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1. Capture of Phenylalanine and Phenylalanine-Terminated Peptides Using a Supramolecular Macrocycle for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Detection

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0003702820937333  

   Olson, Jacob E. ; Braegelman, Adam S. ; Zou, Lei ; Webber, Matthew J. ; Camden, Jon P. ( November 2020 , Applied Spectroscopy)

   null (Ed.)

   The cucurbit[n]uril (CB[ n]) family of macrocycles are known to bind a variety of small molecules with high affinity. These motifs thus have promise in an ever-growing list of trace detection methods. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) detection schemes employing CB[ n] motifs exhibit increased sensitivity due to selective concentration of the analyte at the nanoparticle surface, coupled with the ability of CB[ n] to facilitate the formation of well-defined electromagnetic hot spots. Herein, we report a CB[7] SERS assay for quantification of phenylalanine (Phe) and further demonstrate its utility for detecting peptides with an N-terminal Phe. The CB[7]–guest interaction improves the sensitivity 5–25-fold over direct detection of Phe using citrate-capped silver nanoparticle aggregates, enabling use of a portable Raman system. We further illustrate detection of insulin via binding of CB[7] to the N-terminal Phe residue on its B-chain, suggesting a general strategy for detecting Phe-terminated peptides of clinically relevant biomolecules. 

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2. Thermal Stability of π-Conjugated n -Ethylene-Glycol-Terminated Quaterthiophene Oligomers: A Computational and Experimental Study

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmacrolett.9b00935  

   Misra, Mayank ; Liu, Ziwei ; Dong, Ban Xuan ; Patel, Shrayesh N. ; Nealey, Paul F. ; Ober, Christopher K. ; Escobedo, Fernando A. ( March 2020 , ACS Macro Letters)
3. Surface transfer doping of MoO 3 on hydrogen terminated diamond with an Al 2 O 3 interfacial layer

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0083971  

   Yang, Yu ; Koeck, Franz A. ; Wang, Xingye ; Nemanich, Robert J. ( May 2022 , Applied Physics Letters)

   A thin layer of Al 2 O 3 was employed as an interfacial layer between surface conductive hydrogen-terminated (H-terminated) diamond and MoO 3 to increase the distance between the hole accumulation layer in diamond and negatively charged states in the acceptor layer and, thus, reduce the Coulomb scattering and increase the hole mobility. The valence band offsets are found to be 2.7 and 3.1 eV for Al 2 O 3 /H-terminated diamond and MoO 3 /H-terminated diamond, respectively. Compared to the MoO 3 /H-terminated diamond structure, a higher hole mobility was achieved with Al 2 O 3 inserted as an interface layer. This work provides a strategy to achieve increased hole mobility of surface conductive diamond by using optimal interlayer along with high high electron affinity surface acceptor materials. 

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4. Investigation of the mesogenic behavior of alkoxy and fluorine tail terminated alkoxy nitrobiphenyls for chemoresponsive liquid crystals

   https://doi.org/10.1080/02678292.2022.2103193  

   Rahman, Mohammad S. ; Wolter, Trenton ; Tripathi, Ayushi ; Abbott, Nicholas L. ; Mavrikakis, Manos ; Twieg, Robert J. ( August 2022 , Liquid Crystals)

   Liquid crystal properties of compounds with a variety of polar terminal groups including cyano, fluoro, isothiocyanato, etc., were studied well, however, not enough attention was given to nitro terminal compounds. In this work, a series of fluorine tail terminated alkoxy nitrobiphenyl compounds were synthesised and their mesogenic properties were analysed. In addition, the simple alkoxy nitrobiphenyl compounds were synthesised and analysed in order to compare them with fluoro-alkoxy nitrobiphenyl compounds and for binary mixture analysis. Fluorine tail termination to the alkoxy chain does suppress the smectic phase that was observed for the simple alkoxy nitrobiphenyl compounds with longer chains. Fluorine tail terminated alkoxy nitrobiphenyl compounds with longer chains (C7-C10) show monotropic nematic phase around ambient temperature and supercooling properties and these compounds are useful for a binary mixture analysis. Moreover, computation and experimental analyses of the alkoxy nitrobiphenyl compounds were performed to investigate the potential use of these nitro terminal compounds as chemoresponsive liquid crystal materials. 

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5. Excited-State Dynamics of a CsPbBr 3 Nanocrystal Terminated with Binary Ligands: Sparse Density of States with Giant Spin–Orbit Coupling Suppresses Carrier Cooling

   https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b13385  

   Forde, Aaron ; Inerbaev, Talgat ; Hobbie, Erik K. ; Kilin, Dmitri S. ( February 2019 , Journal of the American Chemical Society)

   null (Ed.)