Sharif Digital Repository

Semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are among the few photostable optical emitters that are ideal for sensing, imaging, drug delivery, and monitoring of protein activity. These applications often require strategies for immobilizing proteins onto the nanotube while preserving the optical properties of the SWCNTs. Site-specific and oriented immobilization strategies, in particular, offer advantages for improving sensor and optical signaling responses. In this study, we demonstrate site-specific protein immobilization of a model of enhanced yellow fluorescent protein with a single engineered cysteine residue, using either single-stranded DNA or a pyrene-containing linker to... 

CuInS2 nanoparticles as the visible (wurtzite, 1.67 eV) or near infrared (chalcopyrite, 1.50 eV) light absorbing material in thin film solar cells, were synthesized using facile, one step heating up method by dissolving of CuCl, InCl3 and SC(NH2)2 as precursors in oleylamine (OLA) alone or in combination with oleic acid (OA) and 1-octadecene (ODE) as solvent. The phase, size, morphology, and size distribution were controlled by the coordination ability between solvent molecules and metal precursors, reaction temperature and time. The presence of higher amounts of thiourea or OA to OLA led to the formation of chalcopyrite phase in comparison to wurtzite structure. Also, higher reaction... 

We substitute indium present in the CuInS2 ternary compound by iron and zinc using a facile one-pot synthesis method. The quaternary compound of CuIn1-xMxS2 (M = Fe and Zn) was synthesized by dissolving CuCl, InCl3, FeCl3, Zn(ac)2 and SC(NH2)2 as precursors in 1-octadecene, oleylamine and oleic acid as non-coordinating, coordinating and capping agent solvents, respectively. Oleic acid, oleylamine and thiourea were used respectively as a hard Lewis base, borderline Lewis base (in comparison with oleic acid) and soft Lewis base to form appropriate complexes. The complex formation, structure, and... 

Supercritical water was used for simultaneous fragmentation and reduction of graphene oxide (GO) sheets into water-dispersible graphene quantum dots (GQDs) with tunable sizes. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) demonstrated that by increasing the temperature above the critical point of water, the average size and thickness of the GQDs were decreased and the size uniformity and production yield were increased. The results of thermal conductivity measurement of GQD nanofluids with different weight fractions indicated that the GQDs prepared at supercritical condition could enhance the thermal conductivity of water by 65% as compared to 35% for the GQDs synthesized at sub-critical... 

Conventionally, a film of TiO2 particles of 300 nm size is employed in Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) as the back reflector film to enhance the light harvesting. Perfect reflectance of silver in visible and near infrared motivates to investigate its potential as the material for the light back reflector film in DSCs. In this study, light back reflector films consisting of 300 nm-sized silver particles, as well as vacuum evaporated silver flat film, were fabricated and compared to 300 nm-sized rutile-type TiO2 particulate reflector film to study their optical aspects. Conventional TiO2 rutile-type particulate film demonstrates slightly lower performance... 

The morphology, structure and optical properties of zinc sulfide (ZnS) thin films prepared through radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering have been analyzed using atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometry, X-ray diffraction, and multifractal analyses. The X-ray diffraction patterns revealed that all ZnS thin films show a single peak at around 29.6°, which has been ascribed to the (111) planes of sphalerite phase, indicating that the growth direction of the films is the [111] direction. UV–Vis–NIR transmittance spectra were used to determine the refractive index of the samples, their thickness, and their band gap energy, showing the optical and semiconductor properties a... 

In the present work we obtained a series of NIR luminescent platinum(II) complexes with a pincer N^N^C ligand based on the conjugated {benzoimidazo[1,2-a]pyrazine} system with the [Pt(N^N^C)L]n+ structural motif (L = phosphine, alkynyl or pyridine-type ligands). We have also synthesized two complexes with bidentate phosphines that demonstrate different types of coordination: 1) as chelating ligand (in case of 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)benzene), that led to de-coordination of pyridine ring of N^N^C ligand and formation of a [Pt(N^C)dppb]+ complex; 2) as a bridging ligand (in case of bis(diphenylphosphino)methane) between two {Pt(N^N^C)} fragments in a dimeric complex of type... 

Light scattering design in dye and quantum dot sensitized solar cells is one of the main concerns in enhancing their light harvesting efficiency, and also in improving their power conversion efficiency. Herein, we present a theoretical analysis to calculate the dependence of the light scattering efficiency in dye solar cells that have employed scattering agents with various sizes and morphologies incorporated in nanostructured photoanodes with different designs. Various isotropic and anisotropic nanostructures, including filled and hollow spheres, spherical voids, nanowires and hollow fibres in a size range of 100 nm to 900 nm, have been considered as scattering centres. The scattering... 

The present study aims to estimate nitrogen (N) content in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) plant leaves using optimal hyperspectral imaging data by means of computational intelligence [artificial neural networks and the differential evolution algorithm (ANN-DE), partial least squares regression (PLSR), and convolutional neural network (CNN) regression] to detect potential plant stress to nutrients at early stages. First, pots containing control and treated tomato plants were prepared; three treatments (categories or classes) consisted in the application of an overdose of 30%, 60%, and 90% nitrogen fertilizer, called N-30%, N-60%, N-90%, respectively. Tomato plant leaves were then randomly... 

This study focuses on the spectrochemical estimation of pH and titratable acidity (TA) of apples of Fuji variety at different stages of ripening. A novel approach is proposed for near-infrared (NIR) spectral analysis using hybrid machine learning methods that combine artificial neural networks (ANN) and metaheuristic algorithms. One hundred twenty samples were collected at three ripening stages and spectral data within two bands of NIR were extracted from each sample to predict the acidity properties. Alternatively, the 4 most effective wavelengths were also selected using a hybrid of ANN and the cultural algorithm. The experimental results prove that the models using spectral bands and the... 

