Large-area alignment of tungsten oxide nanowires over flat and patterned substrates for room-temperature gas sensing.

Alignment of nanowires over a large area of flat and patterned substrates is a prerequisite to use their collective properties in devices such as gas sensors. In this work, uniform single-crystalline ultrathin W18 O49 nanowires with diameters less than 2 nm and aspect ratios larger than 100 have been synthesized, and, despite their flexibility, assembled into thin films with high orientational order over a macroscopic area by the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. Alignment of the tungsten oxide nanowires was also possible on top of sensor substrates equipped with electrodes. Such sensor devices were found to exhibit outstanding sensitivity to H2 at room temperature.

A microfluidics cytometer for mice anemia detection.

The design and fabrication of a microfluidic cytometer system and its application for reticulocyte detection are described. This chip can count the target cells, which are focused at the detection window without sheath flow. This cytometer system based on optimized epifluoresence has a competitive advantage in the signal-to-noise ratio. Induced fluorescence from the reticulocyte binded with antibody is detected by the optical module and then transformed into the electronic signal by a photo multiplier tube. After signal processing, the results are automatically read out by a digital module and displayed on the system. To evaluate this microfluidic cytometer system, experiments employing polystyrene (PS) micro beads and induced reticulocyte of mice anemia are carried out, respectively, and the results illustrate that the microfluidic cytometer system is effective in detecting the reticulocyte.