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Artificial Z‐scheme, a tandem structure with two‐step excitation process, has gained significant attention in energy production and environmental remediation. By effectively connecting and matching the band‐gaps of two different photosystems, it is significant to utilize more photons for excellent photoactivity. Herein, a novel one‐photon (same energy‐two‐photon) Z‐scheme system is constructed between rGO modified boron‐nitrogen co‐doped‐WO3, and coupled CdSe quantum dots‐(QDs). The coctalyst‐0.5%RhxCr2O3(0.5RCr) modified amount‐optimized sample 6%CdSe/1%rGO3%BN‐WO3 revealed an unprecedented visible‐light driven overall‐water‐splitting to produce ≈51 µmol h−1 g−1 H2 and 25.5 µmol h−1 g−1 O2, and it remained unchanged for 5 runs in 30 h. This superior performance is ascribed to the one‐photon Z‐scheme, which simultaneously stimulates a two photocatalysts system, and enhanced charge separation as revealed by various spectroscopy techniques. The density‐functional theory is further utilized to understand the origin of this performance enhancement. This work provides a feasible strategy for constructing an efficient one‐photon Z‐scheme for practical applications. The design of a novel Z‐scheme system based on a band gap adjusted visible‐light responsive 0.5RCr/6CdSe/1rGO/3BN‐WO3 nanocomposite is successfully constructed via hydrothermal method. This work demonstrates a promising approach to synthesize nanophotocatalysts based on WO3 for visible‐light driven solar energy application.

Herein, solvents i.e., methanol, ethanol, propanol, and butanol-assisted titania nanoparticles (TNPs) are synthesized by low-temperature sol-gel method for pH sensing applications. The influence of solvent on the morphology, roughness, porosity, refractive index, and sensing properties are investigated. The relatively high average roughness 2.5 nm and lower refractive index 1.69 is observed for B-TNPs. The sensitivity of butanol-assisted phenol red encapsulated TNPs is observed 2.32 counts/pH.

Objectives The aim of this study is to compare the effect of treated dentine matrix (TDM) and tricalcium phosphate (TCP) scaffolds on odontogenic differentiation and mineralization of dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) in furcation perforations created in the pulp chamber floor of premolar teeth in dogs. Material and methods DPSCs were isolated and cultured from the dental pulp of the maxillary left second and third premolars of dogs. The DPSCs were loaded on TCP (SC+TCP) and TDM (SC+TDM) scaffolds and inserted into intentionally perforated pulp chamber floors of premolars in dogs; six teeth were used for each group. Three more groups of six specimens were created, and mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA), TDM, and TCP were inserted into the perforations to act as controls. An intact premolar and no treatment in the perforation site were used as positive and negative controls respectively. After 3 months, the animals were sacrificed and the type of inflammation, presence of dentine, continuation and type of cementum, type of connective tissue, and presence of foreign body reaction were evaluated, and significant differences were between groups determined using the Fisher’s exact test. The evaluation of the amount of inflammation and the percentage of new bone formation was evaluated using the Mann-Whitney U test. Results The negative control group was associated with severe inflammation and granulation tissue formation. In the positive control group, intact periodontal tissues and no inflammation were observed. Dentine bridge formation was not seen in specimens of any group. The specimens in the SC+TDM group were associated with significantly more bone formation than other groups ( P  < 0.001). The amount of inflammation was less than 10 % in specimens of all groups with the exception of three specimens in the TCP group that were categorized as 10–30 %. Chronic inflammation without foreign body reactions was the major pattern of inflammation in groups. Formation of cementum with a cellular and continuous appearance was seen in all specimens. Conclusions SC+TDM was associated with significantly more bone formation when used to repair uninfected furcation perforations in the premolar teeth of dogs. Clinical relevance Application of TDM as a biological scaffold in combination with DPSCs may offer an advantage during the repair of root perforation defects.

In this work, titanium dioxide TiO 2 nanoparticles embedded in thin composite film was used as saturable absorber (SA) in erbium doped fiber (EDF) laser. The thin film was prepared by mixing TiO 2 nanoparticles with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as host. Upon inserting the SA in a laser cavity, the output spectrum shifts to 1533.4 nm from 1563.8 nm. The laser performance was evaluated in the pump power range of 76 mW – 131 mW. The repetition rate of the mode-locked pulses was 989.0 kHz with a pulse width of 1.26 ps measured. The slope efficiency of the system is 8.58%. Maximum average power and peak power generated from the laser is 11.69 mW and 9.41 kW, respectively. This work explored the potential of TiO 2 -PVA thin film as saturable absorber for 1.5 μm laser system.

