Figure 1. Flexible tactile sensors based on the morphology controllable template methods and the morphology uncontrollable template methods and the potential applications in large tactile sensor array, intelligent robot gripper, and artificial tactile sensory memory. Image for "Lithography Template": Reproduced with permission.

Being capable of dealing with both electrical signals and light, artificial optoelectronic synapses are of great importance for neuromorphic computing and are receiving a burgeoning amount of interest in visual information processing. In this work, an artificial optoelectronic synapse composed of Al/TiNxO2–x/MoS2/ITO (H‐OSD) is proposed and experimentally realized. The H‐OSD can enable basic electrical voltage‐induced synaptic functions such as the long/short‐term plasticity and moreover the synaptic plasticity can be electrically adjusted. In response to the light stimuli, versatile advanced synaptic functions including long/short‐term memory, and learning‐forgetting‐relearning are successfully demonstrated, which could enhance the information processing capability for neuromorphic computing. Most importantly, based on these light‐induced salient features, a 4 × 4 synapse array is developed to show the potential application of the proposed H‐OSD in constructing artificial visual system. It is shown that the perceiving and memorizing of the light information that are respectively relevant to the visual perception and visual memory functions, can be readily attained through tuning of the light intensity and the number of illuminations. As such, the proposed optoelectronic synapse shows great potentials in both neuromorphic computing and visual information processing and will facilitate the applications such as electronic eyes and light‐driven neurorobotics.

The role of TRPV4 (transient receptor potential vanilloid 4) in regulating vascular contraction in hypertensive mice is poorly established. We tested the hypothesis that TRPV4 regulates endothelium-dependent contractions in aortas from hypertensive mice through the activation of cytosolic cPLA (phospholipase A) and COX2 (cyclooxygenase 2) and identified the possible endothelium-derived contracting factor generated by COX2. Using myography, we demonstrated that GSK1016790A (a TRPV4 agonist) and acetylcholine (ACh) trigger endothelium-dependent contractions in aortas from hypertensive mice, and the contractions were abolished with TRPV4 deletion. PLA assay and Western blotting showed that cPLA activity was higher in salt-induced hypertension and HC067047 or a Ca chelator inhibited cPLA activity. Contractions induced by TRPV4 and ACh were inhibited by the cPLA inhibitor or removal of extracellular Ca COX2 expression was enhanced in the endothelium from hypertensive mice and contractions induced by TRPV4 or ACh were inhibited by the COX2 inhibitor. Enzyme immunoassay showed that the release of prostaglandin F (PGF) was increased in hypertensive mice. GSK1016790A or ACh triggered the release of PGF and this was inhibited by HC067047, the cPLA inhibitor, and COX2 inhibitor. GSK1016790A, ACh, and PGF induced contractions were significantly reduced by S18886 in salt-induced hypertensive mice. The present study demonstrates that PGF generated by COX2 in the endothelium is the most likely endothelium-derived contracting factor underlying endothelium-dependent, TRPV4-mediated contraction in hypertensive mice. This contraction involved increased intracellular Ca concentrations and cPLA activity. These results suggested an important role of TRPV4 in endothelium-dependent contraction in mice during hypertension.

Tunable plasmonic resonance induced by the collective oscillation of the electrons on metallic nanostructures can excellently enhance the light response of ZnO films, which provides an effective way to break through the limitation of the performance of ZnO photodetectors. Here, broad-band high-performance ZnO/Au heterostructures photodetectors with various morphologies of self-assembled Au nanoantennas are fabricated via a facile approach under the spin-coated ZnO colloidal quantum dots films. With a systematic control on growth condition, the self-assembled Au nanoantennas undergo a drastic evolution from the corrugated nanomounds to the island-like nanostructures, and the light absorption of the resulting ZnO/Au heterostructures correspondingly exhibits a strongly morphological dependence on the Au nanoantennas. Meanwhile, the photoresponse of the ZnO-based photodetectors is significantly improved throughout a wide spectrum between UV and visible regions owing to the enhanced light absorption induced by the localized surface plasmon resonance. As a result, the optimal switch ratio of the ZnO/Au heterostructures photodetector increases by 1 order to ∼1.13 × 10 than that of the pristine ZnO one because of the obviously increased photocurrent ( I) and comparable dark current, thus leading to ∼9.1 and ∼4.9 times increases in the photoresponsivity and the normalized detectivity. Meanwhile, the significant increases in the I of ∼5.2 and ∼9.7 times are likewise observed with the ZnO/Au heterostructures under 530 nm and white-light illumination. This work can offer a handy and effective approach for the fabrication of ultrasensitive ZnO-based photodetectors within a broad-band wavelength by utilizing the Au plasmonic nanostructures.