Fluorescent CdTe nanocrystal–polymer transparent composites have been fabricated by a combination of aqueous synthesis of nanocrystals, styrene extraction using polymerizable surfactants, and radical polymerization of monomer mixture containing composite nanocrystals. The Figure shows the photoluminescence of transparent CdTe–polymer composites excited by an ultraviolet lamp.

We describe a flexible method for preparing monodisperse silica‐polystyrene core‐shell microspheres. In this method, silica nanoparticles grafted with 3‐(trimethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate (MPS) were employed as seeds in an emulsion polymerization. The thickness of the shells could be changed through varying the amount of the monomer. The monodispersity and diameters of the core‐shell microspheres were found to depend on the size of the grafted silica nanoparticles and the concentration of emulsifier. In addition, we investigated the formation mechanism of the core‐shell microspheres.

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In this Review, we present the recent progress of getting the ordered alignment of chromophores for enhanced bulk second-order optical nonlinearity, which include supramolecular interaction, light fields, electric fields and so on.

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The development and application of natural antibacterial materials have always been the focus of biomedical research. Borneol as a natural antibacterial compound has received extensive attention. However, the hydrophobicity caused by its unique structure limits its application range to a certain extent. In this study, we combine zwitterionic 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) with a complex bicyclic monoterpene structure borneol compound and prepare an excellent antifouling and antibacterial surface via the Schiff-base bond. The prepared coating has excellent hydrophilicity verified by the contact angle (CA), and its polymer layer is confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The zwitterion MPC and borneol moieties in the copolymer play a coordinating role, relying on super hydration and the special stereochemical structure to prevent protein adsorption and inhibit bacterial adhesion, respectively, which are demonstrated by bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption and antibacterial activity test. Moreover, the water-soluble borneol derivative as the antibacterial surfaces we designed here was biocompatible toward MRC-5 (lung fibroblasts), as showed by in vitro cytotoxicity assays. Such results indicate the potential application of the as-prepared hydrophilic surfaces in the biomedical materials.

Hybrid optical films of TiO2‐triethoxysilane‐capped polythiourethane (TCPTU) with high refractive indices have been prepared via an in situ sol‐gel method. The high refractive index triethoxysilane‐capped polythiourethane (TCPTU) was synthesized by polyaddition of the triethoxysilane‐modified trimercaptothioethylamine (TMTEA) and 2,2′‐dimercaptoethylsulfide (MES) with 2,4‐tolylene diisocyanate (TDI). The titania content in the hybrid films can be adjusted from 0 to 80 wt.‐% by the feed ratio of titania precursor [Ti(OBu)4] to polymer (TCPTU). Both FTIR and DSC analyses indicate that there is chemical bonding between the titania domain and the polymer chain. TGA results suggest that the titania of high content was successfully incorporated into polymer matrices and this series of hybrid films have good thermal properties. AFM measurements indicate that in the hybrid films the titania domains are of nanosize scale and the domain size averagely decreases from 60–80 nm to 5–20 nm with increasing content of titania, and the variation of surface roughness for the hybrid films has the same trend. These may be relative to the content of TCPTU and the interaction between titania and polymer (TCPTU). The refractive indices of the hybrid films at 632.8 nm increased from 1 632 to 1 879 as the titania content varied from 0 to 80 wt.‐%.AFM image of the hybrid film.magnified imageAFM image of the hybrid film.