We present a general approach for the targeting and imaging of cancer cells using dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles (Au DENPs). Au DENPs were found to be able to covalently link with targeting and imaging ligands for subsequent cancer-cell targeting and imaging. The Au DENPs linked with defined numbers of folic acid (FA) and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FI) molecules are water soluble, stable, and biocompatible. In vitro studies show that the FA- and FI-modified Au DENPs can specifically bind to KB cells (a human epithelial carcinoma cell line) that overexpress high-affinity folate receptors and they are internalized dominantly into lysosomes of target cells within 2 h. These findings demonstrate that Au DENPs may serve as a general platform for cancer imaging and therapeutics.

We demonstrated a unique approach that combines a layer‐by‐layer (LbL) self‐assembly method with dendrimer chemistry to functionalize Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs) for specific targeting and imaging of cancer cells. In this approach, positively charged Fe3O4 NPs (8.4 nm in diameter) synthesized by controlled co‐precipitation of FeII and FeIII ions were modified with a bilayer composed of polystyrene sulfonate sodium salt and folic acid (FA)‐ and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FI)‐functionalized poly(amidoamine) dendrimers of generation 5 (G5.NH2‐FI‐FA) through electrostatic LbL assembly, followed by an acetylation reaction to neutralize the remaining surface amine groups of G5 dendrimers. Combined flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and magnetic resonance imaging studies show that Fe3O4/PSS/G5.NHAc‐FI‐FA NPs can specifically target cancer cells overexpressing FA receptors. The present approach to functionalizing Fe3O4 NPs opens a new avenue to fabricating various NPs for numerous biological sensing and therapeutic applications.

A triphenylamine based molecular “butterfly” is developed as dopant‐free hole‐transport material for perovskite solar cells exhibiting excellent power conversion efficiency of 16.3% which is comparable to the state‐of‐the‐art doped 2,2′,7,7′‐tetrakis(N,N′‐di‐p‐methoxy‐phenylamine)‐9,9′‐spirobifluorene (spiro‐OMeTAD). Moreover, the device is much more stable than that of spiro‐OMeTAD based device under light irradiation.

Two star-shaped TPA-based small-molecule materials(Z1012 and Z1013)were designed and synthesized in this paper. These molecules show high hole mobility and suitable energy levels for CH3NH3PbI3-based perovskite solar cells. Photovoltaic cells based on the Z1013 without any dopants or additives achieve an excellent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.4%, which is comparable to devices based on state-of-art p-doped spiro-OMeTAD. Moreover, the devices based on these two HTMs show much better stability than that of devices based on spiro-OMeTAD when aging in ambient air both at room temperature and 80 ℃.These results demonstrate that star-shape TPAs could be excellent dopant-free HTMs for perovskite solar cells and hold promise to replace the p-doped spiro-OMeTAD, which is important for the fabrication of cost-effective and stable devices.

[structure: see text]. A new series of dendritic two-photon absorbing chromophores containing triphenylamine moiety as a core or branching points have been synthesized through a convergent synthetic strategy. One-photon and two-photon optical properties of these molecules were characterized. In the nanosecond time domain, these molecules exhibited large two-photon absorption (TPA) cross sections up to 7.56-12.2 x 10(-44) s cm(4) at 800 nm, indicating that these molecular structures were viable candidates for various two-photon related applications.