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Considering its low cost and potential scalability to industrial levels, our PCD technique could be an efficient approach for the fabrication of high-performance MSC devices in the future.Monolayer graphene films are exposed to the flowing afterglow of a low-pressure microwave nitrogen plasma, characterized by the absence of ion irradiation and significant populations of N atoms and N2(A) metastables. Hyperspectral Raman imaging of graphene domains reveals damage generation with a progressive rise of the D/G and D/2D band ratios following subsequent plasma treatments. Plasma-induced damage is mostly zero-dimensional and the graphene state remains in the pre-amorphous regime. Over the range of experimental conditions investigated, damage formation increases with the fluence of energy provided by heterogenous surface recombination of N atoms and deexcitation of N2(A) metastable species. In such conditions, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals that the nitrogen incorporation (either as pyridine, pyrrole, or quaternary moieties) does not simply increase with the fluence of plasma-generated N atoms but is also linked to the damage generation. Based on these findings, a surface reaction model for monolayer graphene nitrogenation is proposed. It is shown that the nitrogen incorporation is first limited by the plasma-induced formation of defect sites at low damage and then by the adsorption of nitrogen atoms at high damage.In this paper, we report the demonstration of highly sensitive flexible strain sensors formed by a network of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) grown under vacuum on top of a cracked thin alumina film which has been deposited by atomic layer deposition. It is shown that the sensor sensitivity depends on the surface density of NPs as well as on the thickness of alumina thin films that can both be well controlled via the deposition techniques. This method allows reaching a record strain sensitivity value of 2.6 × 108 at 7.2% strain, while exhibiting high sensitivity in a large strain range from 0.1% to 7.2%. see more The demonstration is followed by a discussion enlightening the physical understanding of sensor operation, which enables the tuning of its performance according to the above process parameters.Programming supramolecular assembly in the time domain is a fundamental aspect of the design of biomimetic materials. We achieved the time-controlled sol-gel transition of a poly(vinyl alcohol)-iodine supramolecular complex by generating iodine in situ with a clock reaction. We demonstrate that both the gelation time and the mechanical properties of the resulting hydrogel can be tuned by properly selecting the clock parameters or through competitive iodine complexation.The mechanisms for photodissociation of methyl halides (CH3X, X = Cl, Br, I) have been studied for these molecules when adsorbed on thin films of C6H6 or C6F6 on copper single crystals, using time-of-flight spectroscopy with 248 nm and 193 nm light. For CH3Cl and CH3Br monolayers adsorbed on C6H6, two photodissociation pathways can be identified - neutral photodissociation similar to the gas-phase, and a dissociative electron attachment (DEA) pathway due to photoelectrons from the metal. The same methyl halides adsorbed on a C6F6 thin film display only neutral photodissociation, with the DEA pathway entirely absent due to intermolecular quenching via a LUMO-derived electronic band in the C6F6 thin film. For CH3I adsorbed on a C6F6 thin film, illumination with 248 nm light results in CH3 photofragments departing due to neutral photodissociation via the A-band absorption. When CH3I monolayers on C6H6 thin films are illuminated at the same wavelength, additional new photodissociation pathways are observed that are due to absorption in the molecular film with energy transfer leading to dissociation of the CH3I molecules adsorbed on top. The proposed mechanism for this photodissociation is via a charge-transfer complex for the C6H6 layer and adsorbed CH3I.Covering 2020 Bioinformatic approaches to document and analyse chemical structures, biosynthetic gene clusters and analytical data play an important role in the study of natural products. Every year, such a large number of new algorithms, tools and databases are released, that it is difficult to keep track of all the latest developments. The aim of this short article is to provide a concise overview of and reference to the major tools, methods and databases that have been released in the past year.An efficient method to construct enantioenriched spiro[benzofuro-cyclopenta[1,2-b]indole-indoline] scaffolds via consecutive cyclization is described here. The new scaffolds possess five successive chiral stereogenic centers and two spiroheterocycles. A range of highly enantioenriched scaffolds has been obtained with up to 93% yield, 99% ee and >19  1 d.r. catalyzed by Brønsted acid catalysts.A polyrotaxane is a supramolecular system composed of a linear polymer (e.g., poly(ethylene glycol) PEG) chain with bulky groups at both ends that threads through the cavities of multiple macrocyclic molecules (e.g., α-cyclodextrins α-CD). Its structural properties allow for the threading α-CDs to move along the PEG chain, and the extent of mobility can be modulated by the number of threading α-CDs. In the present study, we prepared polyrotaxane-based surfaces with tunable mobilities, and evaluated the effect of molecular mobility on the activation of Kupffer cells. In particular, we analyzed the morphological changes and the gene expression of inflammatory cytokines in the presence of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), an immune-activator, using polyrotaxane-based surfaces with different molecular mobilities. Morphological changes were observed in the Kupffer cells depending on the number of threading α-CDs in the polyrotaxanes. This result suggests that the molecular mobility on the polyrotaxane surfaces acts as a mechanical cue for changing the morphology of Kupffer cells. Furthermore, the highly mobile surfaces with a small number of threading α-CDs promoted vacuolar formation in Kupffer cells and increased the gene expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the presence of LPS. These results suggest that polyrotaxane surfaces with tunable mobilities can be used as culture platforms for elucidating the mechanism by which mechanical cues contribute to the immune activity of Kupffer cells. Furthermore, by applying the molecular mobility of polyrotaxane to implantable scaffolds, it could be used as a tool for balancing the immune response in the living body.