Multiferroic CoFe(2)O(4)-Pb(Zr(0.52)Ti(0.48))O(3) core-shell nanofibers have been synthesized by coaxial electrospinning in combination with a sol-gel process. The core-shell configuration of nanofibers has been verified by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and the spinel structure of CoFe(2)O(4) and perovskite structure of Pb(Zr(0.52)Ti(0.48))O(3) have been confirmed by X-ray diffraction and selected area electron diffraction. The multiferroic properties of core-shell nanofibers have been demonstrated by magnetic hysteresis and piezoresponse force microscopy, and their magnetoelectric coupling has been confirmed by evolution of piezoresponse under an external magnetic field, showing magnetically induced ferroelectric domain switching and changes in switching characteristics. The lateral magnetoelectric coefficient is estimated to be 2.95 × 10(4) mV/cmOe, two orders of magnitude higher than multiferroic thin films of similar composition.

Electromechanical coupling is ubiquitous in nature and underpins the functionality of materials and systems as diverse as ferroelectric and multiferroic materials, electrochemical devices, and biological systems, and strain-based scanning probe microscopy (s-SPM) techniques have emerged as a powerful tool in characterizing and manipulating electromechanical coupling at the nanoscale. Uncovering underlying mechanisms of electromechanical coupling in these diverse materials and systems, however, is a difficult outstanding problem, and questions and confusions arise from recent experiment observations of electromechanical coupling and its apparent polarity switching in some unexpected materials. We propose a series of s-SPM experiments to identify different microscopic mechanisms underpinning electromechanical coupling, and demonstrate their feasibility using three representative materials. By employing a combination of spectroscopic studies and different modes of s-SPM, we show that it is possible to distinguish electromechanical coupling arising from spontaneous polarization, induced dipole moment, and ionic Vegard strain, and this offer a clear guidance on using s-SPM to study a wide variety of functional materials and systems.

A novel technique is developed to process nanocrystalline Ca3Co4O9 ceramics with much enhanced thermoelectric properties. Nanocrystalline Ca3Co4O9 nanofibers are synthesized first using sol−gel based electrospinning, and then consolidated into bulk ceramics by spark plasma sintering with preferred grain orientation distribution and without substantial grain growth. The nanofiber-sintered ceramic has a grain size much smaller than that sintered from sol−gel synthesized powders with improved texture, and has simultaneously enhanced Seebeck coefficient, electric conductivity, and thermal resistivity, resulting in substantial enhancement in thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. This technique is promising for high-efficiency thermoelectric conversion of waste heat directly into electricity.

Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) have been synthesized from thermoplastic polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) using electrospinning in combination with a novel three-step heat treatment process, which successfully stabilizes the fibrous morphology before carbonization that was proven to be difficult for thermoplastic polymers other than polyacrylonitrile (PAN). These CNFs are both mesoporous and microporous with high surface areas without subsequent activation, and thus overcome the limitations of PAN based CNFs, and are processed in an environmentally friendly and more cost effective manner. The effects of heat treatment parameters and precursor concentration on the morphologies and porous properties of CNFs have been investigated, and their application as anodes for lithium ion batteries has also been demonstrated.

