A carbon dot (C-Dot)-based two-photon fluorescent probe has been developed for the monitoring of pH changes across a broad range with high sensitivity and selectivity. The inorganic-organic probe also shows good biocompatibility and cell permeability, and thus can be successfully applied in bioimaging and biosensing of physiological pH in living cells, as well as living tissues at a depth of 65-185 μm.

This study was designed to investigate the recent movement and current stage of

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A new angular momentum projection for systems of particles with arbitrary spins is formulated based on the Heine-Stieltjes correspondence, which can be regarded as the solutions of the mean-field plus pairing model in the strong pairing interaction G → ∞ limit. Properties of the Stieltjes zeros of the extended Heine-Stieltjes polynomials, of which the roots determine the projected states, and the related Van Vleck zeros are discussed. The electrostatic interpretation of these zeros is presented. As examples, applications to n nonidentical particles of spin-1/2 and to identical bosons or fermions are made to elucidate the procedure and properties of the Stieltjes zeros and the related Van Vleck zeros. It is shown that the new angular momentum projection for n identical bosons or fermions can be simplified with the branching multiplicity formula of U (N ) ↓ O(3) and the special choices of the parameters used in the projection. Especially, it is shown that the solutions for identical bosons can always be expressed in terms of zeros of Jacobi polynomials. However, unlike non-identical particle systems, the n-coupled states of identical particles are non-orthogonal with respect to the multiplicity label after the projection.

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A facile method of synthesizing 60 nm magnetic-fluorescent core-shell bifunctional nanocomposites with the ability to label cells is presented. Hydrophobic trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO)-capped CdSe@ZnS quantum dots (QDs) were assembled on polyethyleneimine (PEI)-coated Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles (MNP). Polyethyleneimine was utilized for the realization of multifunction, including attaching 4 nm TOPO capped CdSe@ZnS quantum dots onto magnetite particles, altering the surface properties of quantum dots from hydrophobic to hydrophilic as well as preventing the formation of large aggregates. Results show that these water-soluble hybrid nanocomposites exhibit good colloidal stability and retain good magnetic and fluorescent properties. Because TOPO-capped QDs are assembled instead of their water-soluble equivalents, the nanocomposites are still highly luminescent with no shift in the PL peak position and present long-term fluorescence stability. Moreover, TAT peptide (GRKKRRQRRRPQ) functionalized hybrid nanoparticles were also studied due to their combined magnetic enrichment and optical detection for cell separation and rapid cell labelling. A cell viability assay revealed good biocompatibility of these hybrid nanoparticles. The potential application of the new magnetic-fluorescent nanocomposites in biological and medicine is demonstrated.

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Luminescent and lead-free organic-transition metal halides (OTMHs) are greatly interesting for optical applications. In this work, six single crystals of pyrrolidinium manganese halides are prepared (crystal configurations). The analysis of crystal structures illustrates that halide ions play an important role in the crystal structure and further affect the luminescent properties of pyrrolidinium manganese halides. It is only for Cl − and Br − that produce perovskite-type crystals which exhibit red emission. Other crystals with MnX 4 2− tetrahedron unit emit green or yellow lights. It is interesting that the obtained crystals only contain one kind of halide ion with higher atomic number if there are two kinds of halide ions existing in the crystal growth solution. This study illustrates that the luminescent properties of OTMHs can be tuned by halide ions through deliberately designing experiments.