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The search for new two-dimensional monolayers with diverse electronic properties has attracted growing interest in recent years. Here, we present an approach to construct MA 2 Z 4 monolayers with a septuple-atomic-layer structure, that is, intercalating a MoS 2 -type monolayer MZ 2 into an InSe-type monolayer A 2 Z 2 . We illustrate this unique strategy by means of first-principles calculations, which not only reproduce the structures of MoSi 2 N 4 and MnBi 2 Te 4 that were already experimentally synthesized, but also predict 72 compounds that are thermodynamically and dynamically stable. Such an intercalated architecture significantly reconstructs the band structures of the constituents MZ 2 and A 2 Z 2 , leading to diverse electronic properties for MA 2 Z 4 , which can be classified according to the total number of valence electrons. The systems with 32 and 34 valence electrons are mostly semiconductors. Whereas, those with 33 valence electrons can be nonmagnetic metals or ferromagnetic semiconductors. In particular, we find that, among the predicted compounds, (Ca,Sr)Ga 2 Te 4 are topologically nontrivial by both the standard density functional theory and hybrid functional calculations. While VSi 2 P 4 is a ferromagnetic semiconductor and TaSi 2 N 4 is a type-I Ising superconductor. Moreover, WSi 2 P 4 is a direct gap semiconductor with peculiar spin-valley properties, which are robust against interlayer interactions. Our study thus provides an effective way of designing septuple-atomic-layer MA 2 Z 4 with unusual electronic properties to draw immediate experimental interest. The discovery of a new two-dimensional van der Waals layered MoSi 2 N 4 material inspires many attentions. Here, the authors report intercalation strategies to explore a much wider range of MA 2 Z 4 family and predict amount of materials accessible to experimental verifications with emergent topological, magnetic or Ising superconductivity properties.

The search for new two-dimensional monolayers with diverse electronic properties has attracted growing interest in recent years. Here, we present an approach to construct MA Z monolayers with a septuple-atomic-layer structure, that is, intercalating a MoS -type monolayer MZ into an InSe-type monolayer A Z . We illustrate this unique strategy by means of first-principles calculations, which not only reproduce the structures of MoSi N and MnBi Te that were already experimentally synthesized, but also predict 72 compounds that are thermodynamically and dynamically stable. Such an intercalated architecture significantly reconstructs the band structures of the constituents MZ and A Z , leading to diverse electronic properties for MA Z , which can be classified according to the total number of valence electrons. The systems with 32 and 34 valence electrons are mostly semiconductors. Whereas, those with 33 valence electrons can be nonmagnetic metals or ferromagnetic semiconductors. In particular, we find that, among the predicted compounds, (Ca,Sr)Ga Te are topologically nontrivial by both the standard density functional theory and hybrid functional calculations. While VSi P is a ferromagnetic semiconductor and TaSi N is a type-I Ising superconductor. Moreover, WSi P is a direct gap semiconductor with peculiar spin-valley properties, which are robust against interlayer interactions. Our study thus provides an effective way of designing septuple-atomic-layer MA Z with unusual electronic properties to draw immediate experimental interest.

Using deep convolutional neural network (CNN), the nature of the QCD transition can be identified from the final-state pion spectra from hybrid model simulations of heavy-ion collisions that combines a viscous hydrodynamic model with a hadronic cascade “after-burner”. Two different types of equations of state (EoS) of the medium are used in the hydrodynamic evolution. The resulting spectra in transverse momentum and azimuthal angle are used as the input data to train the neural network to distinguish different EoS. Different scenarios for the input data are studied and compared in a systematic way. A clear hierarchy is observed in the prediction accuracy when using the event-by-event, cascade-coarse-grained and event-fine-averaged spectra as input for the network, which are about 80%, 90% and 99%, respectively. A comparison with the prediction performance by deep neural network (DNN) with only the normalized pion transverse momentum spectra is also made. High-level features of pion spectra captured by a carefully-trained neural network were found to be able to distinguish the nature of the QCD transition even in a simulation scenario which is close to the experiments.

