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Power consumption makes next-generation large-scale photodetection challenging. In this work, the source-gated transistor (SGT) is adopted first as a photodetector, demonstrating the expected low power consumption and high photodetection performance. The SGT is constructed by the functional sulfur-rich shelled GeS nanowire (NW) and low-function metal, displaying a low saturated voltage of 0.61 V ± 0.29 V and an extremely low power consumption of 7.06 pW. When the as-constructed NW SGT is used as a photodetector, the maximum value of the power consumption is as low as 11.96 nW, which is far below that of the reported phototransistors working in the saturated region. Furthermore, benefiting from the adopted SGT device, the photodetector shows a high photovoltage of 6.6 × 10

Necrotizing funisitis is a distinct lesion of the umbilical cord associated with chorioamnionitis and bloodborne fetal infection. The lesion may be a response to microorganisms in Wharton's jelly. A common microorganism detected in chorioamnionitis is Ureaplasma urealyticum (U. urealyticum). This study hypothesizes that U. urealyticum DNA will be present in Wharton's jelly in necrotizing funisitis.Necrotizing funisitis was identified retrospectively from a 2-year pathology database and confirmed in review. Paraffin fixed embedded tissue sections of the lesion were prepared for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) by using primers to identify U. urealyticum. Twenty matched controls without funisitis were similarly processed. Clinical data included serological tests of common bloodborne infections in the mothers and infants, and U. urealyticum PCR results in the urine of the neonates.Fourteen cases of necrotizing funisitis were identified in 7,416 examined placentas. Nine of these umbilical cords were positive by PCR for U. urealyticum (64.3%). Nineteen of twenty control cases were negative. Eight of ten neonates (80%) also had positive urine PCR tests for U. urealyticum. No infants or mothers had evidence of bloodborne fetal infection.U. urealyticum DNA was present in Wharton's jelly by PCR testing in the majority of the necrotizing funisitis lesions tested. This result supports a possible causative role for U. urealyticum in many cases of necrotizing funisitis.

The negative photoconductivity (NPC) effect originating from the surface shell layer has been considered as an efficient approach to improve the performance of optoelectronic nanodevices. However, a scientific design and precise growth of NPC-effect-caused shell during nanowire (NW) growth process for achieving high-performance photodetectors are still lacking. In this work, GeS NWs with a controlled sulfur-rich shell, diameter, and length are successfully prepared by a simple chemical vapor deposition method. As checked by transmission electron microscopy, the thickness of the sulfur-rich shell ranges from 10.5 ± 1.5 to 13.4 ± 2.5 nm by controlling the NW growth time. The composition of the sulfur-rich shell is studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, showing the decrease of S in the GeSx shell from the surface to core. When configured into the well-known phototransistor, a featured NPC effect is observed, benefiting the high-performance photodetector with high responsivity of 105 A·W-1 and detectivity of 1012 Jones for λ = 405 nm with ultralow intensity of 0.04 mW·cm-2. However, the thicker-shell NW phototransistor shows an unstable photodetector behavior with smaller negative photocurrent because of more hole-trapping states in the thicker shell. All results suggest a careful design and controlled growth of an NPC-effect-caused shell for future optoelectronic applications.

The relative low hole mobility of p-channel building block device challenges the continued miniaturization of modern electronic chips. Metal-semiconductor junction is always an efficient strategy to control the carrier concentration of channel semiconductor, benefiting the carrier mobility regulation of building block device. In this work, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible metals are selected to deposit on the surface of the important p-channel building block of GaSb nanowire field-effect-transistors (NWFETs), demonstrating the efficient strategy of hole mobility enhancement by metal-semiconductor junction. When deposited with lower work function metal of Al, the peak hole mobility of GaSb NWFET can be enhanced to as high as ≈3372 cm2 V-1 s-1 , showing three times than the un-deposited one. The as-studied metal-semiconductor junction is also efficient for the hole mobility enhancement of other p-channel devices, such as GaAs NWFET, GaAs film FET, and WSe2 FET. With the enhanced mobility, the as-constructed CMOS inverter shows good invert characteristics, showing a relatively high gain of ≈18.1. All results may be regarded as important advances to the next-generation electronics.

