Soft, adhesive and conductive composite for electroencephalogram signal quality improvement.

Since electroencephalogram (EEG) is a very small electrical signal from the brain, it is very vulnerable to external noise or motion artifact, making it difficult to measure. Therefore, despite the excellent convenience of dry electrodes, wet electrodes have been used. To solve this problem, self-adhesive and conductive composites using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in adhesive polydimethylsiloxane (aPDMS), which can have the advantages of both dry and wet electrodes, have been developed by mixing them uniformly with methyl group-terminated PDMS. The CNT/aPDMS composite has a low Young's modulus, penetrates the skin well, has a high contact area, and excellent adhesion and conductivity, so the signal quality is enhanced. As a result of the EEG measurement test, although it was a dry electrode, results comparable to those of a wet electrode were obtained in terms of impedance and motion noise. It also shows excellent biocompatibility in a human fibroblast cell test and a week-long skin reaction test, so it can measure EEG with high signal quality for a long period of time.

Isolation of Bovine Milk Exosome Using Electrophoretic Oscillation Assisted Tangential Flow Filtration with Antifouling of Micro-ultrafiltration Membrane Filters.

Tangent flow-driven ultrafiltration (TF-UF) is an efficient isolation process of milk exosomes without morphological deformation. However, the TF-UF approach with micro-ultrafiltration SiNx membrane filters suffers from the clogging and fouling of micro-ultrafiltration membrane filter pores with large bioparticles. Thus, it is limited in the long term, continuous isolation of large quantities of exosomes. In this work, we introduced electrophoretic oscillation (EPO) in the TF-UF approach to remove pore clogging and fouling of with micro-ultrafiltration SiNx membrane filters by large bioparticles. As a result, the combined EPO-assisted TF (EPOTF) filtration can isolate large quantities of bovine milk exosomes without deformation. Furthermore, several morphological and biological analyses confirmed that the EPOTF filtration approach could isolate the milk exosomes in high concentrations with high purity and intact morphology. In addition, the uptake test of fluorescent-labeled exosomes by the keratinocyte cells visualized the biological function of purified exosomes. Hence, compared to the TF-UF process, the EPOTF filtration produced a higher yield of bovine milk exosomes without stopping the filtering process for over 200 h. Therefore, this isolation process enables scalable and continuous production of morphologically intact exosomes from bovine milk, suggesting that high-quality exosome purification is possible for future applications such as drug nanocarriers, diagnosis, and treatments.

Passivation and Interlayer Effect of Zr(i-PrO)4 on Green CuGaS2/ZnS/Zr(i-PrO)4@Al2O3 and Red CuInS2/ZnS/Zr(i-PrO)4@Al2O3 QD Hybrid Powders.

Broadband emissive I-III-VI quantum dots (QDs) are synthesized as efficient and stable I-III-VI QDs to be used as eco-friendly luminescent materials in various applications. Here, we introduce the additional passivation of zirconium isopropoxide (Zr(i-PrO)4) to improve the optical properties and environmental stability of green-emitting CuGaS2/ZnS (G-CGS/ZnS) and red-emitting CuInS2/ZnS (R-CIS/ZnS) QDs. The photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of both resultant Zr(i-PrO)4-coated G-CGS/ZnS and R-CIS/ZnS QDs reaches similar values of ~ 95%. In addition, the photostability and thermal-stability of G-CGS/ZnS/Zr(i-PrO)4 and R-CIS/ZnS/Zr(i-PrO)4 QDs are improved by reducing the ligand loss via encapsulation of the ligand-coated QD surface with Zr(i-PrO)4. It is also proved that the Zr(i-PrO)4-passivated interlayer mitigates the further degradation of I-III-V QDs from ligand loss even under harsh conditions during additional hydrolysis reaction of aluminum tri-sec-butoxide (Al(sec-BuO)3), forming easy-to-handle G-CGS/ZnS and R-CIS/ZnS QD-embedded Al2O3 powders. Therefore, the introduction of a Zr(i-PrO)4 complex layer potentially provides a strong interlayer to mitigate degradation of I-III-VI QD-embedded Al2O3 hybrid powders as well as passivation layer for protecting I-III-VI QD.

Synthesis of Cs3MnBr5 Green Phosphors Using an Eco-Friendly Evaporative Crystallization Process.

Green (G) and red (R) light-emitting materials, such as quantum dots, perovskite nanocrystals, and inorganic phosphor powders, owing to their excellent optical characteristics, have attracted researchers' attention as color-conversion materials for lighting and display applications. However, these materials contain environmentally harmful elements, such as Pb or Cd, and/or they are synthesized using environmentally harmful synthetic approaches and conditions, involving the use of organic solvents, high pressure, high temperature, harsh atmosphere, and long reaction time. In this study, as an eco-friendly synthetic approach to synthesize lead-free Cs3MnBr5 G powder phosphor, we suggest an evaporative crystallization process of aqueous reactant solution. This synthetic process does not use toxic elements or solvents and the crystallization process utilizes only low reaction temperature and short reaction time under air atmosphere conditions. We successfully synthesized Cs3MnBr5 green powder phosphor, with excellent optical properties, by evaporative heating of a 200 nm syringe-filtered solution at 150 °C for 2 h. The synthesized Cs3MnBr5 phosphors have a photoluminescence quantum yield of 66.3%, a peak wavelength of 520 nm, a narrow bandwidth of 38 nm, and a photoluminescence decay time of 0.34 ms under blue excitation. This phosphor is expected to be a useful alternative G-emitting material that can compete with commercial green quantum dots, perovskite nanocrystals, or inorganic phosphors.

