During white-light exposure, the region outside of the hologram polymerized to form a random-phase segregated morphology referred to as the floodlit region. Film thickness was controlled by the addition of 10 lm diameter glass rods to the pre-polymer syrup. The diffraction efficiency of the grating was determined through the ratio of the intensity of diffracted light to incident light using a He-Ne (632 nm) laser. SEM images were collected with a Hitachi 900S operating at 1 keV. The PM597 was excited with the doubled output (532 nm) of a Nd:YAG that had a repetition rate of 10 Hz and pulse duration of 5-8 ns. Photoluminescence (PL) was collected perpendicular to the cell with an Ocean Optics CCD/spectrometer that had a resolution of 1.9 nm.

In the light of the significance and urgency for the recognition and sensing of anions specifically, especially those of biological relevance, herein, we wish to demonstrate a novel colorimetric avenue for highly selective iodide recognition and sensing using simple citrate-stabilized core/shell Cu@Au nanoparticles. No other ions than iodide can induce an appreciable color change of the Cu@Au nanoparticles solution from purple to red by transforming the interconnected, irregularly shaped nanoparticles to the single, separated, and nearly spherical ones, as confirmed by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM). On the basis of the optical spectra and TEM studies, a mechanism of iodide-induced aggregating/fusion, fragmentation, and reorganization of atoms is proposed. With this strategy, 6 μM (0.76 ppm) of iodide can be recognized within 20 min by naked-eye observation. This sensitive and selective colorimetric assay opens up a fresh insight of facile, rapid, and reliable detection of iodide and may find its future application in the analysis of the total iodine in edible salt as well as the clinical diagnosis of urinary iodide.

We report a rapid and specific aptamer-based method for one-step cocaine detection with minimal reagent requirements. The feasibility of aptamer-based detection has been demonstrated with sensors that operate via target-induced conformational change mechanisms, but these have generally exhibited limited target sensitivity. We have discovered that the cocaine-binding aptamer MNS-4.1 can also bind the fluorescent molecule 2-amino-5,6,7-trimethyl-1,8-naphthyridine (ATMND) and thereby quench its fluorescence. We subsequently introduced sequence changes into MNS-4.1 to engineer a new cocaine-binding aptamer (38-GC) that exhibits higher affinity to both ligands, with reduced background signal and increased signal gain. Using this aptamer, we have developed a new sensor platform that relies on the cocaine-mediated displacement of ATMND from 38-GC as a result of competitive binding. We demonstrate that our sensor can detect cocaine within seconds at concentrations as low as 200 nM, which is 50-fold lower than existing assays based on target-induced conformational change. More importantly, our assay achieves successful cocaine detection in body fluids, with a limit of detection of 10.4, 18.4, and 36 μM in undiluted saliva, urine, and serum samples, respectively.

This review of 53 references deals with the uses of zeolites and zeolite-based materials for developing gas sensors. The potential of these materials is highlighted and avenues for further research are suggested.

Herein we report the "OR" and "AND" colorimetric logic gates for small molecules using split/integrated aptamers and unmodified gold nanoparticles, which generate visually observed outputs according to Boolean operations.

Reliable and accurate detection of telomerase activity is crucial to better understand its role in cancer cells and to further explore its function in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Here, we construct a smart DNA tweezer (DT) for detection of telomerase activity. The DT is assembled by three specially designed single-stranded oligonucleotides: a central strand dually labeled with donor/acceptor fluorophores and two arm strands containing overhangs complementary to telomerase reaction products (TRPs). It can get closed through hybridization with TRPs and get reopen through strand displacement reaction by TRPs' complementary sequences. First, under the action of telomerase, telomerase binding substrates (TS) are elongated to generate TRPs ended with telomeric repeats (TTAGGG) . TRPs hybridize with the two arm overhangs cooperatively and strain DT to closed state, inducing an increased fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) efficiency, which is utilized for telomerase activity detection. Second, upon introduction of a removal strand (RS) complementary to TRPs, the closed DT is relaxed to open state via the toehold-mediated strand displacement, inducing a decreased FRET efficiency, which is utilized for determination of TRP length distribution. The detection limit of telomerase activity is equivalent to 141 cells/μL for HeLa cells, and telomerase-active cellular extracts can be differentiated from telomerase-inactive cellular extracts. Furthermore, TRPs owning 1, 2, 3, 4, and ≥5 telomeric repeats are identified to account for 25.6%, 20.5%, 15.7%, 12.5%, and 25.7%, respectively. The proposed strategy will offer a new approach for reliable, accurate detection of telomerase activity and product length distribution for deeper studying its role and function in cancer.

Unmodified DNA and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are used to develop a colorimetric method for distinguishing ligands binding to homoadenine, based on DNA adsorption onto AgNPs (see picture). The targets of the label‐free assay could be small molecules rather than oligonucleotides.

As an extension of our previous work, which described the unique ability of the core/shell Cu@Au nanoparticle (NP) to selectively recognize iodide, (1) herein, we wish to report the development of an alternatively sensitive and selective colorimetric detection for sulfide anion and cysteine based upon the Cu@Au NP by a competition avenue. In the absence of sulfide anion or cysteine, iodide can induce an appreciable color change of the Cu@Au NP solution from purple to red by transforming the clusters of NP to single, nearly spherical, and larger ones. However, the transformation is severely interfered by the presence of sulfide or cysteine because of a higher binding strength of the S-Au bond than the I-Au one. As a result, the clear purple-to-red color change induced by iodide is affected as a correlation with the concentration of sulfide or cysteine. By taking advantage of this fact, we can detect a concentration of 3 μM for sulfide and 0.4 μM for cysteine with the naked eye or 0.3 μM (10 ppb) for sulfide and 50 nM (6 ppb) for cysteine aided by a UV/vis spectrometer. Given the detrimental effect of hydrogen sulfide and the biological importance of cysteine, the assay may become useful in the environment monitoring, water quality inspection and biomedical diagnosis as well.