High‐Precision Temperature‐Controllable Metal‐Coated Polymeric Molds for Programmable,Hierarchical Patterning

Nanofabrication is an indispensable process in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Unconventional lithographic techniques are often used for fabrication as alternatives to photolithography because they are faster, more cost‐effective, and simpler to use. However, these techniques are limited in scalability and utility because of the collapse of preprinted structures during step‐and‐repeat processes. This study proposes a new class of temperature‐controllable polymeric molds that are coated with a metal such that any site‐specific patterning can be accomplished in a programmable manner using selective contact‐dewetting lithography. The lithography allows sub‐100 nm patterning, step‐and‐repeat processing, and hierarchical structure fabrication. The programmable feature of the lithography can be utilized for the structural coloring and shaping of objects. Large‐area programmable patterning, semiconductor device manufacturing, and the fabrication of iridescent security devices would benefit from the unique features of the proposed strategy.     

滚动压印装置研制与压印填充模拟

紫外滚动压印因其可以在室温下、普通大气环境中高效大面积地进行微结构制作而备受瞩目.利用自行研制的紫外滚动压印装置,实现了微结构的快速复制.实验中发现当压印速度达到某一特定值时,会不可避免地产生气泡缺陷.采用流体软件Fluent对滚动压印充填过程进行分析,来研究气泡缺陷的产生机理.结果表明,压印速度过高导致空气被堵在图形空腔内,最终形成气泡缺陷.同时,低黏度的胶液和小的接触角更利于模型填充.此研究对于获得优化的滚动压印工艺具有一定的意义.     

Biodegradable sol–gel coatings of waterborne polyurethane/gelatin chemical hybrids

Gelatin from cold fish skin has strong mechanical properties and biodegradability. Cold fish gelatin was introduced into waterborne polyurethane (WPU) by covalent bonding to reinforce and render biodegradability of WPU. For this, gelatin was chemically modified with vinyltrimethoxysilane (VTMS) via the sol–gel type reactions and incorporated into hydroxyl ethyl acrylate (HEA) termini of WPU by UV curing. Covalent incorporations provided the hybrids with enhanced water resistance, hardness, glassy and rubbery state moduli, yield strength, and thermal resistance of soft segment along with significantly enhanced biodegradability both in trypsin solution and soil.     

Effect of ultraviolet‐B irradiation on antioxidative properties of aqueous extracts from shiitake (Lentinus edodes) mushrooms

Antioxidant properties of aqueous extracts from Lentinus edodes treated with UV‐B irradiation were examined in vitro systems including DPPH, ABTS and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assays and in riboflavin‐photosensitised oil‐in‐water (O/W) emulsions. Changes in total phenolics, total flavonoids and vitamin C were also analysed. Lentinus edodes receiving 25 kJ m^?2 UV‐B treatment showed high radical scavenging ability based on DPPH and ABTS assays compared with samples with 0, 50 and 75 kJ m^?2, while those with 50 kJ m^?2 had higher antioxidant capacities than other samples from ORAC assays. Samples with 25 kJ m^?2 UV treatment had significantly 7.1% higher total phenolic content, 12.0% higher total flavonoid content and 8.0% higher vitamin C content than UV‐B‐untreated sample (P < 0.05), respectively. In O/W emulsions under riboflavin photosensitisation, 25 and 50 kJ m^?2 UV treatment significantly increased the oxidative stability compared with other samples based on headspace oxygen content and lipid hydroperoxide analyses (P < 0.05). Aqueous extracts of UV‐B‐treated mushrooms possessed enhanced antioxidant properties compared with untreated mushrooms.     

Mg3Y2Ge3O12:Bi3+ UV fluorescent phosphor as the TiO2 “sensitizer” for enhancing the heavy oil viscosity reduction

Nowadays, visible fluorescent materials based on rare earth (RE) and non-RE ions doping have been extensively explored for white LEDs. As for the UV fluorescent materials, it is well known that they are not suitable for the lighting applications. As a result, when compared to the visible fluorescent materials, previous works paid little attention to the UV fluorescent materials. In this work, we report a type of Mg₃Y₂Ge₃O₁₂:Bi³⁺ UV fluorescent phosphor. To understand the crystal structural information and photoluminescence (PL) properties of samples, we have used the X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electronic microscope (SEM), UV–visible diffuse reflectance and PL spectra to characterize them. The structural results reveal that the Bi³⁺ doped sample show their particle size at about 30 μm. The PL results show that the Bi³⁺ doped sample upon excitation at 230 nm can show a broad emission band that can almost cover the whole UV spectral region from 290 nm to 410 nm. Since this UV fluorescent band is exactly in agreement with the UV absorption region of TiO₂ semiconductor, we have fabricated several Mg₃Y₂Ge₃O₁₂:Bi³⁺/TiO₂-based ceramic plates and proposed used them to serve as an efficient UV irradiation source for photocatalytic application. As a result, we find that the TiO₂ can exhibit the significantly enhanced photocatalytic property for the heavy oil viscosity reduction after adding the Mg₃Y₂Ge₃O₁₂:Bi³⁺ UV fluorescent phosphor.     

Nanostructured alignment layer for liquid crystals

A new type of nanostructured alignment surface is proposed and demonstrated. As in previous nanostructured alignment surfaces, a large pretilt angle of near 45° can be produced reliably. Moreover, this new structure is fabricated with a mask, and there is no randomness involved. The uniformity and anchoring properties of this new surface have been measured to be of excellent quality.     

Fabrication and Characterization of Undoped and Cobalt-doped ZnO Based UV Photodetector Prepared by RF-sputtering

Undoped and 1 at.% Co-doped ZnO nanostructure based UV photodetectors were successfully fabricated by RF- magnetron sputtering technique with comb like Pt electrodes. Cobalt ions were successfully incorporated into the lattice of the ZnO nanostructure without changing its wurtzite structure. It was indicated that Co-doping can effectively adjust the luminescence properties of the ZnO nanostructure. The undoped and Co-doped ZnO photodetectors were observed to have photosensitivities of 1.44 x 104 % and 8.57 x 102 % and low dark currents of 9.74 x 10-8 A and 1.18 x 10-7 A, respectively.