Diphylleia grayi-Inspired Intelligent Hydrochromic Adhesive Film.

Diphylleia grayi-inspired hydrochromic nano/microstructured films have received much attention for its promising smart hydrochromic applications owing to their simple and low-cost but energy-effective strategy. A new type of water-switchable glazing film patterned with various nano/micro air-hole inverse opal arrays is introduced by selectively removing nano/microsphere polystyrene arrays embedded in the surface of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films. Using the significant contrast ratio of the bleaching and the scattering states, we have optimized the switching properties of Mie scattered patterns. As a result, we obtained a single inverse opal layer-embedded PDMS adhesive film with hexagonally close-packed 1 µm air-hole arrays as an optimum scattered film. The differences of diffusive transmittance and optical haze values between the dry and the wet states of the best scattered film reached 44.93% (ΔTD.T = 59.11-14.18%) and 54.88% (ΔH = 69.42-14.54%), respectively. In addition, using the best-optimized inverse opal layer-embedded PDMS film, we fabricated a perfectly imitated Diphylleia grayi structure for camouflage application and an intelligent hydrochromic window device. The dynamic water modulation of the scattered opaque and nonscattered transparent state of the inverse opal-patterned PDMS adhesive film can provide an advanced platform structure in the area of hydrochromic technology for smart windows, camouflage, and clear umbrellas for rainy days.

Narrow-Band SrMgAl10O17:Eu2+, Mn2+ Green Phosphors for Wide-Color-Gamut Backlight for LCD Displays.

The strength of the photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectrum of SrMgAl10O17:Eu2+, Mn2+ (SAM:Eu2+, Mn2+) phosphor increased at deep blue (∼430 nm) and red-shifted from violet to deep blue with increasing concentrations of both Eu2+ ions Mn2+ ions. Eu2+-Mn2+ energy transfer between Eu2+ ions in Sr-O layer and Mn2+ ions at Al-O tetrahedral sites was maximized, and the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of the narrow-band Mn2+ emission was improved by optimizing the concentrations of Eu2+ and Mn2+ ions. The PL emission spectrum of the (Sr0.6Eu0.4)(Mg0.4Mn0.6)Al10O17 (SAM:Eu2+, Mn2+) phosphor peaks was optimized at 518 nm at a full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 26 nm under light-emitting diode (LED) excitation at 432 nm LED. The color gamut area of a color-filtered RGB triangle of down-converted white LEDs (DC-WLEDs) incorporated with optimum SAM:Eu2+, Mn2+ green and K2SiF6:Mn4+ (KSF:Mn4+) red phosphors is enlarged by 114% relative to that of the NTSC standard system in the CIE 1931 color space. The luminous efficacy of our DC-WLED was measured and found to be ∼92 lm/W at 20 mA. Increased energy transfers between dual activators and red-shifted band-edge and enhanced intensity of PLE spectrum indicate the possibility of developing dual-activated narrow-band green phosphors for wide-color gamut in an LCD backlighting system.

Enhanced DC-Operated Electroluminescence of Forwardly Aligned   p/MQW/n InGaN Nanorod LEDs via DC Offset-AC Dielectrophoresis.

We introduce an orientation-controlled alignment process of p-GaN/InGaN multiquantum-well/n-GaN (p/MQW/n InGaN) nanorod light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by applying the direct current (DC) offset-alternating current (AC) or pulsed DC electric fields across interdigitated metal electrodes. The as-forwardly aligned p/MQW/n InGaN nanorod LEDs by a pulsed DC dielectrophoresis (DEP) assembly process improve the electroluminescence (EL) intensities by 1.8 times compared to the conventional AC DEP assembly process under DC electric field operation and exhibit an enhanced applied current and EL brightness in the current-voltage and EL intensity-voltage curves, which can be directly used as the fundamental data to construct DC-operated nanorod LED devices, such as LED areal surface lightings, scalable lightings (micrometers to inches) and formable surface lightings. The enhancement in the applied current, the improved EL intensity, and the increased number of forwardly aligned p/MQW/n InGaN nanorods in panchromatic cathodoluminescence images confirm the considerable enhancement of forwardly aligned one-dimensional nanorod LEDs between two opposite electrodes using DC offset-AC or a pulsed DC electric field DEP assembly process. These DC offset-AC or pulsed DC electric field DEP assembly processes suggest that designing for these types of interactions could yield new ways to control the orientation of asymmetric p/MQW/n InGaN diode-type LED nanorods with a relatively low aspect ratio.

Horizontally assembled green InGaN nanorod LEDs: scalable polarized surface emitting LEDs using electric-field assisted assembly.

In this study, we report the concerted fabrication process, which is easy to transform the size of active emitting area and produce polarized surface light, using the electric-field-assisted assembly for horizontally assembled many tiny nanorod LEDs between two metal electrodes. We fabricate the millions of individually separated 1D nanorod LEDs from 2D nanorod arrays using nanosphere lithography, etching and cutting process of InGaN/GaN LED structure on a flat sapphire substrate. The horizontally assembled InGaN-based nanorods LED device shows bright (~2,130 cd/m(2)) and uniform polarized (polarization ratio, ρ = ~0.61) green emissions from large area (0.7 cm × 0.6 cm) planar surface. The realization of a horizontally assembled nanorod LED device can prove the concept of an innovative idea to fabricate formable and scalable polarized surface LED lighting.