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and myeloma cells could mutually drive myeloma progression, indicating that drug delivery to kill both CAFs and myeloma cells simultaneously could achieve better therapeutic benefits than to kill each cell type alone. Here, we designed a dual-targeting drug delivery system by conjugating paclitaxel (PTX)-loaded poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(lactic acid) nanoparticles (NPs) with a cyclic peptide (CNPs-PTX) with a special affinity with platelet-derived growth factor/platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR-β) overexpressed on both CAFs and myeloma cells. Cellular uptake experiments revealed that the cyclic peptide modification on CNPs could significantly enhance CNPs uptake by both CAFs and myeloma cells compared with unmodified NPs. Cytotoxicity tests showed that CNPs-PTX was more toxic to both CAFs and myeloma cells compared with its counterpart PTX-loaded conventional NPs (NPs-PTX). In vivo imaging and biodistribution experiments showed that CNPs could abundantly accumulate in tumors and were highly co-localized with CAFs and myeloma cells. The in vivo anti-tumor experiments confirmed that the anti-myeloma efficacy of CNPs-PTX was significantly stronger than that of NPs-PTX and free drugs. In summary, it is the first time that a dual-targeting strategy was utilized in the field of myeloma treatment through targeting both CAFs and myeloma cells simultaneously, which harbors a high potential of clinical translation for myeloma treatment.

The surface Fermi level pinning effect promotes the formation of metal-independent Ohmic contacts for the high-speed GaSb nanowires (NWs) electronic devices, however, it limits next-generation optoelectronic devices. In this work, lead-free all-inorganic perovskites with broad bandgaps and low work functions are adopted to decorate the surfaces of GaSb NWs, demonstrating the success in the construction of Schottky-contacts by surface engineering. Benefiting from the expected Schottky barrier, the dark current is reduced to 2 pA, the I

As an important semiconductor nanomaterial, InP nanowires (NWs) grown with a typical vapor–liquid–solid mechanism are still restricted from their low electron mobility for practical applications. Here, nonpolar-oriented defect-free wurtzite InP NWs with electron mobility of as high as 2000 cm2 V–1 s–1 can be successfully synthesized via Pd-catalyzed vapor–solid–solid growth. Specifically, PdIn catalyst particles are involved and found to expose their PdIn{210} planes at the InP nucleation frontier due to their minimal lattice mismatch with nonpolar InP{2110} and {1100} planes. This appropriate lattice registration would then minimize the overall free energy and enable the highly crystalline InP NW growth epitaxially along the nonpolar directions. Because of the minimized crystal defects, the record-high electron mobility of InP NWs (i.e., 2000 cm2 V–1 s–1 at an electron concentration of 1017 cm–3) results, being close to the theoretical limit of their bulk counterparts. Furthermore, once the top-gated d...

Because of the inevitable Fermi level pinning on surface/interface states of nanowires, achieving high-performance nanowire devices with controllable nanoscale contacts is always challenging but im...

Tissue factor is an upstream component of the cascade and a high-expressing factor under phathological conditions. In this study, a tissue factor cascade-targeted strategy for inducing local thrombosis was developed by combining ENP-HMME and photochemistry. In vitro study showed that protein EGFP-EGF1 conjugation to the nanoparticles could significantly contribute to the uptake of nanoparticles by tissue factor over-expressed brain capillary endothelial cells. Three-dimensional imaging and specklegram of brains in vivo showed that tissue factor cascade-targeted strategy successfully induced thrombosis of expected position. As shown by the in vivo multispectral fluorescent imaging, when ENP-HMME was combined with photochemistry, higher accumulation in the infarction hemisphere was observed, which might suggest that the photochemistry inducing tissue factor cascade recruited more ENP-HMME than HMME-loaded nanoparticles (NP-HMME). The data indicated the tissue factor cascade-targeted strategy has potential to induce local thrombosis, and might be applied in the treatment of a variety of hypervascular diseases.

