Currently, x-ray-based imaging is used before and after the dental implant treatment, but the ionizing radiation is potentially harmful to patients and operators. Here, we demonstrate ex vivo photoacoustic imaging of a dental implant embedded in a porcine jawbone. By layering biological tissue over the jawbone to mimic a clinical environment, we demonstrate 10 mm deep imaging. Our results show that photoacoustic imaging can provide jawbone anatomical information, the location of an embedded implant fixture, and the thickness of the soft tissue above the jawbone.

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The understanding and engineering of the plasmon-exciton coupling are necessary to control the innovative optoelectronic device platform. In this study, we investigated the intertwined mechanism of each plasmon-exciton couplings in monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and plasmonic hybrid structure. The results of absorption, simulation, electrostatics, and emission spectra show that interaction between photoexcited carrier and exciton modes are successfully coupled by energy transfer and exciton recombination processes. Especially, neutral exciton, trion, and biexciton can be selectively enhanced by designing the plasmonic hybrid platform. All of these results imply that there is another degree of freedom to control the individual enhancement of each exciton mode in the development of nano optoelectronic devices.

A new effective oxidative solution for titanium (Ti) surface etching was recently developed. The present in vitro study was aimed at determining the influence of shorter (than 240 min) treatment time on the surface characteristics of the Ti nano/micro hierarchical structures. Cylinder-shaped Ti grade 5 alloys were etched for 30, 60, 120, and 240 min at room temperature and cleaned successively with acetone, ethanol, and distilled water in an ultrasonic bath. The micro- and nanostructures, surface roughness, dynamic wettability, and the surface elemental composition of the etched surfaces were evaluated. Nano/micro hierarchical structures, composed of micro-pits and nano-channels, were formed on the Ti surface through simple immersion in the oxidative solution. The findings suggest that the 120-min immersion yielded significant enhancement in the roughness and wettability of the Ti surfaces.

We report on a prototypical study of the detection of microplastic embedded in table salts by using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. In the experiment, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) of sizes from 150 to 400 μm are used as a representative microplastic and mixed with table salts. Analyzing terahertz transmittance with an effective medium model, we extract various optical properties such as refractive index, absorption coefficient, and real/imaginary parts of the dielectric constant of the mixture. Consequently, the optical properties exhibit volume-ratio-dependence in 0.1–0.5 THz regimes. Especially, the refractive index and the real part of the dielectric constant possess monotonic frequency dependence, meaning that the quantities can be relevant indicators for the detection of the microplastic in terms of practical applications. Our work proves that terahertz time-domain spectroscopy can pave a way to recognize microplastic mixed with salts and be expanded for detecting various micro-sized particles.