Photochemical Bleaching of an Elaborate Artificial Light‐Harvesting Antenna

The target artificial light‐harvesting antenna, comprising 21 discrete chromophores arranged in a logical order, undergoes photochemical bleaching when dispersed in a thin plastic film. The lowest‐energy component, which has an absorption maximum at 660 nm, bleaches through first‐order kinetics at a relatively fast rate. The other components bleach more slowly, in part, because their excited‐state lifetimes are rendered relatively short by virtue of fast intramolecular electronic energy transfer to the terminal acceptor. Two of the dyes, these being close to the terminal acceptor but interconnected through a reversible energy‐transfer step, bleach by way of an autocatalytic step. Loss of the terminal acceptor, thereby switching off the energy‐transfer route, escalates the rate of bleaching of these ancillary dyes. The opposite terminal, formed by a series of eight pyrene‐based chromophores, does not bleach to any significant degree. Confirmation of the various bleaching steps is obtained by examination of an antenna lacking the terminal acceptor, where the autocatalytic route does not exist and bleaching is very slow.     

光漂白聚合物波导折射率轮廓的确定

通过实验发现了光漂白聚合物薄膜厚度随光照时间按指数衰减的规律收缩,在此基础上,利用ｍ线法和精确的转移矩阵理论,由数值拟合得到的聚合物波导的折射率轮廓为费米函数。     

Enhanced photopolymerization of dimethacrylates with ketones,amines, and iodonium salts: The CQ system

The kinetics and mechanism of the photopolymerization of dimethacrylates using three‐component initiation systems consisting of camphorquinone (CQ), diphenyliodonium hexafluorophosphate (Ph₂IPF₆), and either N,N,3,5‐tetramethylaniline (TMA) or N,N‐dimethylbenzylamine or triethylamine were studied by photo‐DSC and UV‐visible spectroscopy. The effect of monomer structure on the curing kinetics and photobleaching were also investigated. Photo‐DSC studies showed fivefold increases in polymerization rate when all three components were present and the kinetics followed the trend: CQ/amine/Ph₂IPF₆ ? CQ/amine > CQ/Ph₂IPF_6.. For both CQ/amine/Ph₂IPF₆ and CQ/amine systems, the CQ was rapidly photobleached during the photo‐DSC timescale but for the systems without amine there was an induction stage before CQ photobleaching was evident. Studies of the effect of monomer type on the photobleaching rate show that the photobleaching behavior was independent of monomer structure. Three photoinitiation mechanisms have been proposed. The reaction mechanism of the CQ/amine/Ph₂IPF₆ system involves the reduction of the excited CQ molecule by the amine to form ketyl and aminoalkyl radicals, followed by the irreversible oxidation of the amine, and to a lesser extent, the ketyl radical by the iodonium salt, to form an initiating radical. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2011     

Controlling The Mobility Of Oligonucleotides In The Nanochannels Of Mesoporous Silica

Oligonucleotides used in gene therapy and silencing are fragile compounds that degrade easily in biological environments. Porous biocompatible carrier particles may provide a useful strategy to deliver these therapeutics to their target sites. Development of appropriate delivery vehicles, however, requires a better understanding of the oligonucleotide‐host interactions and the oligonucleotide dynamics inside carrier particles. We investigated template‐free SBA‐15 type mesoporous silica particles and report their loading characteristics with siRNA depending on the surface functionalization of their porous network. We show that the siRNA uptake capability of the particles can be controlled by the composition of the functional groups. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching measurements revealed size‐dependent mobility of siRNA and double‐stranded DNA oligonucleotides within the functionalized silica particles and provided evidence for the stability of the oligonucleotides inside the pores. Hence, our study demonstrates the potential of mesoporous silica particles as a means for alternative gene delivery in nanomedicine.     