Cerebral thrombosis disease is a worldwide problem, with high rates of morbidity, disability, and mortality. Magnetic resonance imaging diffusion-weighted imaging was used as an important early diagnostic method for cerebral thrombotic diseases; however, its diagnosis time is 2 h after onset. In this study, we designed EGFP–EGF1–NP–Fe3O4 for earlier diagnosis of cerebral thrombosis by taking advantage of EGFP–EGF1 fusion protein, in which EGF1 can bind with tissue factor and enhanced green fluorescent protein has previously been widely used as a fluorescent protein marker. EGFP–EGF1–NP–Fe3O4 or NP–Fe3O4 reaches the highest concentration in the infarction areas in 1 h. To evaluate the targeting ability of EGFP–EGF1–NP–Fe3O4, a fluorochrome dye, Dir, was loaded into the nanoparticle. As shown by the in vivo organ multispectral fluorescence imaging, Dir-loaded EGFP–EGF1–NP–Fe3O4 exhibited higher fluorescence than those of model rats treated with Dir-loaded NP–Fe3O4. Coronal frozen sections and transmission electron microscope further showed that EGFP–EGF1–NP–Fe3O4 was mainly accumulated in the tissue factor exposure region of brain. The data indicated that the EGFP–EGF1–NP–Fe3O4 targeted cerebral thrombosis and might be applied in the early diagnosis of intracranial thrombosis.

// Wei Shi 1,2,* , Yanxue Yin 1,2,* , Yao Wang 3,* , Bo Zhang 1,2 , Pei Tan 1,2 , Ting Jiang 1,2 , Heng Mei 1,2 , Jun Deng 1,2 , Huafang Wang 1,2 , Tao Guo 1,2 , Zhiqing Pang 3 and Yu Hu 1,2 1 Institute of Hematology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China 2 Targeted Biotherapy Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education, Wuhan, Hubei, China 3 Department of Pediatrics, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China 4 Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Tao Guo, email: // Zhiqing Pang, email: // Yu Hu, email: // Keywords : EGFP-EGF1, tissue factor, TF-cascade-targeted drug delivery system, photodynamic therapy Received : July 18, 2016 Accepted : October 22, 2016 Published : October 26, 2016 Abstract Tumor requires tumor vasculature to supply oxygen and nutrients so as to support its continued growth, as well as provide a main route for metastatic spread. In this study, a TF-cascade-targeted strategy aiming to disrupt tumor blood vessels was developed by combination of TF-targeted HMME-loaded drug delivery system and PDT. PDT is a promising new modality in the treatment of cancers, which employs the interaction between a tumor-localizing photosensitizer and light of an appropriate wavelength to bring about ROS-induced cell death. In vitro results showed that protein EGFP-EGF1modification could significantly contribute to the uptake of nanoparticles by TF over-expressed BCECs. In vivo multispectral fluorescent imaging, the EGFP-EGF1 conjugated nanoparticles showed significantly higher accumulation in tumor tissues than non-conjugated ones. Tumor tissue slides further presented that EGFP-EGF1 conjugated nanoparticles showed significantly higher accumulation in tumor vasculature than non-conjugated ones. In vitro study demonstrated that PDT increased TF expression of BCECs. In vivo imaging, ex vivo imaging and tumor tissue slides showed that PDT further contribute EGFP-EGF1-NP accumulation in tumor. These promising results indicated that PDT enhanced EGFP-EGF1modified PEG-PLGA nanoparticle accumulation in tumor vaculature. Considering that EGFP-EGF1 conjugation enhanced nanoparticles uptake by TF over-expressed endothelium and PDT increased endothelium TF expression. We conclude that PDT triggered a TF cascade targeted effect. A combination of both EGFP-EGF1 modification and PDT provided a positive feed-back target effect to tumor vessels and might have a great potential for tumor therapy.

Recently, owing to the large surface-area-to-volume ratio of nanowires (NWs), manipulation of their surface states becomes technologically important and being investigated for various applications. Here, an in-situ surfactant-assisted chemical vapor deposition is developed with various chalcogens (e.g. S, Se and Te) as the passivators to enhance the NW growth and to manipulate the controllable p-n conductivity switching of fabricated NW devices. Due to the optimal size effect and electronegativity matching, Se is observed to provide the best NW surface passivation in diminishing the space charge depletion effect induced by the oxide shell and yielding the less p-type (i.e. inversion) or even insulating conductivity, as compared with S delivering the intense p-type conductivity for thin NWs with the diameter of ~30 nm. Te does not only provide the surface passivation, but also dopes the NW surface into n-type conductivity by donating electrons. All of the results can be extended to other kinds of NWs with similar surface effects, resulting in careful device design considerations with appropriate surface passivation for achieving the optimal NW device performances.

