For conductive carbon nanotube (CN)/polymer composite fibers to be obtained, CNs were incorporated into poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) in dimethylformamide (DMF) solutions and electrospun to form CN/PVDF fiber mats. The thinnest fiber was 70 nm thick. The percolation threshold for the insulator‐to‐conductor transition was 0.003 wt % CN for CN/PVDF/DMF solutions, 0.015 wt % CN for CN/PVDF spin‐coated films, and 0.04 wt % CN for CN/PVDF electrospun fiber mats. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 1572–1577, 2003

A variety of therapeutic and/or diagnostic nanoparticles (NPs), or nanomedicines, have been formulated for improved drug delivery and imaging applications. Microfluidic technology enables continuous and highly reproducible synthesis of NPs through controlled mixing processes at the micro- and nanoscale. Yet, the inherent low-throughput remains a critical roadblock, precluding the probable applications of new nanomedicines for clinical translation. Here we present robust manufacturing of lipid-polymer NPs (LPNPs) through feedback controlled operation of parallelized swirling microvortex reactors (SMRs). We demonstrate the capability of a single SMR to continuously produce multicomponent NPs and the high-throughput performance of parallelized SMRs for large-scale production (1.8kg/d) of LPNPs while maintaining the physicochemical properties. Finally, we present robust and reliable manufacturing of NPs by integrating the parallelized SMR platform with our custom high-precision feedback control system that addresses unpredictable disturbances during the production. Our approach may contribute to efficient development and optimization of a wide range of multicomponent NPs for medical imaging and drug delivery, ultimately facilitating good manufacturing practice (GMP) production and accelerating the clinical translation.

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CuC2O4⋅x H2O was facilely prepared on a Cu–Ni alloy substrate by in situ precipitation‐induced growth by using a mixture of sodium persulfate, hydrogen peroxide, and oxalic acid. Thermal annealing allowed the conversion of CuC2O4⋅x H2O to leaf‐like CuO nanostructures with a thickness of a few tens of micrometers of sub‐sized nanoparticles, which were applied for fabricating binder‐free anodes for lithium‐ion batteries. Ni was a nucleation site for CuC2O4⋅x H2O, which was uniformly formed on the entire substrate. The concentration of each component in the mixture solution caused significant morphological changes because of the different elution of copper ions. CuO nanostructures annealed at 550 °C showed large areal and gravimetric capacity with excellent capacity retention of 95.5 % after 200 cycles at a high current density because of their appropriate structural morphology, which not only allowed the formation of a stable solid electrolyte interphase layer but also enabled a reversible reaction during the charge/discharge process.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with high energy density and safety under fast-charging conditions are highly desirable for electric vehicles. However, owing to the growth of Li dendrites, increased temperature at high charging rates, and low specific capacity in commercially available anodes, they cannot meet the market demand. In this study, a facile one-pot electrochemical self-assembly approach has been developed for constructing hybrid electrodes composed of ultrafine Fe 3 O 4 particles on reduced graphene oxide (Fe 3 O 4 @rGO) as anodes for LIBs. The rationally designed Fe 3 O 4 @rGO electrode containing 36 wt % rGO exhibits an increase in specific capacity as cycling progresses, owing to improvements in the active sites, electrochemical kinetics, and catalytic behavior, leading to a high specific capacity of 833 mAh g À 1 and outstanding cycling stability over 2000 cycles with a capacity loss of only 0.127 % per cycle at 5 A g À 1 , enabling the full charging of batteries within 12 min. Furthermore, the origin of this abnormal improvement in the specific capacity (called negative fading), which exceeds the theoretical capacity, is investigated. This study opens up new possibilities for the commercial feasibility of Fe 3 O 4 @rGO anodes in fast-charging LIBs.

Highly ordered arrays of vertically aligned Au nanorod arrays consisting of agglomerated nanoparticles are fabricated by porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template-assisted electrochemical deposition. The Au nanorod arrays with rough surfaces are then transformed to smooth surfaces by a subsequent thermal annealing step. The surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) intensity of the Au nanorod arrays with rough and smooth surfaces was compared to investigate the morphology dependence of SERS. The Au nanorod arrays with agglomerated structures demonstrated a highly active SERS effect as abundant nanogaps are created uniformly by combination of hot spots caused by both agglomerated porous structures on each nanorod and inter-rod gaps

The growth mode of europium (Eu)-doped GaN epitaxial films grown on a GaN template by rf plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (PAMBE) was investigated with different III/V ratios under a constant Eu beam equivalent pressure ratio [P Eu/(P Eu+P Ga)]. The reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) patterns and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images revealed the transition of the growth mode from three-dimensional (3D) to step-flow/two-dimensional (2D) by increasing the III/V ratio. When the films were grown in the 3D growth mode, Eu concentrations estimated by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry/channeling (RBS/channeling) were almost constant, although the III/V ratios varied. However, when the growth mode was transferred from 3D to step-flow/2D, precipitates on the surface abruptly increased while the Eu concentration abruptly decreased, indicating the abrupt degradation of Eu-incorporation in the film. Luminescence sites of Eu3+ were sensitive to the III/V ratio, and Eu atoms have different luminescence sites in both growth modes. Furthermore, luminescence efficiency abruptly increased when the growth mode was transferred from 3D to step-flow/2D.

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