Nanocomposites (NCPs) with excellent physical, chemical and optical properties have been broadly used for commercial products and industrial applications. Based on these features of the NCPs, we prepared colloidal gold (Au) and organic cinnamon (Cin) NCPs by laser irradiated Au and Cin targets separately immersed in glass container fulfilled with different pH solutions (5.0 to 8.0). A Q-switched pulse laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) technique was employed to customize morphology, structural and optical characteristics of these grown nanoparticles inside various pH solutions at room temperature. Colloidal solution of gold-cinnamon nanocomposites (Au-Cin NCPs) was characterized via Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrometer and CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram. TEM image and SAED patters revealed spherical shaped Au-Cin NCPs with a particle diameters of 5.19 ± 1.23 nm and a nanocrystalline face centred cubic (FCC) nucleation. These plasmonic Au-Cin NCPs very strong UV-Vis absorbance bands at (270 nm and 522 nm) and CIE color coordinate (color temperature of 6437.001 K and color purity of 11.9130 %). It is established that the PLAL made-up Au-embedded Cin NCPs may be useful for the formulation of nanobiomedicine drugs.

Rare earth ions-doped oxide glasses with improved traits are needed for sundry applications. Based on this fact, physiochemical and magnetic characteristics of Er 3+ -doped lead–tellurite glasses embedded with gold nanoshapes (Au-NSPs) were customized via preparation and characterization. Glasses of composition 78.95TeO 2 –15PbO–5PbCl 2 –1Er 2 O 3 –0.05AuCl 3 were made using conventional melt-quenching techniques at varying (1, 6, 16, and 24 h) heat treatment durations (HTDs) to optimize their morphology, structure, chemical, and magnetic properties. Structure analysis verified the amorphous nature of the as-quenched samples and the homogeneous distribution of Au-NSPs within a network matrix with an average diameter ranged from 1.32 to 7.12 nm. Significant chemical functional groups of the glasses were detected at 360 and 598 cm ‒1 , attributed to the number of non-bridging oxygen (NBO) in glass and the conversion of TeO 4 tbp into TeO 3 polyhedra through TeO 3+1 . The magnetic behavior of the glasses was due to the diffusion-limited growth of Au-NSPs as evidenced from the ESR and VSM results. Saturation magnetization and magnetic coercivity were in the range of 4.61 × 10 –2 to 10.614 × 10 2  emu/g) and 1441.60 to 1992.20 Oe, respectively. The variations of g-factor , resonant magnetic field, and peak-to-peak line-width of the glasses were established to be promising for various functional applications especially for biomedical devices as antiviral screen protectors.

Silica–titania (ST) nanohybrid and bromophenol blue (BPB) immobilized ST nanohybrid matrix are synthesized by low-temperature sol–gel route. The influence of BPB on the structural, morphological, and nonlinear optical properties of silica–titania nanohybrid was investigated by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and z-scan technique. FTIR analysis confirms the chemical bonding between hydrophobic BPB dye species and hydrophilic type ST nanohybrid matrix. TEM and AFM analysis shows that the synthesized immobilized nanohybrid has inter-dispersed structure with average particle size of 0.8 ± 0.3 nm, smooth morphology, and low average surface roughness ~4.57 nm. The immobilization of BPB greatly improves the nonlinear refraction response and the nonlinear refractive index increases from 4.8 × 10 –9  cm 2 /W to 451.9 × 10 –9  cm 2 /W. Reverse saturable absorption is observed in both BPB and BPB/ST nanohybrid. However, the magnitude of nonlinear absorption coefficient in BPB/ST is lower than the BPB dye due to the occurrence of saturable absorption of the ST matrix. The optical limiting (OL) behavior of the BPB/ST nanohybrid reveals the low OL threshold at 0.33 kW/cm 2 . The synthesized BPB/ST nanohybrid has potential as an optical limiters for safety of photonic and optoelectronic devices under low-powered CW laser. Bromophenol blue (BPB) immobilized silica–titania nanohybrid has been synthesized. FTIR analysis confirms the immobilization between hydrophobic BPB dye species and hydrophilic type ST nanohybrid matrix. The BPB/ST nanohybrid shows the inter-dispersed structure with homogeneous surface. The superior nonlinear refraction response and the nonlinear refractive index 4.52 × 10 –7  cm 2 /W is obtained. The optical limiting action starts at low threshold, 0.33 kW/cm 2 Highlights Synthesis of silica–titania (ST) nanohybrid and bromophenol blue (BPB) immobilized ST nanohybrid matrix by sol–gel method is reported. FTIR analysis confirms the chemical bonding between hydrophobic BPB dye species and hydrophilic type ST nanohybrid matrix. TEM and AFM analysis shows the inter-dispersed structure with low average surface roughness ~4.57 nm. The superior nonlinear refraction response and the nonlinear refractive index 4.52 × 10 –7  cm 2 /W is obtained. The optical limiting (OL) behavior revealed the low OL threshold at 0.33 kW/cm 2 . The synthesized BPB-ST nanohybrid has potential as an optical limiters for safety of photonic and optoelectronic devices under low-powered CW laser.

