Molecular Thin Films Enable the Synthesis and Screening of Nanoparticle Megalibraries Containing Millions of Catalysts

Megalibraries are centimeter-scale chips containing millions of materials synthesized in parallel using scanning probe lithography. As such, they stand to accelerate how materials are discovered for applications spanning catalysis, optics, and more. However, a long-standing challenge is the availability of substrates compatible with megalibrary synthesis, which limits the structural and functional design space that can be explored. To address this challenge, thermally removable polystyrene films were developed as universal substrate coatings that decouple lithography-enabled nanoparticle synthesis from the underlying substrate chemistry, thus providing consistent lithography parameters on diverse substrates. Multi-spray inking of the scanning probe arrays with polymer solutions containing metal salts allows patterning of >56 million nanoreactors designed to vary in composition and size. These are subsequently converted to inorganic nanoparticles via reductive thermal annealing, which also removes the polystyrene to deposit the megalibrary. Megalibraries with mono-, bi-, and trimetallic materials were synthesized, and nanoparticle size was controlled between 5 and 35 nm by modulating the lithography speed. Importantly, the polystyrene coating can be used on conventional substrates like Si/SiO_x, as well as substrates typically more difficult to pattern on, such as glassy carbon, diamond, TiO_2, BN, W, or SiC. Finally, high-throughput materials discovery is performed in the context of photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants using Au-Pd-Cu nanoparticle megalibraries on TiO₂ substrates with 2,250,000 unique composition/size combinations. The megalibrary was screened within 1 h by developing fluorescent thin-film coatings on top of the megalibrary as proxies for catalytic turnover, revealing Au_0.53Pd_0.38Cu_0.09-TiO₂ as the most active photocatalyst composition.

Electrochemical One-Step Immunoassay Based on Switching Peptides and Pyrolyzed Carbon Electrodes

Switching peptides were designed to bind reversibly to the binding pocket of antibodies (IgG) by interacting with frame regions (FRs). These peptides can be quantitatively released when antigens bind to IgG. As FRs have conserved amino acid sequences, switching peptides can be used as antibodies for different antigens and different source animals. In this study, an electrochemical one-step immunoassay was conducted using switching peptides labeled with ferrocene for the quantitative measurement of analytes. For the effective amperometry of the switching peptides labeled with ferrocene, a pyrolyzed carbon electrode was prepared by pyrolysis of the parylene-C film. The feasibility of the pyrolyzed carbon electrode for the electrochemical one-step immunoassay was determined by analyzing its electrochemical properties, such as its low double-layer capacitance (C_dl), high electron transfer rate (k_app), and wide electrochemical window. In addition, the factors influencing the amperometry of switching peptides labeled with ferrocene were analyzed according to the hydrodynamic radius, the number of intrahydrogen bonds, dipole moments, and diffusion coefficients. Finally, the applicability of the electrochemical one-step immunoassay for the medical diagnosis of the human hepatitis B surface antigen (hHBsAg) was assessed.

Recent development of carbon electrode materials and their bioanalytical and environmental applications

New synthetic approaches, materials, properties, electroanalytical applications and perspectives of carbon materials are presented.

Nanoscale surface conductivity analysis of plasma sputtered carbon thin films

The present work demonstrates the phenomenon of nanoscale surface conductivity variation in various plasma conditions of sputtering induced carbon thin films.

Fabrication and Testing of Planar Stent Mesh Designs Using Carbon-Infiltrated Carbon Nanotubes

This paper explores and demonstrates the potential of using pyrolytic carbon as a material for coronary stents. Stents are commonly fabricated from metal, which has worse biocompatibilty than many polymers and ceramics. Pyrolytic carbon, a ceramic, is currently used in medical implant devices due to its preferable biocompatibility properties. Micropatterned pyrolytic carbon implants can be created by growing carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and then filling the space between with amorphous carbon via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). We prepared multiple samples of two different stent-like flexible mesh designs and smaller cubic structures out of carbon-infiltrated carbon nanotubes (CI-CNT). Tension loads were applied to expand the mesh samples and we recorded the forces at brittle failure. The cubic structures were used for separate compression tests. These data were then used in conjunction with a nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) model of the stent geometry to determine Young's modulus and maximum fracture strain in tension and compression for each sample. Additionally, images were recorded of the mesh samples before, during, and at failure. These images were used to measure an overall percent elongation for each sample. The highest fracture strain observed was 1.4% and Young's modulus values confirmed that the material was similar to that used in previous carbon-infiltrated carbon nanotube work. The average percent elongation was 86% with a maximum of 145%. This exceeds a typical target of 66%. The material properties found from compression testing show less stiffness than the mesh samples; however, specimen evaluation reveals poorly infiltrated samples.