During the last decade green synthesized cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO 2 NPs) attracted remarkable interest in various fields of science and technology. This review, explores the vast array of biological resources such as plants, microbes, and other biological products being used in synthesis of CeO 2 NPs. It also discusses their biosynthetic mechanism, current understandings, and trends in the green synthesis of CeO 2 NPs. Novel therapies based on green synthesized CeO 2 NPs are illustrated, in particular their antimicrobial potential along with attempts of their mechanistic elucidation. Overall, the main objective of this review is to provide a rational insight of the major accomplishments of CeO 2 NPs as novel therapeutics agents for a wide range of microbial pathogens and combating other diseases.

We present a novel design concept of molecular dimers for quantitative individual triplet yield (Φ Τ ) through intramolecular singlet fission. We synthesized a series of tetracene (Tc) dimers bridged by different phenylene-based linkers, focusing on the conformational flexibility in addition to the electronic coupling. In transient absorption measurements, a 4,4′-biphenyl-bridged Tc dimer with weaker electronic coupling and larger conformational flexibility exhibited the quantitative Φ Τ : 196 ± 12% at high excitation energy. Moreover, decoupled spins associated with conformational change were directly characterized by time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance. Strong interplay of the geometry change and electronic localization was revealed on the triplet pair dissociation through magnitudes of spin−spin exchange couplings. Thus, a synergetic role of conformational flexibility and electronic coupling in quantitative Φ Τ was clarified.

Amorphous titania (am.-TiO2) has gained wide interest in the field of photocatalysis, thanks to exceptional disorder-mediated optical and electrical properties compared to crystalline TiO2. Here, we study the effects of intrinsic Ti3+ and nitrogen defects in am.-TiO2 thin films via the atomic layer deposition (ALD) chemistry of tetrakis­(dimethylamido)­titanium­(IV) (TDMAT) and H2O precursors at growth temperatures of 100–200 °C. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and computational analysis allow us to identify structural disorder-induced penta- and heptacoordinated Ti4+ ions (Ti5/7c 4+), which are related to the formation of Ti3+ defects in am.-TiO2. The Ti3+-rich ALD-grown am.-TiO2 has stoichiometric composition, which is explained by the formation of interstitial peroxo species with oxygen vacancies. The occupation of Ti3+ 3d in-gap states increases with the ALD growth temperature, inducing both visible-light absorption and electrical conductivity via the polaron hopping mechanism. At 200 °C, the in-gap states become fully occupied extending the lifetime of photoexcited charge carriers from the picosecond to the nanosecond time domain. Nitrogen traces from the TDMAT precursor had no effect on optical properties and only little on charge transfer properties. These results provide insights into the charge transfer properties of ALD-grown am.-TiO2 that are essential to the performance of protective photoelectrode coatings in photoelectrochemical solar fuel reactors.

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films are widely employed for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications where the long lifetime of charge carriers is a paramount requirement for the device efficiency. To ensure the long lifetime, a high temperature treatment is used which restricts the applicability of TiO2 in devices incorporating organic or polymer components. In this study, we exploited low temperature (100–150 °C) atomic layer deposition (ALD) of 30 nm TiO2 thin films from tetrakis(dimethylamido)titanium. The deposition was followed by a heat treatment in air to find the minimum temperature requirements for the film fabrication without compromising the carrier lifetime. Femto-to nanosecond transient absorption spectroscopy was used to determine the lifetimes, and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction was employed for structural analysis. The optimal result was obtained for the TiO2 thin films grown at 150 °C and heat-treated at as low as 300 °C. The deposited thin films were amorphous and crystallized into anatase phase upon heat treatment at 300–500 °C. The average carrier lifetime for amorphous TiO2 is few picoseconds but increases to >400 ps upon crystallization at 500 °C. The samples deposited at 100 °C were also crystallized as anatase but the carrier lifetime was <100 ps.

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