Polymorphic G-quadruplexes including stacked G-quartet planes are potentially promising DNA templates beyondWatson-Crick duplexes to construct inorganic nanostructures. In this work, a novel Grich oligonucleotide that can be modulated from the antiparallel G-quadruplex to multi-stranded supermolecular assemblies was designed. Based on this dynamic G-quadruplex transformation, an interesting lea...

Remarkable surface wettability transition occurs with an inducement of ultraviolet (UV) for aligned ZnO nanorod films. The inorganic oxide films, which show super-hydrophobicity (left), become super-hydrophilic (right) when exposed to UV illumination. After the films are placed in the dark, the wettability evolves back to super-hydrophobicity. This reversible effect is ascribed to the cooperati...

Fabrication of ZnO nanostructure via direct patterning based on sol-gel process has advantages of low-cost, vacuum-free, and rapid process and producibility on flexible or non-uniform substrates. Recently, it has been applied in light-emitting devices and advanced nanopatterning. However, application as an electrically conducting layer processed at low temperature has been limited by its high r...

Soot from the thermochemical conversion of solid and liquid fuels can be infused with metallic heteroatoms originating fuel – these alter nanostructure reactivity soot. Here, we investigate spatial distribution in soot generated by biomass gasification, using aberration-corrected Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Energy Loss Spectroscopy (STEM-EELS). The technique allowed for mapping he...

Metal oxide nanomaterials are widely used in various areas; however, the divergent published toxicology data makes it difficult to determine whether there is a risk associated with exposure to metal oxide nanomaterials. The application of quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) modeling in metal oxide nanomaterials toxicity studies can reduce the need for time-consuming and resource...

Growth of CdS was studied in three different liquid crystalline phases demonstrating the versatility of liquid crystal templating of inorganic solids. Semiconductor growth in a hexagonal liquid crystal yielded a nanostructure with hexagonal symmetry, a lamellar liquid crystal yielded a lamellar nanostructure, and a cubic liquid crystal (consisting of spherical micelles) yielded a hollow, spheri...