The latest issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry is now online. You can read the full issue here.
The outside front cover features an article on Peptide-based solids: porosity and zeolitic behavior by Rui Afonso, Adélio Mendes and Luís Gales.
The effect of protein shells on the antioxidant activity of protein-encapsulated platinum nanoparticles is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Boi Hoa San, Sang Hyun Moh and Kyeong Kyu Kim.
Issue 5 contains the following Application and Feature articles:
- Peptide-based solids: porosity and zeolitic behavior
- Role of theory in the design of semiconducting nanostructures
- Advanced functional materials based on polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS)
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Scientists at Tongji University, Shanghai, China, have developed a method of creating patterns on photonic paper that are only visible when the paper is wet. The siloxane-containing photonic paper is fabricated by using lithography to create a contrast of crosslinking or degree of hydrophobization. When the invisible prints are soaked in water for several minutes, the small difference in reflection wavelength (λ) between the pattern and the background is significantly amplified due to their different swelling speeds, which leads to a visible image. The process is fully reversible and soaking and drying will repeat the cycle of showing and hiding the patterns.
Combining metallic nanoparticles with host materials whose dielectric properties can be tuned by means of an external control is one route to create “active plasmonics”. In this hot article a soft-matter periodic structure made from a composite mixture of cholesteric liquid crystals and Au nanoparticles is reported. The cholesteric liquid crystals act as a “host fluid” whose refractive index can be varied in a broad range by using external electric fields and temperature variations. This has a strong influence on the position of the plasmonic absorption peak of the nanoparticles.
