One-Step Fabrication of Water-Dispersible Calcium Phosphate Nanoparticles with Immobilized Lactoferrin for Intraoral Disinfection.

Lactoferrin is a highly safe antibacterial protein found in the human body and in foods. Calcium phosphate (CaP) nanoparticles with immobilized lactoferrin could therefore be useful as intraoral disinfectants for the prevention and treatment of dental infections because CaP is a mineral component of human teeth. In this study, we fabricated CaP nanoparticles with co-immobilized lactoferrin and heparin using a simple one-step coprecipitation process.

Fabrication of Ciprofloxacin-Immobilized Calcium Phosphate Particles for Dental Drug Delivery.

Calcium phosphate (CaP) particles immobilizing antibacterial agents have the potential to be used as dental disinfectants. In this study, we fabricated CaP particles with immobilized ciprofloxacin (CF), a commonly prescribed antibacterial agent, via a coprecipitation process using a supersaturated CaP solution. As the aging time in the coprecipitation process increased from 2 to 24 h, the CaP phase in the resulting particles transformed from amorphous to low-crystalline hydroxyapatite, and their Ca/P elemental ratio, yield, and CF content increased.

Remote Excitation of Tip-Enhanced Photoluminescence with a Parallel AgNW Coupler.

Tip-enhanced photoluminescence (TEPL) microscopy allows for the correlation of scanning probe microscopic images and photoluminescent spectra at the nanoscale level in a similar way to tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) microscopy. However, due to the higher cross-section of fluorescence compared to Raman scattering, the diffraction-limited background signal generated by far-field excitation is a limiting factor in the achievable spatial resolution of TEPL. Here, we demonstrate a way to overcome this drawback by using remote excitation TEPL (RE-TEPL).

Visualizing Ribbon-to-Ribbon Heterogeneity of Chemically Unzipped Wide Graphene Nanoribbons by Silver Nanowire-Based Tip-Enhanced Raman Scattering Microscopy.

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), a quasi-one-dimensional form of graphene, have gained tremendous attention due to their potential for next-generation nanoelectronic devices. The chemical unzipping of carbon nanotubes is one of the attractive fabrication methods to obtain single-layered GNRs (sGNRs) with simple and large-scale production.  The authors recently found that unzipping from double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs), rather than single- or multi-walled, results in high-yield production of crystalline sGNRs.