Motivated by the fact that septuple-atomic-layer MnBi\\(_2\\)Te\\(_4\\) can be structurally viewed as the combination of double-atomic-layer MnTe intercalating into quintuple-atomic-layer Bi\\(_2\\)Te\\(_3\\), we present a general approach of constructing twelve septuple-atomic-layer \\(\\alpha_i\\)- and \\(\\beta_i\\)-\\(MA_2Z_4\\) monolayer family (\\emph{i} = 1 to 6) by intercalating MoS\\(_2\\)-type $MZ$$_2\\( monolayer into InSe-type A\\)_2\\(Z\\)_2\\( monolayer. Besides reproducing the experimentally synthesized \\)\\alpha_1\\(-MoSi\\)_2\\(N\\)_4\\(, \\)\\alpha_1\\(-WSi\\)_2\\(N\\)_4\\( and \\)\\beta_5\\(-MnBi\\)_2\\(Te\\)_4\\( monolayer materials, another 66 thermodynamically and dynamically stable \\)MA_2Z_4\\( were predicted, which span a wide range of properties upon the number of valence electrons (VEC). \\)MA_2Z_4\\( with the rules of 32 or 34 VEC are mostly semiconductors with direct or indirect band gap and, however, with 33 VEC are generally metal, half-metal ferromagnetism, or spin-gapless semiconductor upon whether or not an unpaired electron is spin polarized. Moreover, we propose \\)\\alpha_2\\(-WSi\\)_2\\(P\\)_4\\( for the spin-valley polarization, \\)\\alpha_1\\(-TaSi\\)_2\\(N\\)_4\\( for Ising superconductor and \\)\\beta_2\\(-SrGa\\)_2\\(Se\\)_4$ for topological insulator.

We present high efficiency and stable inverted PSCs (i-PSC) by employing sol-gel processed simultaneously doped ZnO by Indium and fullerene derivative (BisNPC60-OH) (denoted as InZnO-BisC60) film as cathode interlayer and PTB7-Th:PC 71 BM as the active layer (where PTB7-Th is a low bandgap polymer we proposed previously). This dual-doped ZnO, InZnO-BisC60, film shows dual and opposite gradient dopant concentration profiles, being rich in fullerene derivative at the cathode surface in contact with active layer and rich in In at the cathode surface in contact with the ITO surface. Such doping in ZnO not only gives improved surface conductivity by a factor of 270 (from 0.015 to 4.06 S cm −1 ) but also provides enhanced electron mobility by a factor of 132 (from 8.25*10 −5 to 1.09*10 −2  cm 2 V −1 s −1 ). The resulting i-PSC exhibits the improved PCE 10.31% relative to that with ZnO without doping 8.25%. This PCE 10.31% is the best result among the reported values so far for single junction PSC.

Heteronemin, a marine sesterterpenoid-type natural product, possesses diverse bioactivities, especially antitumor effect. Accumulating evidence shows that heteronemin may act as a potent anticancer agent in clinical therapy. To fully understand the antitumor mechanism of heteronemin, we further explored the precise molecular targets in prostate cancer cells. Initially, heteronemin exhibited potent cytotoxic effect against LNcap and PC3 prostate cancer cells with IC50 1.4 and 2.7 μM after 24 h, respectively. In the xenograft animal model, the tumor size was significantly suppressed to about 51.9% in the heteronemin-treated group in comparison with the control group with no significant difference in the mice body weights. In addition, the results of a cell-free system assay indicated that heteronemin could act as topoisomerase II (topo II) catalytic inhibitor through the elimination of essential enzymatic activity of topoisomerase IIα expression. We found that the use of heteronemin-triggered apoptosis by 20.1–68.3%, caused disruption of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) by 66.9–99.1% and promoted calcium release by 1.8-, 2.0-, and 2.1-fold compared with the control group in a dose-dependent manner, as demonstrated by annexin-V/PI, rhodamine 123 and Fluo-3 staining assays, respectively. Moreover, our findings indicated that the pretreatment of LNcap cells with an inhibitor of protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTPi) diminished growth inhibition, oxidative and Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress, as well as activation of Chop/Hsp70 induced by heteronemin, suggesting PTP activation plays a crucial rule in the cytotoxic activity of heteronemin. Using molecular docking analysis, heteronemin exhibited more binding affinity to the N-terminal ATP-binding pocket of Hsp90 protein than 17-AAG, a standard Hsp90 inhibitor. Finally, heteronemin promoted autophagy and apoptosis through the inhibition of Hsp 90 and topo II as well as PTP activation in prostate cancer cells. Taken together, these multiple targets present heteronemin as an interesting candidate for its future development as an antiprostatic agent.

