A junction DNA nanostructure has been successfully built in lithium acetate buffer solution at a near-neutral pH value through the connection of two slipped junction structures that are formed by G-rich and C-rich strands. The GC-rich duplex junctions in the nanostructure can be switched to G-quadruplexes and i-motifs in weakly acidic potassium acetate solution, which leads to the assembly of D...

A combination of static and dynamic laser light scattering has revealed that at temperatures higher than ,33 ±C a linear poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) chain grafted with poly(ethylene oxide) (PNIPAMg-PEO) in water can undergo a “coil-to-globule” transition to form a stable single chain core-shell nanostructure with the collapsed PNIPAM chain backbone as the hydrophobic core and the grafted PEO br...

ZnO—a versatile nanostructure for self-powered devices.

Recently ZnO has attracted much interest because of its usefulness for intracellular measurements of biochemical species by using its semiconducting, electrochemical, catalytic properties and for being biosafe and biocompatible. ZnO thus has a wide range of applications in optoelectronics, intracellular nanosensors, transducers, energy conversion and medical sciences. This review relates specif...

Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), a scattering tool of atomic spatial resolution and high penetration power, provides a non-destructive scattering tool in structural characterization for surfaces, interfaces, as well as bulks, and is an decent complimentary technique to the direct imaging tools such as the SEM, TEM, and AFM in nanostructure research. Capable in probing structural information...

We demonstrate a new nanoscale spectroscopic technique that combines subwavelength near-field imaging with broadband interference spectroscopy. We apply this technique to study phase spectra of surface plasmons in individual gold nanoparticles and nanoparticle dimers. Collective plasmon oscillations in selected nanostructures are excited by a femtosecond white-light continuum transmitted throug...

We present a transverse 1-D periodic nanostructure which exhibits lateral internal Thorneld localization for normally incident ultrashort pulses, and which may be applied to the enhancement of nonlinear optical phenomena. The peak intensity of an optical pulse propagating in the nanostructure is approximately 12 times that of an identical incident pulse propagating in a bulk material of the sam...

The properties of mixed-phase (nanocrystalline/amorphous) silicon layers produced by reactive RF-sputtering are described. The chemical composition and nanostructure [i.e. nanocrystal (NC) size and volume fraction] of the films were studied by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and micro-Raman spectroscopy, respectively. Samples with different fractions of the nanocrystalline phase an...

We present a new method for the creation of hierarchical structures by two subsequent steps of laser ablation. To create certain functionalization of surfaces hierarchical structures are often required. These structures can be considered as a microstructure with a superposed nanostructure. Therefore the approach presented in this paper divides the patterning process into two parts: The microstr...