TY - JOUR A1 - Bastian, Philipp U. A1 - Yu, Leixiao A1 - de Guereñu Kurganova, Anna Lopez A1 - Haag, Rainer A1 - Kumke, Michael Uwe T1 - Bioinspired confinement of upconversion nanoparticles for improved performance in aqueous solution JF - The journal of physical chemistry : C, Nanomaterials and interfaces N2 - The resonance energy transfer (RET) from NaYF4:Yb,Er upconverting nanoparticles (UNCPs) to a dye (5-carboxytetramethylrhodamine (TAMRA)) was investigated by photoluminescence experiments and microscale thermophoresis (MST). The dye was excited via RET from the UCNPs which was excited in the near-infrared (NIR). The change of the dye diffusion speed (free vs coupled) was investigated by MST. RET shows significant changes in the decay times of the dye as well as of the UCNPs. MST reveals significant changes in the diffusion speed. A unique amphiphilic coating polymer (customized mussel protein (CMP) polymer) for UCNP surface coating was used, which mimics blood protein adsorption and mussel food protein adhesion to transfer the UCNP into the aqueous phase and to allow surface functionalization. The CMP provides very good water dispersibility to the UCNPs and minimizes ligand exchange and subsequent UCNP aging reactions because of the interlinkage of the CMP on the UCNP surface. Moreover, CMP provides N-3-functional groups for dick chemistry-based functionalization demonstrated with the dye 5-carboxytetramethylrhodamine (TAMRA). This establishes the principle coupling scheme for suitable biomarkers such as antibodies. The CMP provides very stable aqueous UCNP dispersions that are storable up to 3 years in a fridge at 5 degrees C without dissolution or coagulation. The outstanding properties of CMP in shielding the UCNP from unwanted solvent effects is reflected in the distinct increase of the photoluminescence decay times after UCNP functionalization. The UCNP-to-TAMRA energy transfer is also spectroscopically investigated at low temperatures (4-200 K), revealing that one of the two green Er(III) emission bands contributes the major part to the energy transfer. The TAMRA fluorescence decay time increases by a factor of 9500 from 2.28 ns up to 22 mu s due to radiationless energy transfer from the UCNP after NIR excitation of the latter. This underlines the unique properties of CMP as a versatile capping ligand for distinctly improving the UCNPs' performance in aqueous solutions, for coupling of biomolecules, and for applications for in vitro and in vivo experiments using UCNPs as optical probes in life science applications. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c09798 SN - 1932-7447 SN - 1932-7455 VL - 124 IS - 52 SP - 28623 EP - 28635 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington, DC ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bekir, Marek A1 - Jelken, Joachim A1 - Jung, Se-Hyeong A1 - Pich, Andrij A1 - Pacholski, Claudia A1 - Kopyshev, Alexey A1 - Santer, Svetlana T1 - Dual responsiveness of microgels induced by single light stimulus JF - Applied physics letters N2 - We report on the multiple response of microgels triggered by a single optical stimulus. Under irradiation, the volume of the microgels is reversibly switched by more than 20 times. The irradiation initiates two different processes: photo-isomerization of the photo-sensitive surfactant, which forms a complex with the anionic microgel, rendering it photo-responsive; and local heating due to a thermo-plasmonic effect within the structured gold layer on which the microgel is deposited. The photo-responsivity is related to the reversible accommodation/release of the photo-sensitive surfactant depending on its photo-isomerization state, while the thermo-sensitivity is intrinsically built in. We show that under exposure to green light, the thermo-plasmonic effect generates a local hot spot in the gold layer, resulting in the shrinkage of the microgel. This process competes with the simultaneous photo-induced swelling. Depending on the position of the laser spot, the spatiotemporal control of reversible particle shrinking/swelling with a predefined extent on a per-second base can be implemented. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0036376 SN - 0003-6951 SN - 1077-3118 VL - 118 IS - 9 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bouakline, Foudhil A1 - Saalfrank, Peter T1 - Seemingly asymmetric atom-localized electronic densities following laser-dissociation of homonuclear diatomics JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistry N2 - Recent experiments on laser-dissociation of aligned homonuclear diatomic molecules show an asymmetric forward-backward (spatial) electron-localization along the laser polarization axis. Most theoretical models attribute this asymmetry to interference effects between gerade and ungerade vibronic states. Presumably due to alignment, these models neglect molecular rotations and hence infer an asymmetric (post-dissociation) charge distribution over the two identical nuclei. In this paper, we question the equivalence that is made between spatial electron-localization, observed in experiments, and atomic electron-localization, alluded by these theoretical models. We show that (seeming) agreement between these models and experiments is due to an unfortunate omission of nuclear permutation symmetry, i.e., quantum statistics. Enforcement of the latter requires mandatory inclusion of the molecular rotational degree of freedom, even for perfectly aligned molecules. Unlike previous interpretations, we ascribe spatial electron-localization to the laser creation of a rovibronic wavepacket that involves field-free molecular eigenstates with opposite space-inversion symmetry i.e., even and odd parity. Space-inversion symmetry breaking would then lead to an asymmetric distribution of the (space-fixed) electronic density over the forward and backward hemisphere. However, owing to the simultaneous coexistence of two indistinguishable molecular orientational isomers, our analytical and computational results show that the post-dissociation electronic density along a specified space-fixed axis is equally shared between the two identical nuclei-a result that is in perfect accordance with the principle of the indistinguishability of identical particles. