Osmosis manipulable morphology and photonic property of microcapsules with colloidal nano-in-micro structure.

Full visible spectrum photonic droplets and consequent microcapsules with nano-in-micro structure were prepared through microfluidic technique. Photo-curable resin and suspension of monodispersed soft nanogels were used as shell and core of the microcapsules, respectively. Upon UV irradiation, the droplets can be subsequently transformed into photonic microcapsules with an ultrathin polymeric shell.

Chemically Responsive Photonic Crystal Hydrogels for Selective and Visual Sensing of Thiol-Containing Biomolecules.

Intracellular thiols (e.g., cysteine, homocysteine, and glutathione) play critical roles in biological functions.

Responsive Photonic Hydrogel-Based Colorimetric Sensors for Detection of Aldehydes in Aqueous Solution.

In this work, we present a fast and efficient strategy for the preparation of responsive photonic hydrogels for aldehyde sensing by combining the self-assembly of monodisperse carbon-encapsulated FeO nanoparticles (NPs) and in situ photopolymerization of polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogels. The responsive photonic hydrogels exhibit structural color variation after being treated with formaldehyde aqueous solution, which can be attributed to the chemical reaction between the amide groups in the hydrogels and the formaldehyde. We have also shown that the photonic hydrogels can be used to determine the concentration of formaldehyde and to differentiate aldehydes through a facile reflection spectra shift and color change.

Highly Sensitive Mechanochromic Photonic Hydrogels with Fast Reversibility and Mechanical Stability.

We present a fast and efficient strategy for the preparation of photonic hydrogels for compression and organic solvent sensing by the self-assembly of monodisperse carbon-encapsulated Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs). The hydrogel film was composed of acrylamide (AM) and cross-linker N,N'-methylenebis(acrylamide) (BIS), and the formed 1D NPs chain structure can be fixed within the hydrogels under a magnetic field by in situ photopolymerization. The resulting photonic hydrogels display vivid structural color which can be tuned by pressing and organic solvent treatment.

Metal-to-metal electron transfer in Co/Fe Prussian Blue molecular analogues: the ultimate miniaturization.

Co/Fe Prussian Blue analogues are known to display both thermally and light induced electron transfer attributed to the switching between diamagnetic {Fe(II)LS(μ-CN)Co(III)LS} and paramagnetic {Fe(III)LS(μ-CN)Co(II)HS} pairs (LS = low spin; HS = high spin). In this work, a dinuclear cyanido-bridged Co/Fe complex, the smallest {Fe(μ-CN)Co} moiety at the origin of the remarkable physical properties of these systems, has been designed by a rational building-block approach. Combined structural, spectroscopic, magnetic and photomagnetic studies reveal that a metal-to-metal electron transfer that can be triggered in solid state by light, temperature and solvent contents, is observed for the first time in a dinuclear complex.

Uniform core-shell photonic crystal microbeads as microcarriers for optical encoding.

We demonstrate a rapid and robust method to fabricate uniform core-shell photonic crystal (PC) microbeads by the microfluidic and centrifugation-redispersion technique. Colored crystalline colloidal arrays (CCAs) were first prepared through centrifugation-redispersion approach by self-assembly of polystyrene-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PS-PNIPAm) core/shell nanoparticles (NPs). Different from the conventional NPs (e.

Let-7b regulates the expression of the growth hormone receptor gene in deletion-type dwarf chickens.

Background: A deletion mutation in the growth hormone receptor (GHR) gene results in the inhibition of skeletal muscle growth and fat deposition in dwarf chickens. We used microarray techniques to determine microRNA (miRNA) and mRNA expression profiles of GHR in the skeletal muscles of 14-day-old embryos as well as 7-week-old deletion-type dwarf and normal-type chickens. Our aim was to elucidate the miRNA regulation of GHR expression with respect to growth inhibition and fat deposition.