A highly sensitive tactile sensor is devised by applying microstructured graphene arrays as sensitive layers. The combination of graphene and anisotropic microstructures endows this sensor with an ultra-high sensitivity of -5.53 kPa(-1) , an ultra-fast response time of only 0.2 ms, as well as good reliability, rendering it promising for the application of tactile sensing in artificial skin and human-machine interface.

Perovskite nanocrystals are attracting great interest due to their excellent photonic properties. Here, through a supramolecular self-assembly approach, the perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) with a novel circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) are successfully endowed. It is found that the achiral perovskite NCs can coassemble with chiral gelator in nonpolar solvents, in which the gelator molecules modify the surface of the perovskite NCs. Through such cogelation, the molecular chirality can transfer to the NCs resulting in CPL signals with a dissymmetric factor (g ) up to 10 . Furthermore, depending on the molecular chirality of the gelator, the CPL sense can be selected and the mirror-imaged CPL is obtained. Such gels can be further embedded into the polymer film to facilitate flexible CPL devices. It is envisaged that this approach will afford a new insight into the designing of the functional chiroptical materials.

Resistance switching characteristics of natural sericin protein film is demonstrated for nonvolatile memory application for the first time. Excellent memory characteristics with a resistance OFF/ON ratio larger than 10(6) have been obtained and a multilevel memory based on sericin has been achieved. The environmentally friendly high performance biomaterial based memory devices may hold a place in the future of electronic device development.

The employ of natural biomaterials as the basic building blocks of electronic devices is of growing interest for biocompatible and green electronics. Here, resistive switching (RS) devices based on naturally silk protein with confi gurable functionality are demonstrated. The RS type of the devices can be effectively and exactly controlled by controlling the compliance current in the set process. Memory RS can be triggered by a higher compliance current, while threshold RS can be triggered by a lower compliance current. Furthermore, two types of memory devices, working in random access and WORM modes, can be achieved with the RS effect. The results suggest that silk protein possesses the potential for sustainable electronics and data storage. In addition, this fi nding would provide important guidelines for the performance optimization of biomaterials based memory devices and the study of the underlying mechanism behind the RS effect arising from biomaterials.

In this work, lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) showing upconverted circularly polarized luminescence were demonstrated in an organic–inorganic co-assembled system. Achiral UCNPs (NaYF4:Yb/Er or NaYF4:Yb/Tm) can be encapsulated into chiral helical nanotubes through the procedure of co-gelation. These co-gel systems display intense upconverted circularly polarized luminescence (UC-CPL) ranging from ultraviolet (UV, 300 nm) to near-infrared (NIR, 850 nm) wavelength. In addition, the UV part of UC-CPL can be used to initiate the enantioselective polymerization of diacetylene.

An azobenzene-containing lipid was designed as a functional organogelator, and its self-assembly as well as the chiroptical properties were investigated. The gelator shows good gelation ability in various organic solvents ranging from polar to nonpolar solvents. Although the molecule did not show a CD signal in the absorption band of azobenzene in solution, supramolecular chirality was observed upon gel formation. Moreover, the supramolecular chirality exhibited a multiresponse to temperature, photoirradiation, and the solvent polarity. Particularly, positive supramolecular chirality was observed in polar solvents, while it inverted to a negative one in nonpolar solvents. All the responses in relating to the supramolecular chirality were reversible and thus produced a multiresponsive chiroptical switch.

Chiral low molecular weight organogelators which can gel nearly all kinds of common organic solvents were designed. The gelators could also form organogels with other functional compounds, which could not form the organogel themselves. Achiral porphyrins were employed as functional compounds to form the co-gel with the gelator in DMSO and interesting properties were found. Although no chirality was observed when the achiral porphyrin derivative containing a long alkyl chain was mixed with the gelator in hot DMSO solution, supramolecular chirality of the achiral porphyrin was induced when cooling to form an organogel. Based on the thermo-reversible property of the organogel, a thermo-driven supramolecular chiroptical switch was proposed through the switch between achiral molecule and chiral molecular assemblies. Experimental Synthesis of the gelatorsGelators, N,N9-bis(octadecyl)-L-Boc-glutamic diamide (L-1) and N,N9-bis(octadecyl)-D-Boc-glutamic diamide (D-1) (Fig. 1

Co-Pi decorated TiO 2 @graphitic carbon nitrides (g-C 3 N 4 ) nanorod arrays (denoted as CCNRs) with different mass ratios of g-C 3 N 4 have been constructed on the FTO substrate through three processes, hydrothermal growth, chemical bath deposition and electrodeposition. Firstly, TiO 2 nanorod arrays were grown onto a FTO substrate by a hydrothermal method. Secondly, g-C 3 N 4 was coated onto the TiO 2 nanorod arrays by immersing the above substrate with TiO 2 nanorod arrays into a solution of urea and then heated at higher temperature. In this procedure, the amount of the g-C 3 N 4 on the TiO 2 nanorod arrays can be controlled by tuning the concentration of the urea solution. At last, Co-Pi were decorated on the surface of the TiO 2 @g-C 3 N 4 by electrodeposition. The as-prepared CCNRs were characterized by XRD, FESEM, TEM, XPS, UV-vis and FTIR, respectively, which illustrated that Co-Pi were successfully decorated on the hybrid TiO 2 @g-C 3 N 4 nanorod arrays.Photoelectrochemical (PEC) measurements have demonstrated that the prepared CCNRs serve as an efficient and stable photoanode for PEC seawater splitting. The photocurrent density reaches 1.6 mA/cm 2 under 100 mW/cm 2 (AM1.5G) light illumination at 1.23 V (RHE). More significantly, the CCNRs photoanode is quite stable during seawater splitting and the performance remain undiminished even after ten hours continuous illumination. Finally, a systematical photocatalytic mechanism of the Co-Pi decorated TiO 2 @g-C 3 N 4 was proposed and it can be considered as potential explanation of enhanced PEC performance. .7 eV 35 , has attracted more and more attentions for its inherent chemical and thermal stability 36, 37 . Unlike transitional metal oxides and sulfide semiconductor photocatalysts, g-C 3 N 4 behaves very stable performance in acid or alkaline electrolytes ascribing to strong covalent bonds between carbon and nitride atoms in its structure 38 . However, applications of pure g-C 3 N 4 are limited largely because of its low quantum efficiency and high electron-hole recombination rate 39 .Therefore, it lays a large space to explore and construct novel composite materials to remedy these deficiencies of pure g-C 3 N 4 .Herein, we combined TiO 2 and g-C 3 N 4 to fabricate TiO 2 @g-C 3 N 4 nanorod arrays 40 with different mass ratios of g-C 3 N 4 via hydrothermal growth and chemical bath deposition. Moreover, the composite nanorod arrays were decorated with Co-Pi particles 41-43 to offset the inadequacy of g-C 3 N 4 44 . To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report upon semiconductor nanorod arrays modified with tunable g-C 3 N 4 mass ratio. As reported, Co-Pi decorated TiO 2 @g-C 3 N 4 nanorod arrays (CCNRs) used for photoelectrode within PEC cells are still unexplored. More importantly, the results in this work have proved that the composited nanorod arrays as photoelectrodes exhibit very efficient and stable performances for PEC seawater splitting.