Published in Frontiers in Soft Matter
We study the effects of nanoparticles (NPs) on thermotropic nematic liquid crystals (LCs) in relatively dilute NP–LC mixtures. We are interested in the fundamental generic mechanisms that quantitatively and qualitatively affect the phase behavior of LCs. A simple molecular field analysis shows that a phase transition will likely occur upon entry in...
Published in American Mineralogist
The formation of heteroaggregates is critical to controlling the stabilization and transformation of nanominerals and mineral nanoparticles (NMMNs) in nature, but the underlying mechanisms remain to be deciphered. In this work, we study the effect of surface interactions between ferrihydrite (Fh) and montmorillonite (Mnt) within their heteroaggrega...
Biomaterial-based drug delivery systems for a controlled drug release are drawing increasing attention thanks to their possible pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. It is important to control the local administration of drugs, especially when the drug exhibits problems diffusing across biological barriers. Thus, in an appropriate concentrati...
Published in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
Fouling of surfaces in prolonged contact with liquid often leads to detrimental alteration of material properties and performance. A wide range of factors which include mass transport, surface properties and surface interactions dictate whether foulants are able to adhere to a surface. Passive means of foulant rejection, such as the microscopic pat...
Molecular-based Fluorescent Organic Nanoparticles (FONs) are versatile light-emitting nano-tools whose properties can be rationally addressed by bottom-up molecular engineering. A challenging property to gain control over is the interaction of the FONs’ surface with biological systems. Indeed, most types of nanoparticles tend to interact with biolo...
Published in ACS sensors
Cell adhesion plays a critical role in cell communication, cell migration, cell proliferation, and integration of medical implants with tissues. Focal adhesions physically link the cell cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix, but it remains challenging to image single focal adhesions directly. Here, we show that plasmonic scattering microscopy (P...
Published in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Bacterial swimming in flow near surfaces is critical to the spread of infection and device colonization. Understanding how material properties affect flagella- and motility-dependent bacteria-surface interactions is a first step in designing new medical devices that mitigate the risk of infection. We report that, on biomaterial coatings such as pol...
Published in ACS applied nano materials
The use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to delineate between the breast epithelial cell lines MCF10A, SK-BR-3, and MDA-MB-231 is explored utilizing varied morphologies of gold nanoparticles. The nanoparticles studied had spherical, star-like, and quasi-fractal (nanocaltrop) morphologies and possessed varying degrees of surface inhomog...
Published in ACS applied materials & interfaces
Herein, we studied the adsorption behaviors of organic micropollutants, such as anticonvulsant carbamazepine (CBZ) and antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride (TC), on zirconium metal-organic framework UiO-66 in water. The maximum adsorption capacities of CBZ and TC on the UiO-66 were 37.2 and 23.1 mg·g-1 at 25 °C, respectively. The adsorption isothe...
Published in Journal of forensic sciences
The ability to determine the age of fingerprints would be immeasurably beneficial in criminal investigations. We explore the possibility of determining the age of fingerprints by analyzing various compounds as they diffuse from the ridges to the valleys of fingerprints using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging. The...
