One-dimensional photonic structures, known as Bragg stacks reflectors or Bragg mirrors, represent a well-developed subject in the field of optical science. However, because of a lack of dynamic tunablity and their dependence on complex top-down techniques for their fabrication, they have received little attention from the materials science community present recent and ongoing developments on the way to fun dimensional photonic structures obtained from simple botton-up techniques. We focus on the versatility of this new approach, which allows the incorporation of a wide range of materials into photonic structures

“Smelling” chemicals and bacteria by using structural color: the photonic nose is a novel platform for the identification of volatile chemicals based on color changes of porous Bragg stack arrays with potential for applications in chemical sensing and bacteria identification.

Recently, a new multifunctional, bio‐inorganic nanocomposite membrane with the ability to self‐regulate the release of insulin in response to blood glucose (BG) levels was reported. Herein, the application of this material as part of a small, implantable, closed‐loop insulin delivery device designed to continuously monitor BG concentrations and regulate insulin release is proposed. The insulin delivery device consists of a nanocomposite glucose‐responsive plug covalently bound to an insulin reservoir made of surface‐modified silicone. The plug is prepared with crosslinked bovine serum albumin (BSA) and enzymes (glucose oxidase (GOx) and catalase (CAT)), pH‐responsive hydrogel nanoparticles, and multifunctional MnO2 nanoparticles. The plug functions both as a glucose sensor and controlled delivery unit to release higher rates of insulin from the reservoir in response to hyperglycemic BG levels and basal insulin rates at normal BG concentration. The surfaces of the device are modified by silanization followed by PEGylation to ensure its safety and biocompatibility and the stability of encased insulin. Our results show that insulin release can be modulated in vitro in response to glucose concentrations. In vivo experiments show that the glycemia of diabetic rats can be controlled with implantation of the prototype device. The glucose‐responsiveness of the device is also demonstrated by rapid drop in BG level after challenging diabetic rats with bolus injection of glucose solution. In addition, it is demonstrated that surface PEGylation of the device is necessary for reducing the immune response of the host to the implanted foreign object and maintaining insulin stability and bioactivity. With this molecular architecture and the bio‐inorganic nanocomposite plug, the device has the ability to maintain normal BG levels in diabetic rats.

We report herein on a facile and reproducible approach to prepare mesoporous nanoparticle-based distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) from a diverse group of metal oxide nanoparticles including SiO 2 , TiO 2 , SnO 2 , and Sb:SnO 2 . The films prepared, regardless of the composition, and following dispersion and process engineering, demonstrate uniform color and high optical quality over large areas. Not only do the prepared NP DBRs possess high reflectivity but also significant mesoporosity, which opens up the opportunity for introduction of a variety of materials into the pores creating new opportunities in optical and optoelectronic devices. In addition, what also must be highlighted are the added-value properties to the above characteristic of the individual NP materials comprising the DBR such as the electrical conductivity and optical transparency of ATO or the photoconductivity of SnO 2 , which enable new opportunities in a broad range of fields.

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) represent a unique class of electrode materials whose hallmark is high electrical conductivity and high optical transparency in the visible spectral range. They are renowned as electrode materials in solar cells, organic light-emitting diodes, and flat-panel displays, on both rigid and flexible substrates. [1,2] A contemporary challenge in materials chemistry is to discover ways of increasing the surface area of TCOs while retaining their conductivity and transparency, a combination of properties that would, for example, enable a new platform for high-efficiency dye-immobilized electrochemiluminescence (ECL) displays, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, and (bio)chemical sensors.[3]Herein, we report the synthesis of mesoporous antimonydoped tin oxide films dubbed meso-ATOs, interesting candidates for a new type of electrode material that offers the unique combination of high-surface-area ordered mesoscale pores together with high electrical conductivity and high optical transparency, and further we show that it is capable of supporting chemically tethered ruthenium-based dyes, enabling it to function as an efficient and reusable solid-state ECL-based sensor.Why has it taken about two decades of research to achieve this sought after goal? One can trace the difficulty to a number of adverse contributing factors, one of which is the poor affinity between sol-gel precursors of conductive inorganic materials and the organic template-directing mesophase under the nonaqueous evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) conditions required to grow conducting mesoporous metal oxide films.[4] Another problem is that high conductivity is usually associated with high crystallinity, and for mesoporous transition metal oxide materials this necessitates crystallization of the as-synthesized amorphous metal oxide framework into a nanocrystalline version, which usually results in strain-induced collapse of channel and/or cavity walls of the mesopores. So far, only mesoporous tin-doped indium oxide (meso-ITO) materials have been reported, but either their conductivity is very low due to low crystallinity [5] or their conductivity is reasonable but the mesostructure can only be templated with a specialty polymer surfactant. [6]