Conjugated Polymer Based Nanoparticles as Dual‐Modal Probes for Targeted In Vivo Fluorescence and Magnetic Resonance Imaging

A facile strategy is developed to synthesize dual‐modal fluorescent‐magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) with surface folic acid by co‐encapsulation of a far‐red/near‐infrared (FR/NIR)‐emissive conjugated polymer (PFVBT) and lipid‐coated iron oxides (IOs) into a mixture of poly(lactic‐co‐glycolic‐acid)‐poly(ethylene glycol)‐folate (PLGA‐PEG‐FOL) and PLGA. The obtained NPs exhibit superparamagnetic properties and high fluorescence, which indicates that the lipid coated on IOs is effective at separating the conjugated polymer from IOs to minimize fluorescence quenching. These NPs are spherical in shape with an average diameter of ≈180 nm in water, as determined by laser light scattering. In vitro studies reveal that these dual‐modal NPs can serve as an effective fluorescent probe to achieve targeted imaging of MCF‐7 breast cancer cells without obvious cytotoxicity. In vivo fluorescence and magnetic resonance imaging results suggest that the NPs are able to preferentially accumulate in tumor tissues to allow dual‐modal detection of tumors in a living body. This demonstrates the potential of conjugated polymer based dual‐modal nanoprobes for versatile in vitro and in vivo applications in future.     

Octupolar Films with Large Second Harmonic Generation and Electro‐Optical Effects

Thin films that benefit from efficient octupolar molecular packing are prepared for second harmonic generation (SHG) and electro‐optic (EO) applications. The films are composed of 1,3,5‐tricyano‐2, 4,6‐tris(p‐diethylaminostyryl)benzene (TTB) in a ploymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) matrix on aluminum/BK7 glass (Al/BK7) and polyimide/indium tin oxide (PI/ITO) substrates. Octupolar films prepared on both substrates display polycrystalline and cylindrical domains. The molecular orientation, SHG efficiencies, and EO coefficients of the crystalline domains are measured. In the cylinders, the molecular crystal planes are oriented perpendicularly to the major cylinder axis, whereas in the polycrystals, the planes are randomly oriented. While both structures exhibit high and stable SHG and EO efficiencies, the cylinders, in particular, exhibited a very large SHG, a large EO coefficient, and high thermal stability; these characteristics will be useful in second order nonlinear optical applications.     

Boosting Infrared Light Harvesting by Molecular Functionalization of Metal Oxide/Polymer Interfaces in Efficient Hybrid Solar Cells

Hybrid solar cells based on light absorbing semiconducting polymers infiltrated in nanocrystalline TiO₂ electrodes, have emerged as an attractive concept, combining benefits of both low material and processing costs with well controlled nano‐scale morphology. However, after over ten years of research effort, power conversion efficiencies remain around 0.5%. Here, a spectroscopic and device based investigation is presented, which leads to a new optimization route where by functionalization of the TiO₂ surface with a molecular electron acceptor promotes photoinduced electron transfer from a low‐band gap polymer(poly[2,6‐(4,4‐bis‐(2‐ethylhexyl)‐4H‐cyclopenta[2,1‐b;3,4‐b0]dithiophene)‐alt‐4,7‐(2,1,3‐benzothiadia‐zole)] (PCPDTBT) to the metal oxide. This boosts the infrared response and the power conversion efficiency to over 1%. As a further step, by “co‐functionalizing” the TiO₂ surface with the electron acceptor and an organic dye‐sensitizer, panchromatic spectral photoresponse is achieved in the visible to near‐IR region. This novel architecture at the heterojunction opens new material design possibilities and represents an exciting route forward for hybrid photovoltaics.     

Metal‐Free Growth of Nanographene on Silicon Oxides for Transparent Conducting Applications

Conventional methods to prepare large‐area graphene for transparent conducting electrodes involve the wet etching of the metal catalyst and the transfer of the graphene film, which can degrade the film through the creation of wrinkles, cracks, or tears. The resulting films may also be obscured by residual metal impurities and polymer contaminants. Here, it is shown that direct growth of large‐area flat nanographene films on silica can be achieved at low temperature (400 °C) by chemical vapor deposition without the use of metal catalysts. Raman spectroscopy and TEM confirm the formation of a hexagonal atomic network of sp²‐bonded carbon with a domain size of about 3–5 nm. Further spectroscopic analysis reveals the formation of SiC between the nanographene and SiO₂, indicating that SiC acts as a catalyst. The optical transmittance of the graphene films is comparable with transferred CVD graphene grown on Cu foils. Despite the fact that the electrical conductivity is an order of magnitude lower than CVD graphene grown on metals, the sheet resistance remains 1–2 orders of magnitude better than well‐reduced graphene oxides.     

