Application of solvent evaporation technique for pure drug crystal spheres preparation

An innovative application of the solvent evaporation technique was suggested. Solvent evaporation technique is a technique for drug encapsulation and nanosphere preparation. The widely used technique is also facing the problem of low actual drug entrapment percent, which is not economic from the industrial view. The goal of this work is trying to use the advantage of this technique concerning the product sphericity and the ability to control particle size, to prepare a drug as pure crystals spheres. Ibuprofen is selected as a model drug. The spheres are formed by using Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) or Polyethylene glycol (PEG) as an anti-aggregating agent but not formed on using tween or span. Particle size and actual drug content depend on the concentrations the anti-aggregating agent used. Surfaces of the drug crystal spheres are porous with empty sphere internal structure on using PVP but spongy and rough on using PEG. The drug has its identity chemical form in the drug crystal spheres. IR scan of spheres prepared on using PEG showed a characteristic ether peak. DSC showed melting endothermic peak of PEG, but X-ray showed minor change in the drug crystal patterns. Drug release profiles from crystal spheres prepared with the same anti-aggregating agent are close to each other. The drug release profiles from drug crystal spheres prepared by using PEG are more controlled than that prepared by using PVP. The drug release mechanism is diffusion. It was concluded that, the same technique could be suggested for preparation of other biomedical material in pure crystals spheres with controlled particle size. These properties may encourage to prepare very small particles with spherical shape for inhalation or injection as an innovative particle technology application for the widely used technique.     

工作气压对电子束沉积ZrO2薄膜折射率和聚集密度的影响

采用电子束蒸发的方法,用石英晶体振荡法监控薄膜的蒸发速率,在不同工作气压下制备了ZrO2薄膜样品.在相调制型椭圆偏振光谱仪和分光光度计上对样品的光谱特性进行了测试.根据波长漂移的理论,计算出薄膜的聚集密度.结果表明,随着工作气压的降低,薄膜的聚集密度和折射率都随之增大.     

红外光谱技术对广东博罗横岭山商周时期墓地出土古玉器上蜡工艺的揭示及其意义

广东博罗横岭山商周时期墓地是广东省目前所发现的最重要的商周时期墓葬群,该墓地出土的玉器样品通过一系列的科学鉴定研究后发现,玉器的红外光谱在2 960 cm-1(相对较弱)、2 920和2 853 cm-1附近出现了2～3个明显的特征性吸收峰,结合对纯蜡样品、现代上蜡玉器样品的测试比较,认为博罗横岭山墓地出土玉器在加工过程中曾经经过上蜡处理,首次揭示出商周时期岭南先民掌握了在加工中利用蜡来增加玉器美观技术的事实。     

Plasmonic Enhancement of Two-Photon Excited Luminescence of Gold Nanoclusters

Plasmonic-enhanced luminescence of single molecules enables imaging and detection of low quantities of fluorophores, down to individual molecules. In this work, we present two-photon excited luminescence of single gold nanoclusters, Au₁₈(SG)₁₄, in close proximity to bare gold nanorods (AuNRs). We observed 25-times enhanced emission of gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) in near infrared region, which was mainly attributed to the resonant excitation of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of AuNRs and spectral overlap of LSPR band with photoluminescence of AuNCs. This work is an initial step in application of combined nanoparticles: gold nanorods and ultrasmall nanoclusters in a wide range of multiphoton imaging and biosensing applications.     

Time-averaged flow characteristics and mixing properties of double-concentric jets

We examined the flow behaviors and mixing characteristics of double-concentric jets using laser-assisted smoke flow visualization method to analyze typical flow patterns and binary boundary detection technique to investigate jet spread width. Time-averaged velocity vectors, streamline patterns, velocity distributions, turbulence properties, and vorticity contours were analyzed using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). Topological flow patterns were analyzed to interpret the vortical flow structures. Mixing properties were investigated using a tracer-gas concentration detection method. Four characteristic modes were observed: annular flow dominated mode, transition mode, central jet dominated mode-low shear, and central jet dominated mode-high shear. The jets’ mixing properties were enhanced by two major phenomena: the merging of annular flow and central jet at the centerline and the large turbulence fluctuations produced in the flow field. The merging of the jets induced stagnation points on the central axis in the annular flow dominated mode, which caused reverse flow on the central axis and drastic turbulence fluctuations of the near field region. When the central jet penetrated the recirculation region in the other three modes, the stagnation points on the central axis and the reverse flow vanished. Therefore, the mixing behaviors were prominently enhanced in the annular flow dominated mode.     

