A bifunctional peptide containing a domain that targets cell nuclei and a domain with the ability to biomineralize and capture Au clusters is presented. The peptide-Au clusters exhibit red emission (λ(em) = 677 nm) and specifically stain the nuclei of three cell lines.

The artificial peptide with amino acid sequence CCYRGRKKRRQRRR was used to biomineralize serial Ag clusters. Under different alkaline conditions, clusters with red and blue emission were biomineralized by the peptide, respectively. The matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectra implied that the red-emitting cluster sample was composed of Ag(28), while the blue-emitting cluster sample was composed of Ag(5), Ag(6), and Ag(7). The UV-visible absorption and infrared spectra revealed that the peptide phenol moiety reduced Ag(+) ions and that formed Ag clusters were captured by peptide thiol moieties. The phenol reduction potential was controlled by the alkalinity and played an important role in determining the Ag cluster size. Circular dichroism observations suggested that the alkalinity tuned the peptide secondary structure, which may also affect the Ag cluster size.

It is urgent to seek high performance solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) via a facile chemistry and simple process. The lithium salts are composed of complex anions that are stabilized by a Lewis acid agent. This Lewis acid can initiate the ring opening polymerization. Herein, a self‐catalyzed strategy toward facile synthesis of crosslinked poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether‐based solid polymer electrolyte (C‐PEGDE) is presented. It is manifested that the poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether‐based solid polymer electrolyte possesses a superior electrochemical stability window up to 4.5 V versus Li/Li+ and considerable ionic conductivity of 8.9 × 10−5 S cm−1 at ambient temperature. Moreover, the LiFePO4/C‐PEGDE/Li batteries deliver stable charge/discharge profiles and considerable rate capability. It is demonstrated that this self‐catalyzed strategy can be a very effective approach for high performance solid polymer electrolytes.

CDs synthesized from o-phenylenediamine through microwave-assisted method show great potential for Fe3+ and H2O2 detection as well as cell imaging.

Polycyanoacrylate is a very promising matrix for polymer electrolyte, which possesses advantages of strong binding and high electrochemical stability owing to the functional nitrile groups. Herein, a facile and reliable in situ polymerization strategy of poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate) (PECA) based gel polymer electrolytes (GPE) via a high efficient anionic polymerization was introduced consisting of PECA and 4 M LiClO in carbonate solvents. The in situ polymerized PECA gel polymer electrolyte achieved an excellent ionic conductivity (2.7 × 10 S cm) at room temperature, and exhibited a considerable electrochemical stability window up to 4.8 V vs Li/Li. The LiFePO/PECA-GPE/Li and LiNiMnO/PECA-GPE/Li batteries using this in-situ-polymerized GPE delivered stable charge/discharge profiles, considerable rate capability, and excellent cycling performance. These results demonstrated this reliable in situ polymerization process is a very promising strategy to prepare high performance polymer electrolytes for flexible thin-film batteries, micropower lithium batteries, and deformable lithium batteries for special purpose.

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Self-powered broadband photodetectors exhibit excellent self-powered and wide-band photoresponse from visible to infrared region and attract enormous attention due to their promising applications in imaging, sensing, and optical communication. PbSe colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) and halide perovskites nanocrystals (NCs) are commonly used for photodetectors due to their strong absorption capability, tunable bandgap, and high aspect ratio. However, due to suffering from low charge carrier mobility and high trap density, the performance of individual PbSe CQDs and perovskites-based photodetectors is not satisfactory. Integration of PbSe CQDs with inorganic mixed-halide perovskite nanomaterials can provide an opportunity to overcome these drawbacks. In this work, a hybrid nanocomposite of PbSe CQDs blended with all-inorganic mixed halide perovskite NCs is integrated to fabricate bulk-heterojunction-based high-performance photodetectors. The transportation of photogenerated carriers is enhanced by employing electrons-and holes-extracting layers. As a result, the photoresponsivity of 6.16 A W −1 and a specific detectivity of 5.96 × 10 13 Jones with an ON/OFF current ratio of 10 5 is obtained for bulk-heterojunction photodetector ITO/ZnO/PbSe:CsPbBr 1.5 I 1.5 /P3HT/Au in the self-powered mode. Meanwhile, the device performance of the fabricated photodetector is numerically simulated by using Technology Computer-Aided Design software, and the physical mechanisms for photogenerated carriers' transportation are discussed in detail.

A B S T R A C TThe classic poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) based solid polymer electrolyte suffers from poor ionic conductivity of ambient temperature, low lithium ion transference number and relatively narrow electrochemical window (<4.0 V vs. Li + /Li). Herein, the carbonate-linked PEO solid polymer such as poly (diethylene glycol carbonate) (PDEC) and poly(triethylene glycol carbonate) (PTEC) were explored to find out the feasibility of resolving above issues. It was proven that the optimized ionic conductivity of PTEC based electrolyte reached up to 1.12 Â 10 À5 S cm À1 at 25 C with a decent lithium ion transference number of 0.39 and a wide electrochemical window about 4.5 V vs. Li + /Li. In addition, the PTEC based Li/LiFePO 4 cell could be reversibly charged and discharged at 0.05 C-rates at ambient temperature. Moreover, the higher voltage Li/LiFe 0.2 Mn 0.8 PO 4 cell (cutoff voltage 4.35 V) possessed considerable rate capability and excellent cycling performance even at ambient temperature. Therefore, these carbonate-linked PEO electrolytes were demonstrated to be fascinating candidates for the next generation solid state lithium batteries simultaneously with high energy and high safety.