Upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) exhibit unique optical properties such as photo-emission stability, large anti-Stokes shift, and long excited-state lifetimes, allowing significant advances in a broad range of applications from biomedical sensing...

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Lanthanide-based upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) generally require high power laser excitation. Here we report wide-field upconversion microscopy at single-nanoparticle sensitivity using incoherent excitation of a 970-nm light-emitting diode (LED). We show that due to its broad emission spectrum, LED excitation is about 3 times less effective for UCNPs and generates high background compared to laser illumination. To counter this, we use time-gated luminescence detection to eliminate the residual background from the LED source, so that individual UCNPs with high sensitizer (Yb 3+ ) doping and inert shell protection become clearly identified under LED excitation at 1.18 W cm -2 , as confirmed by correlated electron microscopy images. Hydrophilic UCNPs are obtained by polysaccharide coating via a facile ligand exchange protocol to demonstrate imaging of cellular uptake using LED excitation. These results suggest a viable approach to bypassing the limitations associated with high-power lasers when applying UCNPs and upconversion microscopy to life science research.

Structural and morphological regulation is a distinctly important topic in peptide self-assembly, and is also regarded as the fundamental point in peptide-based biomaterials development. In this paper, we showed that adding anionic surfactant SDS to a bola amphiphilic peptide KIK could result in the reconstruction of β-sheet secondary structure besides the changes in self-assembly morphologies from nanotubes to helical ribbons, nanofibers, or straight nanotapes according to the negatively stained transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results. The inducing effect of SDS was observed at both above and below its CMC but with different transformation rates. Through comparison to other surfactants, including CTAB, CEO, and AOT, we proposed that the transitions of KIK self-assemblies induced by anionic surfactants could be mainly attributed to the effect of hydrophobic interaction and electrostatic attraction between surfactants and peptide molecules. Rheological property measurement and dye adsorption experiments were also carried out to evaluate the properties of hydrogels formed by the peptide/surfactant hybrids. The samples formed self-supporting hydrogels at proper SDS or AOT concentrations, and the charges of hydrogel could be regulated by peptide to surfactant ratio.

Abstract:The soil particle movement under seepage flow is one of the predominant mechanisms responsible for incidents and failures of dams and streambanks. However, little attention has been paid to the critical hydraulic gradient under two-dimensional (2-D) seepage flow. In this study, a theoretical model was established under 2-D seepage flow to predict the critical hydraulic gradients for soil particle movement. In this model, the sediment particle rolling theory was used, while taking into account the relative exposure degree of the soil grains and the seepage direction. The model was validated through qualitative analysis and comparison with previous data, and showed considerable superiority over Terzaghi's model. In addition, the effect of the soil internal instability, implying that the critical hydraulic gradient of unstable soil is lower than that of stable soil, was discussed. Various parameters of the model were also analyzed. The results showed that the seepage direction angle was positively related to the critical gradient, whereas the void and the mean diameter of the soil were negatively related to it. Finally, the model proposes a calculation method for the particle movement initiation probability, which is regarded as a key parameter in the sediment transport model.