Multifunctional microscopy

Recent demands for polymeric materials request them to be multifunctional and high performance. Therefore, the research and development of composite materials have become more important because single-polymeric materials can never satisfy such requests. Especially, nanocomposite materials where nanoscale fillers are incorporated with polymeric materials draw much more attention, which accelerates the development of evaluation techniques that have nanometer-scale resolution." To date, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been widely used for this purpose, while the technique never catches mechanical information of such materials in general. The realization of much-higher-performance materials requires the evaluation technique that enables us to investigate morphological and mechanical properties at the same time. AFM must be an appropriate candidate because it has almost comparable resolution with TEM. Furthermore, mechanical properties can be readily obtained by AFM due to the fact that the sharp probe tip attached to soft cantilever directly touches the surface of materials in question. Therefore, many of polymer researchers have started to use this novel technique." In this section, we introduce the results using the method described in Section 21.3.3 on CB-reinforced NR. 

Yazdanfar, S., Chen, Y. Y, So, P T. C., and Laiho, L. H. 2007. Multifunctional imaging of endogenous contrast by simultaneous nonlinear and optical coherence microscopy of thick tissues. Micr. Res. Tech. 70 628-633. 

We are currently pursuing protein crystallization imaging in microfluidic devices, which can use both THG and CARS microscopy. The use of the microfluidic platform is the newest and one of the most promising trends in the colossal project of obtaining the exact structure of more than 70,000 protein molecules. The goal is to use microfluidic devices as a multifunctional, multiparallel platform for trying out a... 

Additionally, possible roles for cADPr in regulation of a surface RyR were suggested by demonstrations of cytosolic mRNA for the multifunctional ADP-ribosyl cyclase, CD38 which catalyzes NAD+ cyclization to cADPr, known in turn to gate Ca2+ release through microsomal membrane-resident ryanodine receptors (RyRs). Both confocal microscopy and Western blotting then localized the CD38 protein to the plasma membrane (Sun et al., 1999). 

Figure 3.99. Schematic presentation of multifunctional nanoclinics. (a) The TP dye ASPI-SH coated on Fe203 is encapsulated in a silica nanobubble. On the surface, a spacer molecule and the targeting agent (LH-RH) are attached, (b) High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction prove the structure of the nanoclinic. The bar represents 5 nm. (From Ref. [192] with permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers.)...

Multifunctional materials will play an important role in the development of Photonics Technology. This paper describes novel multifunctional polymeric composites for applications in both active and passive photonic components. On the molecular level, we have introduced multifunctionality by design and synthesis of chromophores which by themselves exhibit more than one functionality. At the bulk level, we have introduced the concept of a multiphasic nanostructured composites where phase separation is controlled in the nanometer range to produce optically transparent bulk in which each domain produces a specific photonic function. Results are presented from the studies of up-converted two-photon lasing, two-photon confocal microscopy, optical power limiting, photorefractivity and optical channel waveguides to illustrate the application of the multifunctional optical composites. 

The quest for new suitable materials represents a similar trend in the development of the solid-phase microextraction (SPME) techniques. Polypyrrole and poly N-phenylpyrrole films exhibit better selectivity toward polar, aromatic, and basic pesticides, due to their inherent multifunctional properties. Their high surface areas (also revealed by scanning electron microscopy) are responsible for the high extraction efficiencies shown by these materials. Mixtures of divinyl-benzene, carboxen, and polydimethylsiloxane-based... 

The finding of multifunctional enzyme systems for biosynthetic pathways, such as fatty acid synthesis, suggests that such organized systems may have importance elsewhere. Whether they exist in photosynthesis and how they operate if they do exist is a very important question for the future. The answer will come from a combination of tracer studies, investigation of the enzymes isolated by a variety of sophisticated techniques, and the gathering of better and more detailed knowledge of the structure of the chloroplast through the application of electron microscopy and various techniques of chemical and physical analysis. 

PA-6/PET/multifunctional epoxide resin (0-10 wt%) SEM/WAXD/polarizing microscopy/ DMTA/mechanical properties/DSC/FTIR Huang et al. 1998... 

P. R. (2010) Localized high resolution electrochemistry and multifunctional imaging scaiming electrochemical cell microscopy. Anal Chem., 82, 9141-9145. 

Multifunctional biotinylated and streptavidin-coated polyurethane-urea nanoparticles have also been engineered from OAV nano-emulsions." " In these studies, biotin or streptavidin reacts with diisocyanate at the droplet interface and are successfully attached to the nanoparticle polymeric matrices. These nanoparticles exhibit diameters around 110-140mn (biotin nanoparticles) and 70-74nm (streptavidin nanoparticles). In addition, streptavidin-coated polyurethane-urea nanoparticles were functionalized with biotin anti-VCAM-1 and anti-ICAM-1 antibodies for specific targeting. Both nanoparticulate systems showed no cytotoxicity in healthy endothelial cells and therefore good biocompatibility properties. Figure 7.1 shows a schema of the synthesis of different polyurethane nanoparticles obtained from 0/W nano-emulsions by interfacial polymerization and images obtained by transmission electron microscopy. 

ACCase 2, was relatively insensitive to graminicides and was shown by immunofluorescent microscopy to be concentrated in the cytosol of epidermal cells [9]. Both enzymes were multifunctional proteins of similar molecular mass which functioned as homodimers. The Km values of the three substrates (ATP, HCO3 , acetyl-CoA) for these two ACCase isoforms were similar (Table 1). 

Lagerwall JP, Schiitz C, Salajkova M, Noh J, Park JH, Scalia G, Bergstrom L (2014) Cellulose nanocrystal-based materials from liquid crystal self-assembly and glass formation to multifunctional thin films. NPG Asia Mater 6(l) e80 Lahiji RR, Xu X, Reifenberger R, Raman A, Rudie A, Moon RJ (2010) Atomic force microscopy characterization of cellulose nanocrystals. Langmuir 26 4480-4488 Lu P, Hsieh YL (2009) Cellulose nanocrystal-filled poly (acrylic acid) nanocomposite fibrous membranes. Nanotechnology 20(41) 415604... 

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