High quality Zinc Oxide nanostructures (ZONSs) with customized traits became demanding for diverse applications. Based on this fact, some ZONSs with varied layer thicknesses (100 to 400 nm) were deposited on three types of Si (plain, polished and etched) and borosilicate glass substrates using the radio frequency (RF) sputtering method. Asdeposited samples were characterized systematically using various techniques to determine the effects of the substrates on their structures and morphologies. The XRD analyses of the sample showed the formation of high quality nanocrystallites with varying sizes where the crystallinity was improved with the increase of layer thickness and change of substrates. The FESEM and AFM images exhibited the nucleation of dense nanocrystallites with some pores/voids with enhanced surface roughness. In addition, the EDX spectra displayed the presence of appropriate chemical elements in the ZONSs layers. Sample grown on the etched Si substrate at layer thickness of 300 nm was found to be optimum. The results for the etched Si were presented. It was demonstrated that by optimizing the RF sputtering parameters (power of 100 W, Argon flow of 10 sccm and pressure of 10-5 mb) the structural and morphological traits of the layered ZONSs can be tailored. The proposed ZONSs may be useful for various optoelectronic applications including the metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors fabrication.

Using sol–gel spin-coating technique Al-doped ZnO nanofilms (AZONFs) were made on Si(100) substrates and characterized. The obtained nanofilms were annealed at 500 °C for 3 h in air. The effects of changing Al doping level (0 to 5 at%) on the structures, morphologies, electrical and photoluminescence characteristics of the nanofilms were evaluated. The XRD patterns of the AZONFs confirmed the formation of wurtzite hexagonal ZnO lattice with preferred growth along (101) lattice plane. In addition, the c-axis orientation of the AZONFs became weaker with the increase in Al doping contents. The surface morphologies, structures, electrical and optical properties of the AZONFs were found to be very sensitive to the Al contents changes. The nanofilm prepared with 1 at% of Al displayed lowest resistivity of 4.238 × 10 −3 Ω.cm measured by the four-point probe method. The optical band gap energy (increased from 3.22 to 3.304 eV) and carrier mobility of the AZONFs were improved with the increase in Al contents. The proposed AZONFs may be advantageous for various high performance optoelectronic device applications.

Magnesium-zinc-sulfophosphate glasses with varying concentration of Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) composition of 63.5P 2 O 5 –20MgO–15ZnSO 4 –1.5Eu 2 O 3 –zAgNps (z = 0.0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7,0.9 and 1.1 g in excess) was prepared using melt-quenching technique. The as-Quenched glass samples were characterised to ascertain the correlation between physical and mechanical characteristics. The enhanced Young’s, shear, and bulk modulus of glasses noted a comparative rise in AgNPs contents. The Poisson’s ratio improved from (0.0978 to 0.1416) while Vickers hardness (from 0.0658 to 0. 0.0682 GPa) as well as GC 12 (from 0.8350 to 0.8916) were enhanced. Photoluminescence spectra (emission) of the glasses showed four peaks at 593, 613, 654, and 701 nm equivalent to 5 D 0 → 7 F 0 , 5 D 0 → 7 F2, 5 D 0 → 7 F 3 , and 5 D 0 → 7 F 4 transitions in europium in which the intense peak was observed at 613 nm (red). High Quantum Efficiency (η = 97.9%) was achieved due to significant PL enhancement. The studied glass may be useful for the development of red laser