Ferroelectricity has long been speculated to have important biological functions, although its very existence in biology has never been firmly established. Here, we present compelling evidence that elastin, the key ECM protein found in connective tissues, is ferroelectric, and we elucidate the molecular mechanism of its switching. Nanoscale piezoresponse force microscopy and macroscopic pyroelectric measurements both show that elastin retains ferroelectricity at 473 K, with polarization on the order of 1 μC/cm 2 , whereas coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations predict similar polarization with a Curie temperature of 580 K, which is higher than most synthetic molecular ferroelectrics. The polarization of elastin is found to be intrinsic in tropoelastin at the monomer level, analogous to the unit cell level polarization in classical perovskite ferroelectrics, and it switches via thermally activated cooperative rotation of dipoles. Our study sheds light onto a long-standing question on ferroelectric switching in biology and establishes ferroelectricity as an important biophysical property of proteins. This is a critical first step toward resolving its physiological significance and pathological implications.F erroelectricity was first discovered in synthetic materials in 1920 when spontaneous polarization of Rochelle salt was found to be switchable by an external electric field (1). Ferroelectrics thus belongs to a larger class of pyroelectric materials that possess a unique polar axis, which, in turn, belongs to piezoelectrics exhibiting linear coupling between electric and mechanical fields (2). Because of these versatile properties, ferroelectric materials are promising for a wide range of technological applications in data storage, sensing, actuation, energy harvesting, and electro-optic devices (3). Biological tissues, such as bones and tendons, were first observed to be piezoelectric in 1950s (4), and shortly thereafter, pyroelectricity was discovered in a variety of biological materials as well (5, 6). Ever since then, ferroelectricity has been speculated for biological systems, and its potential physiological significance has been suggested (7). For example, it was hypothesized that the conformation transition in voltage-gated ion channels is ferroelectric in nature (8, 9). Nevertheless, indication of ferroelectricity in biological materials has only recently emerged from nanoscale piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) studies (10-13).This work is motivated by our recent observation of PFM switching in elastin (12), which has generated quite a bit of excitement, although there is still considerable skepticism regarding the notion of biological ferroelectricity. Such reservation is understandable, given the unusual phenomenon of ferroelectric switching in biology, some ambiguities associated with PFM hysteresis, and a current lack of understanding of the basic science underpinning the switching mechanism. Indeed, there is neither macroscopic evidence of ferroelectric switching nor microscopic understan...

Elastin is an intriguing extracellular matrix protein present in all connective tissues of vertebrates, rendering essential elasticity to connective tissues subjected to repeated physiological stresses. Using piezoresponse force microscopy, we show that the polarity of aortic elastin is switchable by an electrical field, which may be associated with the recently discovered biological ferroelectricity in the aorta. More interestingly, it is discovered that the switching in aortic elastin is largely suppressed by glucose treatment, which appears to freeze the internal asymmetric polar structures of elastin, making it much harder to switch, or suppressing the switching completely. Such loss of ferroelectricity could have important physiological and pathological implications from aging to arteriosclerosis that are closely related to glycation of elastin.

The eggplant was mutagenized with ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) to enhance its genetic variability in our previous paper. In this article, we further analyzed the phenotype of M2 generation of mutant eggplants. A total of 325 independent M2 families were investigated for phenotypic variation. In addition to the visible phenotypic variation, chlorogenic acid (CGA) concentrations were analyzed in 26 fruits of mutants with High Performance Liquid Chromatography assay. Seventeen fruits exhibited significantly higher concentrations of CGAs than those in wild-type. The anthocyanin concentration of S9-1, the purple black mutant, was higher than WT, meanwhile, the anthocyanin concentration of L6-4 and U36-1 was lower than WT. Furthermore, our RT-PCR result demonstrated that the expression levels of anthocyanin biosynthetic genes, except for SmPAL, were increased in S9-1, and the regulator SmMYB1 was decreased in L6-4 and U36-1 mutants. Together, our data indicated that, M2 generation showed abundant phenotypic variations and the strong potential usage for next step of breeding and molecular genetic mechanisms in eggplant.

High-efficiency thermoelectric oxide materials are promising for the conversion of waste heat directly into electricity, and nanostructure engineering is effective in enhancing thermoelectric figure of merit through phonon scattering at grain boundaries and interfaces. In this work, we report a sol-gel-based electrospinning technique to synthesize thermoelectric NaCo 2 O 4 nanofibers with grain size as small as 10 nm, orders of magnitude smaller than that of NaCo 2 O 4 powders processed by conventional sol-gel techniques. A series of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) studies are carried out to measure the electric conduction in a single NaCo 2 O 4 nanofiber, and the thermoelectric effect of a single NaCo 2 O 4 nanofiber is also characterized using a novel thermal probing technique that induces a large temperature gradient in the nanofiber. Sintering of nanocrystalline nanofibers into bulk NaCo 2 O 4 ceramics for thermoelectric energy harvesting is also discussed.