Until now, the ability to form a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on a surface has been investigated according to deposition techniques, which in turn depend on surface–coater interactions. In this paper, we pursued two goals: to form a SAM on a gold nanosurface and to correlate its formation to the nanosurface curvature. To achieve these objectives, gold nanoparticles of different shapes (spheres, rods, and triangles) were functionalized with a luminescent thiolated bipyridine (Bpy-SH), and the SAM formation was studied by investigating the photo-physics of Bpy-SH. We have shown that emission wavelength and excited-state lifetime of Bpy-SH are strongly correlated to the formation of specific aggregates within SAMs, the nature of these aggregates being in close correlation to the shape of the nanoparticles. Micro-Raman spectroscopy investigation was used to test the SERS effect of gold nanoparticles on thiolated bipyridine forming SAMs.

Hybrid nanoparticles, composed of an iron oxide magnetic core embedded with gold fractal‐grown hyper branches, have been synthesized by a seed‐mediated growth approach. Magnetic and plasmonic properties have been described respectively through ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and extinction spectra. According to the hydroxylamine amount, used as a surface catalysed reducing agent, the number of branches and the intensity of the fractal growth have been finely tuned and were observed through TEM microscopy. The magnetic core allowed their motion control via an external magnetic field. The plasmonic properties of these hyper‐branched hybrid nanoparticles were recorded similar to those shown by the branched gold nanoparticles, but it is interesting to note that they showed an encouraging photothermal response.

Ir(iii) redox switchable cyclometallated complexes were synthesized and their paramagnetic and electrochromic properties were investigated.

Dung's abstract Argumentation Framework (AF) has emerged as a central formalism for argumentation in AI. Preferences in AF allow to represent the comparative strength of arguments in a simple yet expressive way. In this paper we first investigate the complexity of the verification as well as credulous and skeptical acceptance problems in Preference-based AF (PAF) that extends AF with preferences over arguments. Next, after introducing new semantics for AF where extensions are selected using cardinality (instead of set inclusion) criteria and investigating their complexity, we introduce a framework called AF with Priority rules (AFP) that extends AF with sequences of priority rules. AFP generalizes AF with classical set-inclusion and cardinality based semantics, suggesting that argumentation semantics can be viewed as ways to express priorities among extensions. Finally, we extend AFP by proposing AF with Priority rules and Preferences (AFP^2), where also preferences over arguments can be used to define priority rules, and study the complexity of the above-mentioned problems.