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Valentine Frost posted an update 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Alkylthio groups can be used to modulate energy levels and molecular packing of organic semiconductors, which makes it important in the design of materials for organic solar cell. However, its effect has not been sufficiently exploited as most of the studies report introducing an alkylthio group to the donor unit and seldom to the acceptor unit of donor-acceptor conjugated polymers. In this report, two alkylthio-substituted polymers, namely, PBB-TSA and PBB-TSD, with benzo[1,2-d4,5-d’]bis(thiazole) (BBT) as the acceptor unit and benzo[1,2-b4,5-b’]dithiophene (BDT) as the donor unit, were rationally designed, synthesized, and applied in organic photovoltaics. An alkylthio side chain was substituted on the BBT-accepting unit for PBB-TSA, while for PBB-TSD, the alkylthio side chain was substituted on the BDT donor unit. PBB-TSA and PBB-TSD show upshifted and downshifted energy levels, respectively, compared to the nonsulfur-substituted material. Both polymers exhibit dominate face-on orientation, while PBB-TSD exhibits higher crystallinity compared to PBB-TSA. With the contribution of lower energy level and beneficial film morphology, the device based on PBB-TSD/IT-4F has much higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.6%, whereas the PBB-TSA blend had a lower PCE of 10.7%. 1,8-Diiodooctane can effectively optimize the blend film morphology, and the effect on device performance has also been demonstrated in detail. This result indicates that introducing an alkylthio side chain into the donor or acceptor moieties would result in materials with different energy levels and thus would be utilized to match with various acceptors, achieving optimized performance in organic solar cells.Hydrogels have excellent biocompatibility, transparency, stretchability, and ionic conductivity, but their fabrication through photopolymerization-based 3D printing is limited due to the low solubility of hydrophobic photoinitiators and lack of efficient hydrophilic photoinitiators. Herein, a type of microemulsion is synthesized and the common hydrophobic photoinitiator can be adopted and finally, a series of transparent hydrogels with high strength (up to 22.9 MPa), elasticity (up to 583%), and ionic conductivity (up to 9.64 S m-1) are fabricated through digital light processing 3D printing technology. learn more Objects with complex structures and a high printing resolution are printed. Hydrogels with both high strength and high ionic conductivity are obtained through chemical crosslinking and ion coordination effect. Dual-material 3D printing is applied to package the hydrogel with elastomers. Due to the high sensitivity and reliability under both stretching and compressive deformation, the hydrogel sensors are applied to monitor various human motions. In addition, the hydrogel exhibits solvent-induced dehydration and excellent water-activated shape memory properties, which are greatly beneficial for its storage and applications in the biomedical field.Carrier mobility and density are intrinsically important in nanophoto/electronic devices. High-dielectric-constant coupled polarization-field gate ferroelectrics are frequently studied and partially capable in achieving large-scale tuning of photoresponse, but their light absorption and carrier density seem generally ineffective. This raises questions about whether a similarly high-dielectric-constant paraelectric gate dielectric could enable tuning and how the principles involved could be established. In this study, by deliberately introducing lattice defects in high-dielectric-constant paraelectric, cubic BaTiO3 (c-BTO) was explored to fabricate MoS2 photodetectors with ultrahigh detection ability and outstanding field-effect traits. An organic-metal-based spin-coating cum annealing method was used for the c-BTO synthesis, with an optimized thickness (300 nm), by introducing lattice defects properly but maintaining a large dielectric constant (55 at 1k Hz) and low dielectric loss (0.06 at 1k Hz), which renders the enhanced visible-light region absorption. As a result of the synergistically enhanced mobility and photoabsorption, the MoS2/BTO FET exhibits promising merits, for example, on/off ratio, subthreshold swing, and mobilities for high-performance photodetectors with excellent responsivity (600 AW-1) and detectivity (1.25 × 1012 Jones). Thus, this work facilitates the establishment of a lattice defect induced sub-bandgap absorption landmap for synergistically enhanced photoresponse for high-performance photodetector exploration.Responsive polymers, which become protonated at decreasing pH, are considered a milestone in the development of synthetic cell entry vectors. Exact correlations between their properties and their ability to escape the endosome, however, often remain elusive due to hydrophobic interactions or limitations in the design of water-soluble materials with suitable basicity. Here, we present a series of well-defined, hydrophilic polypiperazines, where systematic variation of the amino moiety facilitates an unprecedented fine-tuning of the basicity or pKa value within the physiologically relevant range (pH 6-7.4). Coincubation of HEK 293T cells with various probes, including small fluorophores or functioning proteins, revealed a rapid increase of endosomal release for polymers with pKa values above 6.5 or 7 in serum-free or serum-containing media, respectively. Similarly, cytotoxic effects became severe at increased pKa values (>7). Although the window for effective transport appears narrow, the discovered correlations offer a principal guideline for the design of effective polymers for endosomal escape.Neurometabolites are the ultimate gene products in the brain and the most precise biomolecular indicators of brain endophenotypes. Metabolomics is the only “omics” that provides a moment-to-moment “snapshot” of brain circuits’ biochemical activities in response to external stimuli within the context of specific genetic variations. Although the expression levels of neurometabolites are highly dynamic, the underlying metabolic processes are tightly regulated during brain development, maturation, and aging. Therefore, this study aimed to identify mouse brain metabolic profiles in neonatal and adult stages and reconstruct both the active metabolic network and the metabolic pathway functioning. Using high-throughput metabolomics and bioinformatics analyses, we show that the neonatal mouse brain has its distinct metabolomic signature, which differs from the adult brain. Furthermore, lipid metabolites showed the most profound changes between the neonatal and adult brain, with some lipid species reaching 1000-fold changes.