The nanosilica/polymethylmethacrylate (SiO₂/PMMA) and polymethylmethacrylate/nanosilica (PMMA/SiO₂) core–shell structure composite microspheres were fabricated by dispersion polymerisation under similar reaction conditions. These two kinds of microspheres are different to each other by their opposite core–shell structure. The composite mircospheres were characterised by infrared spectra, transmission electron microscopy and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The diameter of SiO₂/PMMA particles is about 50 nm. The average diameters of PMMA/SiO₂ particles are in the range of 60–70 nm as KH570 was added after methyl methacrylate polymerisation reaction for 2 h. The TGA curves show that the thermal stability of SiO₂/PMMA is better than PMMA/SiO₂.

Presented is a DC-contact radio-frequency (RF) microelectromechanical system symmetric toggle switch for broadband power applications. Based on the lever principle, the proposed switching structure can be toggled upwards with extra restoring force using push electrodes. This push mechanism greatly improves the isolation and efficiently avoids the down-state stiction of the contacts which leads to enhancement of the power-handling capability. The measured actuated voltage is 33.4 V and the contact resistance of the switch can be further decreased to 0.18 Ω under a pull in voltage of 60 V, which results in the improvement of insertion loss. The switch can be properly restored with a voltage of 30 V applied to the push electrode. In addition, the substrate loss is reduced by using a Boroloat™ glass substrate. The RF measurement results show that the switch can handle a minimum 1 W incident RF signal power with isolation and an insertion loss of better than −30 and −0.24 dB from DC to the X-band.

A precursor-pyrolysing route to fabricate hierarchical LiMn₂O₄ porous nanostructures is presented. The product was characterised by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, a transmission electron microscope, a high-resolution transmission electron microscope and a micromeritics analyser. The results show that the resulting material is a honeycomb-like dual-porous structure. One is quasi-hemispherical macropores of several hundred nanometres and the other is slit mesopores of several nanometres. This dual-porous nanostructure is composed of many ultrafine nanocrystallines whose size mainly falls into the range from 3 to 10 nm. Moreover, it has a large Brunauer–Emmett-Teller-specific surface area of 116 m²/g. The formation of such dual pores should be attributed to the Kirkendall effect and surface diffusion.

Piezoelectric microcantilevers (MCs) are a new generation of atomic force microscopy (AFM) beams. They are capable of imaging at a high speed and consuming low energy. These MCs are also built commercially, with non-uniform geometry; and they can be utilised in different environments (gases and liquid). The objective of this Letter is to investigate the vibration behaviour of these types of MCs in liquid. The modelling of the MCs' vibrating motion has been carried out by using the non-uniform beam model, and also by the proposed lumped mass model consisting of three spheres. The obtained results of these two models are compared with each other and with the experimental results. In addition, the effects of liquid mechanical properties, the distance of the MC to the sample surface and also the MC inclined angle at higher fundamental modes are investigated. Sensitivity analysis was performed through the Sobol method to study the effect of the MCs' geometrical dimensions on Reynolds number. Such information can be used to choose appropriate parameters to apply an AFM piezoelectric MC in a liquid environment.

A convenient ethylene glycol (EG)-mediated one-pot solvothermal route was designed for direct synthesis of nanostructured nickel oxide–carbon composite material on nickel foam. EG was employed as solvent, complex agent and carbon source. Furthermore, cyclic voltammetry and constant current charge–discharge measurements confirmed that the composite material electrode displayed good electrochemical activity with a maximum specific capacitance of 539 F g^{− 1} at a current density of 0.25 A g^{− 1}.

Nanocrystalline TiO₂ was prepared through hydrothermal synthesis using tetrabutyl titanate as starting material. With a constant reaction time of 12 h, the reaction temperature was changed from 120 to 160°C and the pH value of the reaction medium was ranged from 1 to 9. Every specimen of the as-prepared TiO₂ powder was characterised by X-ray diffraction, a scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction and was also used to fabricate dye sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). The experimental results showed that the phase of the powder was affected by the pH value, whereas the particle size depended on the reaction temperature. Pure anatase TiO₂ was obtained with the pH value of 3. The solar energy conversion efficiency (η) of the DSSC fabricated with the pure anatase TiO₂ prepared at 140°C was 3.64%, which was higher than those with the TiO₂ prepared under any other conditions. The purchased TiO₂ (P25) was used to make a DSSC for comparison. It turned out that the performance of all the DSSCs with TiO₂ prepared by hydrothermal synthesis was higher than that with the P25.

A comparative study is performed on Hypericum perforatum (H. perforatum) and doxorubicin (Dox) anticancer agents. Double emulsion and sonication techniques were used to enhance drug loading efficiency in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles (NPs). To distinguish the efficiency of the double emulsion method, drug entrapment efficiency was measured. In vitro release studies were carried out to evaluate drug release profiles. Entrapment efficiency was estimated to be 48 and 21% for Dox-loaded and H. perforatum-loaded NPs, respectively. Surprisingly, the encapsulation process disrupted the formation of Dox crystals (Dox in NPs converted from the crystalline to the amorphous phase), whereas disordered crystalline was observed for H. perforatum. In vitro release studies suggested that the total released drug was about 71% of the whole entrapped drug after 20 days. MTT assay confirmed that Dox was more toxic than H. perforatum. This study revealed that H. perforatum is a good choice for further experiments in drug delivery systems because of low cardiotoxicity according to the herbaceous nature of this anticancer agent.

Large-scale uniform hierarchical broccoli-like zinc oxide (ZnO) superstructures assembled by nanorods were successfully synthesised via a facile solution method under mild conditions by using sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (NaCMC) as crystal growth modifiers. The morphology of the final products was simply tuned by adding different amounts of ammonia in the presence of NaCMC. In addition, the catalytic properties of as-prepared products were investigated. It was found that these ZnO superstructures have good abilities to promote the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate.

Pure Magneli phase Ti₄O₇ nanoparticles with diameters of 200–500 nm were successfully synthesised under hydrogen atmospheres. In this reported work, the influences of reduction of temperature and time on the reduced phases were investigated, and it is shown that pure Ti₄O₇ can be obtained by heating at 850°C for 5 h. The as-prepared materials are characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and the corresponding selected area electron diffraction indicates the single-crystal structure, which is also consistent with the XRD results. N₂ absorption (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area) was also conducted on this material, the surface area being 8.351 m²/g. UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra of the nanoparticles exhibited absorption beyond 325 nm, meanwhile, there is an absorption band that covers the visible-light wavelengths and extends into the near-infrared region.

CaMAl_{12 − x} O₁₉:xMn^{4 +} (M is one or more of K⁺, Na⁺, Li⁺) materials were prepared by a combustion method in air atmosphere. The Mn concentration, the influence of one or more alkali-chloride on luminescence properties, crystal phases and surface morphology of the samples were investigated. The fluorescence intensity of CaAl_11.98O₁₉:0.02Mn^{4 +} modified by combining three kinds of alkali-chloride can be enhanced by three times. Blue shift of CaMAl_{12 − x} O₁₉:xMn^{4 +} luminescence is explained from the point of view of enhancing electron cloud deformation after doping. Alkali metal ions were beneficial to form hexagonal CaAl₁₂O₁₉ while there was certain inhibition to other peak strengths. The mechanism is the coexistence of alkali-chloride replacing Al^{3 +} or Ca^{2 +} instead of Mn^{2 +} based on the difference of cation radius, this would increase the luminous centre of Mn^{4 +} and provide charge compensation at the same time. The size of red phosphors was 5–10 μm, which is useful for light emitting diode applications.