The grown lead iodide (PbI2) is usually two-dimensional sheets with a finite size which necessitate sophisticated device metallization and the growth of quasi one-dimensional materials is still challenging. In this work, large-size (length > 100 µm), single-crystalline and high-density PbI2 nanobelts are successfully synthesized by manipulating the microenvironment in a two-step vapor deposition process at a slow heating rate of ~18 oC min-1. Firstly, PbI2 nanosheet seeds are grown by physical vapor deposition, and then PbI2 nanobelts are synthesized by a self-catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid growth mechanism, which is verified by the Pb nanoparticles on the nanobelts tips. Photoluminescence and ultraviolet-visible spectra show the uniform high-quality crystallinity of the as-prepared large-size PbI2 nanobelts with a bandgap of 2.36 eV. When configured into photodetectors with a shadow mask, the fabricated device exhibits a low dark current of 4 pA, an impressive ON/OFF current ratio of 103 ~ 104, a photoresponsivity of 13 mA W-1, and a fast response with the rise and decay time constants of 425 and 41 ms, respectively. All these performances are comparable to those of state-of-the-art of layered PbI2 nanostructures photodetectors, but the ease of synthesizing large-size PbI2 nanobelts may have useful impact on next-generation easily-fabricated high-performance optoelectronics.

Owing to the high mobility, narrow bandgap, strong spin-orbit coupling and large g-factor, Sb-based III-V nanowires (NWs) attracted significant interests in high speed electronics, long-wavelength photodetectors and quantum superconductivity in the past decade. In this review, we aim to give an integrated summarization about the recent advances in binary as well as ternary Sb-based III-V NWs, starting from the fundamental properties, NWs growth mechanism, typical synthetic methods to their applications in transistors, photodetectors, and Majorana fermions detection. Up to now, famous NWs growth techniques of solid-source chemical vapor deposition (CVD), molecular beam epitaxy, metal organic vapor phase epitaxy and metal organic CVD etc have been adopted and developed for the controllable growth of Sb-based III-V NWs. Several parameters including heating temperature, III/V ratio of source materials, growth temperature, catalyst size and kinds, and growth substrate play important roles on the morphology, position, diameter distribution, growth orientation and crystal phase of Sb-based III-V NWs. Furthermore, we discuss the photoelectrical applications of Sb-based III-V NWs such as field-effect-transistors, tunnel diode, low-power inverter, and infrared detectors etc. Importantly, due to the strongest spin-orbit interaction and giant g-factor among all III-V semiconductors, InSb with the geometry of one-dimension NW is considered as the most promising candidate for the detection of Majorana fermions. In the end, we also summarize the main challenges remaining in the field and put forward some suggestions for the future development of Sb-based III-V NWs.

Tumor requires tumor vasculature to supply oxygen and nutrients so as to support its continued growth, as well as provide a main route for metastatic spread. In this study, a TF-cascade-targeted strategy aiming to disrupt tumor blood vessels was developed by combination of TF-targeted HMME-loaded drug delivery system and PDT. PDT is a promising new modality in the treatment of cancers, which employs the interaction between a tumor-localizing photosensitizer and light of an appropriate wavelength to bring about ROS-induced cell death. In vitro results showed that protein EGFP-EGF1modification could significantly contribute to the uptake of nanoparticles by TF over-expressed BCECs. In vivo multispectral fluorescent imaging, the EGFP-EGF1 conjugated nanoparticles showed significantly higher accumulation in tumor tissues than non-conjugated ones. Tumor tissue slides further presented that EGFP-EGF1 conjugated nanoparticles showed significantly higher accumulation in tumor vasculature than non-conjugated ones. In vitro study demonstrated that PDT increased TF expression of BCECs. In vivo imaging, ex vivo imaging and tumor tissue slides showed that PDT further contribute EGFP-EGF1-NP accumulation in tumor. These promising results indicated that PDT enhanced EGFP-EGF1modified PEG-PLGA nanoparticle accumulation in tumor vaculature. Considering that EGFP-EGF1 conjugation enhanced nanoparticles uptake by TF over-expressed endothelium and PDT increased endothelium TF expression. We conclude that PDT triggered a TF cascade targeted effect. A combination of both EGFP-EGF1 modification and PDT provided a positive feed-back target effect to tumor vessels and might have a great potential for tumor therapy.