Chemical fertilizers are widely applied in agriculture to achieve high yield, enhance produce quality and build resistance to diseases; in our case the plant being tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. var. Royal). However, the acidity, size and taste of tomato fruits could change with excess nitrogen (N) application. The present study aims at the early detection of nitrogen-rich tomato leaves using hyperspectral imaging techniques in the visible and near infrared (Vis-NIR) spectrum, in order to improve plant nutrition composition at an early growth stage. A 30% over-dose of nitrogen was applied to half of the tomato pots. Five leaves were randomly collected from each pot for 3 days (classes D0,... 

Efficient sunlight harvesting is of great significance for environmental remediation through photocatalysis. Herein, very small (20 nm) upconverter SrF2:Yb,Tm@CaF2:Yb@Fluorine-doped TiO2heteronanoparticles (denoted as UCNPs@TiO2) with strong UV-blue emission and broadband photocatalytic performance were prepared via a facile three-step hydrothermal method for the first time. The SrF2:Yb,Tm upconverter nanoparticles (NPs) were produced as the light-emitting core, epitaxially grown CaF2:Yb as the middle shell to enhance the upconversion luminescence output and TiO2as the photocatalyst outermost layer. Superior photocatalytic functioning of UCNPs@TiO2was affirmed through methylene blue (MB)... 

In this paper, we analyze the performance of a wireless infrared system with code division multiple access (CDMA) technique using optical orthogonal codes (OOCs). Performance improvement is shown when power control is applied to the system. Noting the advantages of pulse position modulation (PPM), we have used chip-level binary PPM scheme. To mention some of these advantages we can name average required power reduction and BER improvement in comparison to on-off keying (OOK). The obtained results show that power control is a mandatory part of the design in a wireless infrared system using OOC. ©2007 IEEE  

The Hubble tension may introduce a new course of action to revise the standard Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model to unravel dark energy and dark matter physics. The Hubble parameter can be reconstructed by late-time observations of the background evolution model independently. We relate the reconstructed Hubble parameter to the structure formation and large-scale structure observables in this work. We use excursion set theory to calculate the number density of dark matter haloes and the mass function of progenitors. We obtain results for both the Markov and non-Markov extensions of excursion set theory in the context of spherical and ellipsoidal collapse. We show that the number density... 

An oxygen nanoshuttle based on a reduced graphene oxide/copper peroxide (rGO/CuO2) nanocomposite has been presented to deliver in situ oxygen nanobubbles (O2 NBs) for combating bacterial infections. In the presence of rGO, the solid source of oxygen (i.e., CuO2) was decomposed (in response to environmental conditions such as pH and temperature) into O2 NBs in a more controllable and long-lasting trend (from 60 to 144 h). In a neutral buffer, the O2 NBs experienced growth and collapse evolutions, creating a dynamic micro-nanoenvironment around the nanocomposite. In addition to effective battling against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, the O2 NBs demonstrated superior... 

In this study, UV‐Vis-NIR photodetectors based on decorated ZnO nanofibers (NFs) with optimized coverage of Au nanoparticles (NPs) fabricated via combined simple electrospinning and sputtering techniques are introduced. The effect of different coverages of Au NPs resulted from different Au nominal layer thicknesses on the morphology and optical properties of the ZnO fibers are investigated through various characterization methods. It is discovered that 4 nm Au nominal thickness provides the highest UV on/off ratio (~460), responsivity (~332 A/W), detectivity (~2.93×10 11 Jones) as well as faster rise and decay times as compared to pure ZnO nanofibers. A broad spectral response from UV to NIR... 

In this research work, graphene/cobalt nanocomposites are functionalized with polyethylene glycol (PEG) to be a platform for theranostics application and antibacterial activity. The non-covalent functionalization of PEG on the surfaces of nanocomposites improved their stability and diminished their cytotoxicity. The PEGylated nanocomposites are demonstrated to allow simultaneous administration of two cancer therapy methods such as magnetic fluids hyperthermia (MFH) which is carried out by converting magnetic energy into heat through ferromagnetic cobalt nanoparticles and heat generation through near-infrared optical absorption by the reduced graphene oxide. A concise simulation is carried... 

A new and simple receiver structure for reducing the multipath inter-symbole interference (ISI) effect is proposed for infrared diffuse links. In this new method, bit-error rate (BER) performance of the system will be improved significantly without any essential change in the receiver structure. In our analysis, all major noise sources such as ambient light, signal shotnoise, dark current and thermal noise of the receiver are considered. © 2009 IEEE  

In the present contribution, visible-near infrared hyperspectral imaging (Vis-NIR-HSI) combined with a novel chemometric approach based on mean-filed independent component analysis (MF-ICA) followed by multivariate classification techniques is proposed for saffron authentication and adulteration detection. First, MF-ICA was used to exploit pure spatial and spectral profiles of the components. Then, principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were used to find patterns of authentic samples based on their distribution maps. Then, detection of five common plant-derived adulterants of saffron including safflower, saffron style, calendula, rubia and turmeric were... 

The current study presents an application of near infrared spectroscopy for identification and quantification of the fraudulent addition of barley in roasted and ground coffee samples. Nine different types of coffee including pure Arabica, Robusta and mixtures of them at different roasting degrees were blended with four types of barley. The blending degrees were between 2 and 20 wt% of barley. D-optimal design was applied to select 100 and 30 experiments to be used as calibration and test set, respectively. Partial least squares regression (PLS) was employed to build the models aimed at predicting the amounts of barley in coffee samples. In order to obtain simplified models, taking into...