Influence of solvent on solution processed Cu2ZnSnS4 nanocrystals and annealing induced changes in the optical,structural properties of CZTS film

The well-known quaternary Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) chalcogenide thin films are playing an important role in modern technology. The CZTS nanocrystal were successfully prepared by solution method using water, ethylene glycol and ethylenediamine as different solvent. The pure phase material was used for thin film coating by thermal evaporation method. The prepared CZTS thin films were characterized by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, FESEM, XPS and FT-IR spectroscopy. The XRD and Raman spectroscopy analysis revealed the formation of polycrystalline CZTS thin film with tetragonal crystal structure after annealing at 450 ^°C. The oxidation state of the annealed film was studied by XPS. A direct band gap about 1.36 eV was estimated for the film from FT-IR studies, which is nearly close to the optimum value of band gap energy of CZTS materials for best solar cell efficiency. The CZTS annealed thin films are more suitable for using as a p-type absorber layer in a low-cost solar cell.     

Unitarity and Page Curve for Evaporation of 2D AdS Black Holes

We explore the Hawking evaporation of two-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS2), dilatonic black hole coupled with conformal matter, and derive the Page curve for the entanglement entropy of radiation. We first work in a semiclassical approximation with backreaction. We show that the end-point of the evaporation process is AdS2 with a vanishing dilaton, i.e., a regular, singularity-free, zero-entropy state. We explicitly compute the entanglement entropies of the black hole and the radiation as functions of the horizon radius, using the conformal field theory (CFT) dual to AdS2 gravity. We use a simplified toy model, in which evaporation is described by the forming and growing of a negative mass configuration in the positive-mass black hole interior. This is similar to the “islands” proposal, recently put forward to explain the Page curve for evaporating black holes. The resulting Page curve for AdS2 black holes is in agreement with unitary evolution. The entanglement entropy of the radiation initially grows, closely following a thermal behavior, reaches a maximum at half-way of the evaporation process, and then goes down to zero, following the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of the black hole. Consistency of our simplified model requires a non-trivial identification of the central charge of the CFT describing AdS2 gravity with the number of species of fields describing Hawking radiation.     

Growth of hexagonal quantum dots under preferential evaporation

We perform numerical simulations of hexagonal quantum dots of AlGaN semiconductors. We show that the competition between surface mass diffusion and evaporation rules the morphology of the quantum dots. The system displays three different behaviors: presence of separated islands without a wetting layer, islands dissolving into the wetting layer, or islands that do not evolve. The first behavior is of special interest because its optoelectrical properties are significantly improved in comparison with quantum dots with a wetting layer.     

Organic Nanocrystals Based on a Solid-emission-tunable AIEgen for Cell Imaging

The development of fluorescent nanocrystals based on organic small molecules is of great importance in bioimaging due to the merits of easy modification,high brightness and excellent photostability,however suffering from the emission-detrimental aggregation-caused quenching(ACQ)effect.Herein,we successfully designed and synthesized an AIE-active di(N,N-dimethylaniline)-dibenzofulvene(named as NFTPE),which exhibits the crystallization-induced emission enhancement(CIEE)effect.Interestingly,two types of yellow-and orange-emissive crystals for NFTPE were obtained,exhibiting aggregation microenvironment-dependent emission tuning in the solid state.Single-crystal analysis and density functional theory(DFT)calculations reveal that different aggregation microenvironments result in the distinct molecular conformation for various emission.Excitingly,the crystallization of NFTPE in an aqueous solution under the assistance of amphiphilic PEG polymer matrices could be monitored in situ by the fluorescence changes,facilitating the preparation of NFTPE nanocrystals(NFTPE-NCs)by adjusting the aggregation microenvironment.The obtained NFTPE-NCs exhibit the superior performance in cell imaging in respect to high brightness,photostability,and biocompatibility,thus demonstrating the potential in bioimaging applications.     

荧光淬灭和加强理论公式合理性的热力学分析

通过荧光法在不同温度下研究了3种第三代头孢新药: 盐酸头孢吡肟、头孢匹胺和头孢唑肟钠与人血清白蛋白(HSA)和牛血清白蛋白(BSA)的作用, 分别应用荧光淬灭和荧光加强理论公式计算了它们的结合常数等, 进而分别计算了它们的热力学函数. 因对应于不同的理论公式得出的K_A值并不完全相同, 由此得到它们相应的热力学参数也有所不同. 本文对这些热力学数据的差异进行了分析比较, 结果表明: 基于荧光加强理论公式(4)获得的热力学数据显示更为合理. 因而我们建议, 即使在研究受体-底物的荧光淬灭反应时, 采用荧光加强理论公式(4)可以获得更符合实际的结果.