应用于人脸识别的监督局部邻域保持嵌入算法

提出了一种应用于人脸识别的监督线性维数约简 算法。首先引入图像距离度量方法以确定人脸数据 之间的相似程度,之后将训练样本的类标先验信息融入到邻域保持嵌入(NPE,neighborhood preserving embedding)算法的目标函 数中,使得降维后的嵌入空间的投影数据呈多流形分布,不仅最优保持了样本空间的局部几 何结构,同时各类样本 投影的类内散度最小化,类间散度最大化,增大了各类数据分布之间的间隔,提高了嵌入空 间的辨别能力。在Extended Yale B和CMU PIE两个开放人脸数据库上进行了识别实验,结果表明,本文算法取得了很好 的识别效果。     

Organic Nanoparticles: Preparation,Self‐Assembly,and Properties

The strong tendency of organic nanoparticles to rapidly self‐assemble into highly aligned superlattices at room temperature when solution‐cast from dispersions or spray‐coated directly onto various substrates is described. The nanoparticle dispersions are stable for years. The novel precipitation process used is believed to result in molecular distances and alignments in the nanoparticles that are not normally possible. Functional organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs)—which have the same host–dopant emissive‐material composition—with process‐tunable electroluminescence have been built with these nanoparticles, indicating the presence of novel nanostructures. For example, only changing the conditions of the precipitation process changes the OLED emission from green light to yellow.     

Optically Tunable Nonlinearities in Polymers Based on Photoisomerizable Metal‐Based Coordination Complexes

The bottom‐up design of polymer films exhibiting quadratic nonlinear optical properties that can be tuned optically and chemically is described. The polymer matrices are doped with metal‐containing chromophores built around a Zn^II core and photoisomerizable ligands with two different geometries. These molecules possess specifically designed photophysical and nonlinear optical properties to be used towards all‐optical poling, an interference process between one‐ and two‐photon excitations that locally induces macroscopic second‐order effects in polymer films. It is shown that grafting the molecules onto the polymer chains improves the stability of the macroscopic photoinduced nonlinearity in the films.     

Space‐time ring‐TCM codes with CPM based on the decomposed model for transmission over Rayleigh fading channels

Space–time (ST) coding is a proved technique for achieving high data rates in 3G mobile systems that combines coding, modulation and multiple transmitters and receivers. A novel algorithm is proposed for ST ring trellis‐coded modulation (ST‐RTCM) systems with continuous‐phase modulation (CPM) when the channel coefficients are known to the receiver. This algorithm is based on the CPM decomposed model, which exploits the memory properties of this modulation method, resulting in a straightforward implementation of joint ST coding and CPM, which is particularly suitable for ring codes. This new scheme is used to investigate the performance of the delay diversity code with CPM over slow Rayleigh fading channels, in particular with MSK which is one of the most widely used modulation methods of continuous phase. Furthermore, a feedback version of delay diversity allowed by the decomposition is tested in 1REC and 1RC systems. This feedback configuration is seen to provide good results for low signal‐to‐noise ratios. Simulations results are also provided for multilevel ST‐RTCM codes that achieve a higher throughput than MSK‐coded systems. Additionally the serial concatenation of an outer Reed–Solomon code with an ST‐RTCM code is shown, this combination further reduces the error probability and achieves even more reliable communications. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient medium arbitration of FSAN‐compliant GPONs

The steadily rising demand for multimedia and data services, the falling cost and omnipresence of Ethernet and the maturity of passive optical networks (PON) technology, promise to radically change the landscape in the local loop. The heart of a gigabit PON system (recently standardized by FSAN/ITU) is the medium access controller (MAC), which arbitrates access to the upstream link among users with fluctuating traffic demands and effects the multiplexing and concentration policy. At the same time, it has to safeguard the service quality and enforce the parameters agreed in the service level agreements (SLAs) between the users and the service provider. In this paper, a MAC protocol designed to serve any mix of services according to their quality of service (QoS) needs, employing four priority levels along with a high number of logically separate data queues is presented. The architecture and implementation in hardware of a MAC algorithm capable of allocating bandwidth down to a resolution of a byte with QoS differentiation is the focus of this paper. It employs the bandwidth arbitration tools of the FSAN/ITU G.984.3 standard and maps SLA parameters to GPON service parameters to create an efficient, fair and flexible residential access system. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Closed‐form expression for the BER of m‐QAM‐OFDM systems over time‐ and frequency‐selective wireless channels

The broadcast DVB‐T system is an m‐QAM‐OFDM communication system that includes pilot‐symbol‐assisted modulation (PSAM) in order to enhance channel estimation at the receiver. This characteristic makes DVB‐T suitable for a mobile reception, over time‐ and frequency‐selective wireless channels. In this work, a closed‐form expression for the BER as a function of the transmission system, channel model and the channel estimation strategy employed at the receiver is derived. In addition, adjacent channel interference due to Doppler effects is also considered. The results are focused on the DVB‐T system under different scenarios. The channel estimation at the receiver has been shown to be very critical, and the impact of channel estimation errors on the BER is analysed in detail. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.