A cationic conjugated polymer provided over 110-fold signal amplification for silica nanoparticle based assays, which allow detection of target DNAs at a concentration of 10 pM with a standard fluorometer.

We investigate the effect of small concentrations of highly charged nanoparticles on the stability of uncharged colloidal microspheres using large-scale simulations. Employing pair potentials that accurately represent mixtures of silica microspheres and polystyrene nanoparticles as studied experimentally, we are able to demonstrate that nanoparticle-induced stabilization can arise from a relati...

Pd nanoparticles dually encased by soft (polyamine) and hard (silica) materials in a microcapsule structure, obtained via a nanoparticle self-assembly method, exhibit excellent catalytic activity, with efficient catalyst recovery and reusability.

A facile layer-by-layer deposition process is developed to fabricate highly-transparent superhydrophobic coatings, which comprise the underlying antireflective nanoporous silica layer and the top transparent superhydrophobic SiO(2) nanoparticle layer.

A silica-supported CdS nanoparticle photocatalyst exhibits excellent visible-light driven H2 evolution activity without the use of a cocatalyst. The apparent quantum yield can reach 42% under 420 nm light illumination.

the silica supported platinum nanoparticles was synthesized by using the sol-gel method. the possibility of using diamminedinitro platinum (ii) as pt precursor and effect of metal precursor concentration on the final pt nanoparticle size was investigated. a stable silica sol was prepared via hydrolysis of tetraethyl orthosilicate (teos) as a metal alcoxide and condensation reaction. subsequentl...

This paper presents the synthesis of aqueous cadmium sulfide (CdS) quantum dots (QDs) and silica-encapsulated CdS QDs by reverse microemulsion method and utilized as targeted bio-optical probes. We report the role of CdS as an efficient cell tag with fluorescence on par with previously documented cadmium telluride and cadmium selenide QDs, which have been considered to impart high levels of tox...

We report an ionic hybrid based on silica nanoparticles as the anion and amine-terminated poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) as a cation. The charge on the nanoparticle anion is carried by the surface hydroxyls. SAXS and TEM reveal an exceptional degree of dispersion of the silica in the polymer and high degree of order in both thin film and bulk forms. In addition to better dispersion, the ionic hybri...

A facile approach for the preparation of crosslinked polymeric nanocapsules was developed by the combination of the surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization and ultraviolet irradiation crosslinking techniques. The well-defined polystyrene grafted silica nanoparticles were prepared via the SI-ATRP of styrene from functionalized silica nanoparticles. Then the grafted polystyrene cha...

Many attempts have been made to fabricate various types of inorganic nanoparticle-filled polymers (filler/polymer nanocomposites) by a mechanical or chemical approach. However, these approaches require modification of the nanofiller surfaces and/or complicated polymerization reactions, making them unsuitable for industrial-scale production of the nanocomposites. The author and coworkers have pr...