequent QD layers.     

Research on Raman-scattering and Fabrication of Multilayer Thin Film with Different Structures and Components Based on Pt/Ti/Si3N4/SiO2/Si Substrate

选用三水醋酸铅、乙酰基丙酮酸锆、四异丙氧基钛、乙酰丙酮作初始材料,用同样的方法分别制备了锆钛酸铅(PZT)和钛酸铅(PT)两种固体前驱物. 采用改良型的溶胶-凝胶工艺技术,分别在不同的Pt-Ti-Si₃N₄-SiO₂-Si基底上,按照不同的组合方式,制备了三种多层薄膜：PZT、PT/PZT-PZT/PT、PT/PZT/-/PZT/PT. 较详细地讨论了薄膜制备的工艺技术,发现当凝胶通过烧结和干燥后变成固态物质时,薄膜内部存在着较大的残余应力,当薄膜在600 ºC下退火时其内部残余应力可以被减小. 通过拉曼     

Fibrinogen adsorption onto 316L stainless steel, Nitinol and titanium

Fibrinogen adsorption onto mechanically polished biomedical grade 316L stainless steel (316LSS), nickel titanium alloy (Nitinol) and commercially pure titanium (CpTi) surfaces were studied by measurements of adsorption isotherms and adsorption kinetics using an ex-situ wavelength dispersive spectroscopy technique (WDS). Surface composition, roughness and wettability of these materials were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and water contact angle (WCA) measurements. Adsorption isotherm results showed that surface protein concentration on these materials increased with increasing concentration of fibrinogen in phosphate buffer solution. The fibrinogen adsorption isotherms were modeled by both the monolayer Langmuir isotherm and the multilayer Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) isotherm. The results strongly suggest that fibrinogen forms multilayer structures on these materials when the concentration in solution is high. Complementary measurements on the absorbed fibrinogen films by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) support this view.     

Biodegradation of three-layer laminate films based on gelatin under indoor soil conditions

Three-layer gelatin films, composed of sodium montmorillonite (MMt) - plasticized gelatin (Ge-5MMt) (inner layer) and dialdehyde starch (DAS) - cross-linked and plasticized gelatin films (Ge-10DAS) (outer layers), obtained by heat-compression molding, were submitted to degradation under indoor soil burial conditions for 14 days. Biodegradation of multilayer film as well as individual components and control gelatin films was evaluated by monitoring water absorption and weight loss. It was established that technological treatments performed on gelatin, such as cross-linking, compounding with clay and heat-compression molding have a major impact on the biodegradation rate and extent. The possible reasons are discussed. Weight loss results revealed that the susceptibility to microbial attack during soil burial varied in the order: Ge-10DAS < multilayer < Ge-5MMt < gelatin control film. The intermediate behaviour of the multilayer was associated with the presence of hydrogen-bonding interactions between layers, induced by processing. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the multilayer was preferentially biodegraded by filamentous microorganisms and even larvae in the later stages of the process. The presence of holes and pits on the multilayer surface was more likely attributed to the preferential removal of glycerol and DAS as shown by thermogravimetric analysis.