Context: Curcumin (CUR) is a promising drug candidate based on its broad bioactivities and good antitumor effect, but the application of CUR is potentially restricted because of its poor solubility and bioavailability. Objective: This study aims at developing a simple and effective drug delivery system for CUR to enhance its solubility and bioavailability thus to improve its antitumor efficacy. Materials and methods: Curcumin nanosuspensions (CUR-NSps) were prepared by precipitationultrasonication method using mPEG2000-DSPE and soybean lecithin as a combined stabilizer. Results: CUR-NSps with a high drug payload of 67.07% were successfully prepared. The resultant CUR-NSps had a mean particle size of 186.33 ± 2.73 nm with a zeta potential of À19.00 ± 1.31 mV. In vitro cytotoxicity assay showed that CUR-NSps exhibited enhanced cytotoxicity compared to CUR solution. The pharmacokinetics results demonstrated that CURNSps exhibited a significantly greater AUC 0-24 and prolonged MRT compared to CUR injections after intravenous administration. In the biodistribution study, CUR-NSps demonstrated enhanced biodistribution compared with CUR injections in liver, spleen, kidney, brain, and tumor. The CUR-NSps also showed improved antitumor therapeutic efficacy over the injections (70.34% versus 40.03%, p50.01). Conclusions: These results suggest that CUR-NSps might represent a promising drug formulation for intravenous administration of CUR for the treatment of cancer.

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It is necessary to evaluate the interactions between the different functional layers in optoelectronic devices to optimize device performance. Recently, the I-rich allinorganic perovskite CsPbI 2 Br has attracted tremendous attention for use in solar cell applications because of its suitable band gap and favorable photo and thermal stabilities. It has been reported that the undesirable phase degradation of the photoactive α phase CsPbI 2 Br to the non-perovskite δ phase could be triggered by high humidity. To obtain stable devices, it is thus important to protect CsPbI 2 Br from moisture. In this paper, CuI, a non-hygroscopic p-type hole-transporting material, is found to induce the phase degradation of α-CsPbI 2 Br to the δ-CsPbI 2 Br. The rate and extent of phase degradation of CsPbI 2 Br are closely associated with the heating temperature and coverage of a CuI granular capping layer. This discovery is different from the widely reported water-induced phase degradation of CsPbI 2 Br. Our work highlights the importance of careful selection of hole-transporting materials during the processing of I-rich all-inorganic CsPbX 3 (X=Br, I) perovskites to realize high-performance optoelectronic devices.

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All-inorganic CsPbI2Br perovskite films offer attractive thermal stability and photophysical properties for high-performance optoelectronic devices. However, due to the rapid evaporation rate of the solvent, there are many defects, heterogeneous compositions, and pinholes in the CsPbI2Br films prepared by the common solution method. Herein, the homogeneous cap-mediated annealing strategy is successfully introduced to slow down the evaporation rate of the residual dimethyl sulfoxide solvent molecules in CsPbI2Br precursor films during thermal annealing. Compared with the conventional annealing method, the CsPbI2Br films prepared by the homogeneous cap-mediated annealing have excellent crystallinity with a pinhole-free surface. As a result, the perovskite solar cells based on the homogeneous cap-mediated annealing CsPbI2Br and carbon top electrode exhibited a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.24%, which is much higher than that (4.36%) of the conventional annealing CsPbI2Br-based solar cells. Moreover, the homogeneous cap-mediated annealing strategy can also be introduced to a two-step annealing method. Because of the synergistic effect, the high-quality CsPbI2Br perovskite films with a low root-mean-square of 19.53 nm, enlarged grain size, and reduced defect density are obtained, and the champion PCE of the solar cells is further increased to 12.82%.

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