Indirect Flow-Injection Analysis of Ascorbic Acid by Photochemical Reduction of Methylene Blue

Abstract

Ascorbic acid was determined indirectly by spectrophotometry at 666 nm based on the photochemical reduction of methylene blue using flow-injection analysis. The carrier stream was 12.7 μgml^?1 methylene blue in phthalate-HCl buffer solution at pH 3.2. The reactor was irradiated with a 500-Watt halogen lamp to facilitate the development of the photochemical reaction. The system allows determination of ascorbic acid in the range 0.18–6.12 μgml^?1 with relative standard deviations of 2.09 and 0.31% for 1.97 and 4.92 μgml^?1 samples, respectively, and a sampling frequency of 50–55 h^?1. The proposed method was applied successfully to the determination of ascorbic acid in vitamin C tablets.     

Molecular Composition of Sub-stoichiometrically Labeled α-Synuclein Oligomers Determined by Single-Molecule Photobleaching

Bleaching proteins: Single-molecule photobleaching approaches and sub-stoichiometric labeling with fluorophores give insight into the number of monomers that form a specific α-synuclein oligomer. The results show that this α-synuclein oligomer is present as a single, well-defined species consisting of 31 monomers.     

Photodegradation of Luminescence in SiO2 : Rh B Gels Exposed to YAG : Nd Laser Pulses

Silicate gels doped with organic dyes have been proposed as solid-state tunable lasers. Photobleaching of the dye under laser excitation is an important phenomenon in this application. The optical absorption and luminescence of SiO2 silica gels doped with Rhodamine B exposed to the second harmonic pulses of a YAG : Nd laser have been studied. In addition to the characteristic exponential decay with the number of pulses, overlapping oscillations in the intensity were observed. This behavior is explained in terms of a long lived metastable electronic excited state of the dye molecules.     

基于DVD光头的双光子光致漂白三维光存储

基于现有的DVD光头物镜与音圈电机，根据光致漂白的双光子吸收气维光信息存储原理，以钛蓝宝石飞秒脉冲激光进行双光子光信息写入和读出，利用音圈电机进行选层，在新型光致漂白材料二苯乙烯衍生物中进行光致漂白二进制编码信息的存储和读出实验研究；实现了三层光信息存储，信息点间距和信息层间距分别为4μm和15μm；用Matlab软件读出信息的信号强度并对其进行了识别，识别结果与写入的二进制编码信息完全一致。实验证明了用DVD光头进行双光子三维光数据存储的可行性，表明双光子吸收光致漂白技术可以与现有CD／DVD兼容，为实现多层高密度和超高密度光信息存储打下基础。     

Visualization of lipid-receptor interactions on single cells by time-resolved imaging fluorescence microscopy

The physical interaction between plasma-membrane lipids and the epidermal growth factor (EGF)-receptor was investigated on single A431 human epidermoid carcinoma cells by monitoring fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between exogeneously added fluorescein-EGF (donor) and 2-(4,4-difluoro-5,7-dimethyl-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene-3-pentanoyl)-1-hexadecanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (Bodipy-PC, acceptor) using donor-photobleaching FRET-microscopy. The measured mean FRET-efficiency of 13% is indicative of such a physical interaction and exemplifies the great potential and sensitivity of time-resolved imaging fluorescence microscopy techniques for the study of lipid-receptor interactions on single cells.     

Enhancing Fluorescence Brightness: Effect of Reverse Intersystem Crossing Studied by Fluorescence Fluctuation Spectroscopy

Experiments based on fluorescence detection are limited by the population of the fluorescence marker’s long‐lived dark triplet state, leading to pronounced photobleaching reactions and blinking which reduces the average fluorescence signal obtained per time interval. By irradiation with a second, red‐shifted laser line, we initiate reverse intersystem crossing (ReISC) which enhances the fluorescence signal of common fluorophores up to a factor of 14. The reverse intersystem crossing from the triplet state back to the singlet system is achieved by photoexcitation to higher‐excited triplet states, which are, however, prone to photobleaching. We gain insights into the competing pathways of ReISC and photobleaching. The relative efficiencies of these two pathways and the triplet lifetime determine the achievable fluorescence enhancement, which varies strongly with the choice of dye, excitation irradiance and wavelength, and with environmental conditions. The study of ReISC not only results in a better understanding of a fluorescent label’s photophysics, but the method is a possible approach to optimize fluorescence emission in experiments, where signal strength is a critical parameter.