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The performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) can be greatly improved by incorporating silica-coated gold nanorods (Au@SiO 2 NRs) at the interface between the hole transporting layer and the active layer due to the plasmonic effect. The silica shell impedes the aggregation effect of the Au NRs in ethanol solution which otherwise would bring forward serious reduction in the open circuit voltage when incorporating the Au NRs at the buffer/active interface. As a result, while the high open circuit voltage being demonstrated, the optimized plasmonic OSCs possess an increased short circuit current, and correspondingly an elevated power conversion efficiency with the enhancement factor of ~11%. The origin of performance improvement in OSCs with the Au@SiO 2 NRs was analyzed systematically using morphological, electrical, optical characterizations along with theoretical simulation. It is found that the broadband enhancement in absorption, which yields the broadband enhancement in exciton generation in the active layer, is the major factor contributing to the increase in the short circuit current density. Simulation results suggest that the excitation of the transverse and longitudinal surface plasmon resonances of individual NRs as well as their mutual coupling can generate strong electric field near the vicinity of the NRs, thereby an improved exciton generation profile in the active layer. The incorporation of Au@SiO 2 NRs at the buffer/active interface also improves hole extraction in the OSCs, resulting in an increase in the open circuit voltage along with a decrease in the series resistance.

The pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD) remains obscure. Recently, the microbiota-gut-brain (MGB) axis’s role in MDD has an increasing attention. However, the specific mechanism of the multi-level effects of gut microbiota on host metabolism, immunity, and brain structure is unclear. Multi-omics approaches based on the analysis of different body fluids and tissues using a variety of analytical platforms have the potential to provide a deeper understanding of MGB axis disorders. Therefore, the data of metagenomics, metabolomic, inflammatory factors, and MRI scanning are collected from the two groups including 24 drug-naïve MDD patients and 26 healthy controls (HCs). Then, the correlation analysis is performed in all omics. The results confirmed that there are many markedly altered differences, such as elevated Actinobacteria abundance, plasma IL-1β concentration, lipid, vitamin, and carbohydrate metabolism disorder, and diminished grey matter volume (GMV) of inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in the MDD patients. Notably, three kinds of discriminative bacteria, Ruminococcus bromii, Lactococcus chungangensis, and Streptococcus gallolyticus have an extensive correlation with metabolome, immunology, GMV, and clinical symptoms. All three microbiota are closely related to IL-1β and lipids (as an example, phosphoethanolamine (PEA)). Besides, Lactococcus chungangensis is negatively related to the GMV of left IFG. Overall, this study demonstrate that the effects of gut microbiome exert in MDD is multifactorial.