Reversible Entropy-Driven Defect Migration and Insulator-Metal Transition Suppression in VO Nanostructures for Phase-Change Electronic Switching.

Oxygen defects are among essential issues and required to be manipulated in correlated electronic oxides with insulator-metal transition (IMT). Besides, surface and interface control are necessary but challenging in field-induced electronic switching towards advanced IMT-triggered transistors and optical modulators. Herein, we demonstrated reversible entropy-driven oxygen defect migrations and reversible IMT suppression in vanadium dioxide (VO ) phase-change electronic switching.

Sensitive Terahertz Detection and Imaging Driven by the Photothermoelectric Effect in Ultrashort-Channel Black Phosphorus Devices.

Terahertz (THz) photon detection is of particular appealing for myriad applications, but it still lags behind efficient manipulation with electronics and photonics due to the lack of a suitable principle satisfying both high sensitivity and fast response at room temperature. Here, a new strategy is proposed to overcome these limitations by exploring the photothermoelectric (PTE) effect in an ultrashort (down to 30 nm) channel with black phosphorus as a photoactive material. The preferential flow of hot carriers is enabled by the asymmetric Cr/Au and Ti/Au metallization with the titled-angle evaporation technique.

Light-Driven WSe-ZnO Junction Field-Effect Transistors for High-Performance Photodetection.

Assembling nanomaterials into hybrid structures provides a promising and flexible route to reach ultrahigh responsivity by introducing a trap-assisted gain () mechanism. However, the high-gain photodetectors benefitting from long carrier lifetime often possess slow response time () due to the inherent - tradeoff. Here, a light-driven junction field-effect transistor (LJFET), consisting of an n-type ZnO belt as the channel material and a p-type WSe nanosheet as a photoactive gate material, to break the - tradeoff through decoupling the gain from carrier lifetime is reported.

Discovering nuclear targeting signal sequence through protein language learning and multivariate analysis.

Nuclear localization signals (NLSs) are peptides that target proteins to the nucleus by binding to carrier proteins in the cytoplasm that transport their cargo across the nuclear membrane. Accurate identification of NLSs can help elucidate the functions of nuclear protein complexes. The currently known NLS predictors are usually specific to certain species or largely dependent on prior knowledge of NLS basic residues.

Multimechanism Synergistic Photodetectors with Ultrabroad Spectrum Response from 375 nm to 10 µm.

Broadening the spectral range of photodetectors is an essential topic in photonics. Traditional photodetectors are widely used; however, the realization of ultrabroad spectrum photodetectors remains a challenge. Here, a photodetector constructed by a hybrid quasi-freestanding structure of organic ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) with molybdenum disulfide (MoS) is demonstrated.

Anisotropic Plasmonic Metal Heterostructures as Theranostic Nanosystems for Near Infrared Light-Activated Fluorescence Amplification and Phototherapy.

The development of sophisticated theranostic systems for simultaneous near infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging and phototherapy is of particular interest. Herein, anisotropic plasmonic metal heterostructures, Pt end-deposited Au nanorods (PEA NRs), are developed to efficiently produce hot electrons under 808 nm laser irradiation, exhibiting the strong electric density. These hot electrons can release the heat through electron-phonon relaxation and form reactive oxygen species through chemical transformation, as a result of potent photothermal and photodynamic performance.

Clustering Enhancement of Noisy Cryo-Electron Microscopy Single-Particle Images with a Network Structural Similarity Metric.

The reconstruction of a three-dimensional model from cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) two-dimensional images is currently a mainstream technology for revealing the structure of biomacromolecules. In this structure solution protocol, an important step is to identify each particle's projection orientation. Because the obtained single-particle images are often too noisy, clustering is an important step to mitigate noise by averaging images within the same class.

Independent Band Modulation in 2D van der Waals Heterostructures via a Novel Device Architecture.

Benefiting from the technique of vertically stacking 2D layered materials (2DLMs), an advanced novel device architecture based on a top-gated MoS/WSe van der Waals (vdWs) heterostructure is designed. By adopting a self-aligned metal screening layer (Pd) to the WSe channel, a fixed p-doped state of the WSe as well as an independent doping control of the MoS channel can be achieved, thus guaranteeing an effective energy-band offset modulation and large through current. In such a device, under specific top-gate voltages, a sharp PN junction forms at the edge of the Pd layer and can be effectively manipulated.

Photogating in Low Dimensional Photodetectors.

Low dimensional materials including quantum dots, nanowires, 2D materials, and so forth have attracted increasing research interests for electronic and optoelectronic devices in recent years. Photogating, which is usually observed in photodetectors based on low dimensional materials and their hybrid structures, is demonstrated to play an important role. Photogating is considered as a way of conductance modulation through photoinduced gate voltage instead of simply and totally attributing it to trap states.