Description: Silver nanorod (Ag NR) arrays with average diameter about 18 nm and period about 50 nm were electrodeposited in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. The filling factor of Ag NRs in the AAO nanopores could be adjusted by the deposition temperature. The filling factor increased to ∼98% when the deposition temperature decreased to 1 °C. As the filling factor increased, the plasmon absorption intensity of Ag NR arrays was greatly enhanced, and the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance increased faster. Meanwhile, the AgNR:AAO exhibit strong photoluminescence at ∼570 nm, obviously different with that of the bare AAO at ∼495 nm. Our observation revealed the strong near-field plasmon coupling among the Ag NR arrays.

Description: Although topological defects, such as domain walls (DWs) or vortices, are naturally protected by topological invariance, yet, we discover an exception that the six-state topology of the vortex with Z2 × Z3 symmetry is broken by a partial edge dislocation (PED) in hexagonal Y 0.67 Lu 0.33 MnO 3 , where the topologies of the four-state vortex or closed DWs emerges. Using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, we found that the PED plays an important role in changing the phase of translation domain. The PED at the vortex core leads to the formation of the four-state vortex, while the ones at closed DWs connect different types of DWs, both corresponding to continuous phase changes. These results indicate that PEDs can change the topology of translation-related domain vortices and more vortices with even domains can be expected.

Description: The cellular signal transduction is commonly believed to rely on the direct “contact” or “binding” of the participating molecule reaction that depends positively on the corresponding molecule concentrations. In living systems, however, it is somewhat difficult to precisely match the corresponding rapid “binding,” depending on the probability of molecular collision, existing in the cellular receptor-ligand interactions. Thus, a question arises that if there is another mechanism (i.e., bindingless ) that could promote this signal communication. According to this hypothesis, we report a cellular model based on the examination of intracellular calcium concentration to explore whether the unidentified signal delivery in cells exists, via a microfluidic device. This device was designed to isolate the cells from directly contacting with the corresponding ligands/molecules by the particular polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes with different thicknesses. Results show a significant increment of calcium mobilization in human prostate cancer PC-3 cells by the stimulation of endothelin-1, even up to a separated distance of 95  μ m. In addition, these stimulated signals exhibited a bump-shaped characteristics depending on the membrane thickness. When the PDMS membrane is capped by SiO 2 , a particular trait that resembles the ballistic signal conduction was observed. A theoretical model was developed to describe the signal transport process across the PDMS membrane. Taken together, these results indicate that the unidentified signal (ligand structural information) delivery could occur in cells and be examined by the proposed approach, exhibiting a bindingless communication manner. Moreover, this approach and our finding may offer new opportunities to establish a robust and cost-effective platform for the study of cellular biology and new drug development.