We investigate the dynamical chiral symmetry breaking and its restoration at finite density and temperature within the two-flavor Nambu–Jona–Lasinio model, and mainly focus on the critical behaviors near the critical end point (CEP) and tricritical point (TCP) of quantum chromodynamics. The multi-solution region of the Nambu and Wigner ones is determined in the phase diagram for the massive and massless current quark, respectively. We use the various susceptibilities to locate the CEP/TCP and then extract the critical exponents near them. Our calculations reveal that the various susceptibilities share the same critical behaviors for the physical current quark mass, while they show different features in the chiral limit.

This study proposes a three-lens design with a short lens length and explores the curved imaging plane and performs a relative illumination analysis. There are two ways to reduce the lens length: shortening the back focal and lens group lengths. We derived the relevant parameter relationships of three lenses using the first-order geometric optics theory. The optical lens length can be controlled within 2 mm. The shorter the lens length, the larger the angle of the chief ray in the image space, resulting in an increase in the field curvature and astigmatism. Third-order Seidel aberrations can be effectively reduced by a curved image plane. We also derived the equations for relative illuminance, solid angle, surface transmittance, and internal transmittance for the short three-lens design. The optical lens design uses a curved image plane to shorten the distance from the off-axis beam image space to the image plane and reduce the incident angle of the chief ray on the image plane. The formula and design results verified by Code V software (version 11.2) show that both the solid angle and relative contrast of the lens can be increased. For the proposed three-lens design with a short lens length, the semi-field angle is 32°, F/# is 2.7, the effective focal length is 1.984 mm, the image plane area is 2.16 mm × 1.22 mm, and the curvature radius of the concave image plane is 3.726 mm. Moroever, the MTF (100 lp/mm) is larger than 52%, the lateral color aberration is less than 2.12 μm, the optical distortion is less than 2.00%, and the relative illumination is greater than 68%.

O-glycopeptides are highly expressed in various human cancers and play a key role in cancer progression and metastasis, making them promising biomarkers for early diagnostics. However, the inherent complexity and heterogeneity of glycans pose a major challenge for the simultaneous and precise analysis of multiple glycopeptides. Here, we developed a low-temperature nanopore technique capable of simultaneously discriminating 4 truncated O-glycopeptides with varied glycoforms. This method enables the direct identification and relative quantification of O-glycopeptides from a mixture, achieving a discrimination accuracy of 92.9%. This general strategy holds promise for the label-free analysis of glycopeptide biomarkers, with potential applications in cancer diagnostics.

Here we report a protocol to investigate the electron-transfer processes of redox-active biomolecules in biological membranes by electrochemistry using biomimetic hybrid bilayer membranes (HBMs) assembled on gold electrodes. Redox-active head groups, such as the ubiquinone moiety, are embedded in HBMs that contain target molecules, e.g., nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH). By using this approach, the electron-transfer processes between redox molecules and target biomolecules are mediated by mimicking the redox cycling processes in a natural membrane. Also included is a procedure for in situ surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) to confirm the electrochemically induced conformational changes of the target biomolecules in the HBMs. In addition, each step in constructing the HBMs is characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The time required for the entire protocol is ∼12 h, whereas the electrochemical measurement of electron-transfer processes takes less than 1 h to complete.