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Highlights: A flexible tribotronic artificial synapse with bioinspired neurosensory behaviour was demonstrated, which establishes an active interaction mechanism with the environment. The device can well exhibit tuneable synaptic behaviours by changing the mechanical input modes, including excitatory postsynaptic current, paired-pulse facilitation, and the hierarchical memorial process. The device has excellent mechanical flexibility that can exhibit stable synaptic functions even under strain conditions with a bending radius of 20 mm after 1000 bending cycles. As key components of artificial afferent nervous systems, synaptic devices can mimic the physiological synaptic behaviors, which have attracted extensive attentions. Here, a flexible tribotronic artificial synapse (TAS) with bioinspired neurosensory behavior is developed. The triboelectric potential generated by the external contact electrification is used as the ion-gel-gate voltage of the organic thin film transistor, which can tune the carriers transport through the migration/accumulation of ions. The TAS successfully demonstrates a series of synaptic behaviors by external stimuli, such as excitatory postsynaptic current, paired-pulse facilitation, and the hierarchical memory process from sensory memory to short-term memory and long-term memory. Moreover, the synaptic behaviors remained stable under the strain condition with a bending radius of 20 mm, and the TAS still exhibits excellent durability after 1000 bending cycles. Finally, Pavlovian conditioning has been successfully mimicked by applying force and vibration as food and bell, respectively. This work demonstrates a bioinspired flexible artificial synapse that will help to facilitate the development of artificial afferent nervous systems, which is great significance to the practical application of artificial limbs, robotics, and bionics in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We numerically investigated the impact of the excitation wavelength and metal film thickness on second-harmonic generation (SHG) in bulk MoS2, which originates from the change in optical-path difference and phase difference among the multistage reflected lights during the thin-film interference process. The enhancement factor of SHG for a MoS2 layer on metal-dielectric substrates was calculated using the finite-difference time-domain technique. It was shown that the intensity of SHG was strongly affected by the excitation wavelength and the thickness of the metal film. We also obtained the dependence of the thickness of the MoS2 layer with the strongest SHG on the excitation wavelength. The reflection, transmission, and absorption of MoS2 layers with different thicknesses were studied by changing the metal film thickness of substrates, and the MoS2 thickness with the strongest SHG was found at different excitation wavelengths. We found that changing the metal film thickness has little effect on the color of the MoS2 layer, indicating that the thickness of the MoS2 layer can still be roughly estimated from the color. Therefore, it is inferred that MoS2 layers with the strongest SHG have the potential to be used for optical information storage or in the design of optical devices provided that the excitation wavelength or the thickness of the metal film is selected appropriately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-trapped modes suffer critical collapse in two-dimensional cubic systems. To overcome such a collapse, linear periodic potentials or competing nonlinearities between self-focusing cubic and self-defocusing quintic nonlinear terms are often introduced. Here, we combine both schemes in the context of an unconventional and nonlinear fractional Schrödinger equation with attractive-repulsive cubic–quintic nonlinearity and an optical lattice. We report theoretical results for various two-dimensional trapped solitons, including fundamental gap and vortical solitons as well as the gap-type soliton clusters. The latter soliton family resembles the recently-found gap waves. We uncover that, unlike the conventional case, the fractional model exhibiting fractional diffraction order strongly influences the formation of higher band gaps. Hence, a new route for the study of self-trapped modes in these newly emergent higher band gaps is suggested. Regimes of stability and instability of all the soliton families are obtained with the help of linear-stability analysis and direct simulations. Stabilising localised solitons in higher dimensions is more challenging than their one dimensional counterpart due to the onset of critical collapse. Here, competing nonlinear terms are added to a linearly-modulated optical lattice to predict regimes of stability for different soliton families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The present study aimed to evaluate whether the non-Smad dependent TAK1 signaling pathway (BMP-2-TAK1-p38-Osx signaling pathway) played an important role in bone repair mediated by hollow hydroxyapatite (HA) microspheres/chitosan (CS) composite. Methods: Firstly, the biological activity of rhBMP-2 released from the complex was investigated. Then, differentiation test of osteoblasts including ALP activity and calcium deposition, X-ray scoring and three-point bending test were performed. Finally, the mRNAs expression of TAK1, p38, Osx and osteogenic markers was tested by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: RhBMP-2 could be loaded and released from the complex in bioactive form. Additionally, the complex provided a prolonged period of time compared with HA/CS scaffolds. Serum ALP activity was significantly decreased in the TAK1 inhibitor group and p38 inhibitor group. In the X-ray radiography, bone callus was observed in rhBMP-2-loaded hollow HA microspheres/CS composite group. In the three-point bending test, load values in p38 inhibitor group decreased. In the animal model, the mRNA expression of BSP on day 90 was significantly decreased in the p38 inhibitor group and TAK1 inhibitor group. In MC3T3-E1 cells, the mRNA expression of OSX was remarkably up-regulated in both rhBMP-2 group or rhBMP-2-loaded hollow HA microspheres/CS composite group; while the mRNA expression of OSX was significantly down-regulated in TAK1 inhibitor group and p38 inhibitor group. Conclusion: The BMP-2-TAK1-p38-OSX signaling pathway may play an important role in bone formation and repair mediated by rhBMP-2-loaded hollow HA microspheres/CS composite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]