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0049710 SN - 0021-9606 SN - 1089-7690 VL - 154 IS - 23 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Breternitz, Joachim A1 - Schorr, Susan T1 - Symmetry relations in wurtzite nitrides and oxide nitrides and the curious case of Pmc2(1) JF - Acta crystallographica / International Union of Crystallography. Section A, Foundations and advances N2 - Binary III-V nitrides such as AlN, GaN and InN in the wurtzite-type structure have long been considered as potent semiconducting materials because of their optoelectronic properties, amongst others. With rising concerns over the utilization of scarce elements, a replacement of the trivalent cations by others in ternary and multinary nitrides has led to the development of different variants of nitrides and oxide nitrides crystallizing in lower-symmetry variants of wurtzite. This work presents the symmetry relationships between these structural types specific to nitrides and oxide nitrides and updates some prior work on this matter. The non-existence of compounds crystallizing in Pmc2(1), formally the highest subgroup of the wurtzite type fulfilling Pauling's rules for 1:1:2 stoichiometries, has been puzzling scientists for a while; a rationalization is given, from a crystallographic basis, of why this space group is unlikely to be adopted. KW - group-subgroup relationships KW - nitride materials KW - wurtzite type Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1107/S2053273320015971 SN - 2053-2733 VL - 77 IS - 3 SP - 208 EP - 216 PB - Blackwell CY - Oxford [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Chemura, Sitshengisiwe A1 - Haubitz, Toni A1 - Primus, Philipp A. A1 - Underberg, Martin A1 - Hülser, Tim A1 - Kumke, Michael Uwe T1 - Europium-doped Ceria-Gadolinium mixed oxides BT - PARAFAC analysis and high-resolution emission spectroscopy under cryogenic conditions for structural analysis JF - The journal of physical chemistry : A, Molecules, spectroscopy, kinetics, environment & general theory N2 - Gadolinium-doped ceria or gadolinium-stabilized ceria (GDC) is an important technical material due to its ability to conduct O2- ions, e.g., used in solid oxide fuel cells operated at intermediate temperature as an electrolyte, diffusion barrier, and electrode component. We have synthesized Ce1-xGdxO2-y:Eu3+ (0 <= x <= 0.4) nanoparticles (11-15 nm) using a scalable spray pyrolysis method, which allows the continuous large-scale technical production of such materials. Introducing Eu3+ ions in small amounts into ceria and GDC as spectroscopic probes can provide detailed information about the atomic structure and local environments and allows us to monitor small structural changes. This study presents a novel approach to structurally elucidate europium-doped Ce1-xGdxO2-y:Eu3+ nanoparticles by way of Eu3+ spectroscopy, processing the spectroscopic data with the multiway decomposition method parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis. In order to perform the deconvolution of spectra, data sets of excitation wavelength, emission wavelength, and time are required. Room temperature, time-resolved emission spectra recorded at lambda(ex) = 464 nm show that Gd3+ doping results in significantly altered emission spectra compared to pure ceria. The PARAFAC analysis for the pure ceria samples reveals a high-symmetry species (which can also be probed directly via the CeO2 charge transfer band) and a low-symmetry species. The GDC samples yield two low-symmetry spectra in the same experiment. High-resolution emission spectra recorded under cryogenic conditions after probing the D-5(0)-F-7(0) transition at lambda(ex) = 575-583 nm revealed additional variation in the low-symmetry Eu3+ sites in pure ceria and GDC. The total luminescence spectra of CeO2-y:Eu3+ showed Eu3+ ions located in at least three slightly different coordination environments with the same fundamental symmetry, whereas the overall hypsochromic shift and increased broadening of the D-5(0)-F-7(0) excitation in the GDC samples, as well as the broadened spectra after deconvolution point to less homogeneous environments. The data of the Gd3+-containing samples indicates that the average charge density around the Eu3+ ions in the lattice is decreased with increasing Gd3+ and oxygen vacancy concentration. For reference, the Judd-Ofelt parameters of all spectra were calculated. PARAFAC proves to be a powerful tool to analyze lanthanide spectra in crystalline solid materials, which are characterized by numerous Stark transitions and where measurements usually yield a superposition of different contributions to any given spectrum. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.0c03188 SN - 1089-5639 SN - 1520-5215 VL - 124 IS - 24 SP - 4972 EP - 4983 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Doering, Ulrike A1 - Grigoriev, Dmitry A1 - Tapio, Kosti A1 - Bald, Ilko A1 - Böker, Alexander T1 - Synthesis of nanostructured protein-mineral-microcapsules by sonication JF - Soft matter N2 - We propose a simple and eco-friendly method for the formation of composite protein-mineral-microcapsules induced by ultrasound treatment. Protein- and nanoparticle-stabilized oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions loaded with different oils are prepared using high-intensity ultrasound. The formation of thin composite mineral proteinaceous shells is realized with various types of nanoparticles, which are pre-modified with Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) and subsequently characterized by EDX, TGA, zeta potential measurements and Raman spectroscopy. Cryo-SEM and EDX mapping visualizations show the homogeneous distribution of the densely packed nanoparticles in the capsule shell. In contrast to the results reported in our previous paper,(1) the shell of those nanostructured composite microcapsules is not cross-linked by the intermolecular disulfide bonds between BSA molecules. Instead, a Pickering-Emulsion formation takes place because of the amphiphilicity-driven spontaneous attachment of the BSA-modified nanoparticles at the oil/water interface. Using colloidal particles for the formation of the shell of the microcapsules, in our case silica, hydroxyapatite and calcium carbonate nanoparticles, is promising for the creation of new functional materials. The nanoparticulate building blocks of the composite shell with different chemical, physical or morphological properties can contribute to additional, sometimes even multiple, features of the resulting capsules. Microcapsules with shells of densely packed nanoparticles could find interesting applications in pharmaceutical science, cosmetics or in food technology. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/d1sm01638e SN - 1744-6848 VL - 18 IS - 13 SP - 2558 EP - 2568 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Erler, Alexander A1 - Riebe, Daniel A1 - Beitz, Toralf A1 - Löhmannsröben, Hans-Gerd A1 - Grothusheitkamp, Daniela A1 - Kunz, Thomas A1 - Methner, Frank-Jürgen T1 - Characterization of volatile metabolites formed by molds on barley by mass and ion mobility spectrometry JF - Journal of mass spectrometr N2 - The contamination of barley by molds on the field or in storage leads to the spoilage of grain and the production of mycotoxins, which causes major economic losses in malting facilities and breweries. Therefore, on-site detection of hidden fungus contaminations in grain storages based on the detection of volatile marker compounds is of high interest. In this work, the volatile metabolites of 10 different fungus species are identified by gas chromatography (GC) combined with two complementary mass spectrometric methods, namely, electron impact (EI) and chemical ionization at atmospheric pressure (APCI)-mass spectrometry (MS). The APCI source utilizes soft X-radiation, which enables the selective protonation of the volatile metabolites largely without side reactions. Nearly 80 volatile or semivolatile compounds from different substance classes, namely, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, esters, substituted aromatic compounds, alkenes, terpenes, oxidized terpenes, sesquiterpenes, and oxidized sesquiterpenes, could be identified. The profiles of volatile and semivolatile metabolites of the different fungus species are characteristic of them and allow their safe differentiation. The application of the same GC parameters and APCI source allows a simple method transfer from MS to ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), which permits on-site analyses of grain stores. Characterization of IMS yields limits of detection very similar to those of APCI-MS. Accordingly, more than 90% of the volatile metabolites found by APCI-MS were also detected in IMS. In addition to different fungus genera, different species of one fungus genus could also be differentiated by GC-IMS. KW - APCI KW - fungus KW - gas chromatography KW - ion mobility spectrometry KW - mass KW - spectrometry KW - mold KW - soft X-ray Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/jms.4501 SN - 1076-5174 SN - 1096-9888 VL - 55 IS - 5 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Eric W. A1 - Saalfrank, Peter T1 - Ground state properties and infrared spectra of anharmonic vibrational polaritons of small molecules in cavities JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistr N2 - Recent experiments and theory suggest that ground state properties and reactivity of molecules can be modified when placed inside a nanoscale cavity, giving rise to strong coupling between vibrational modes and the quantized cavity field. This is commonly thought to be caused either by a cavity-distorted Born-Oppenheimer ground state potential or by the formation of light-matter hybrid states, vibrational polaritons. Here, we systematically study the effect of a cavity on ground state properties and infrared spectra of single molecules, considering vibration-cavity coupling strengths from zero up to the vibrational ultrastrong coupling regime. Using single-mode models for Li-H and O-H stretch modes and for the NH3 inversion mode, respectively, a single cavity mode in resonance with vibrational transitions is coupled to position-dependent molecular dipole functions. We address the influence of the cavity mode on polariton ground state energies, equilibrium bond lengths, dissociation energies, activation energies for isomerization, and on vibro-polaritonic infrared spectra. In agreement with earlier work, we observe all mentioned properties being strongly affected by the cavity, but only if the dipole self-energy contribution in the interaction Hamiltonian is neglected. When this term is included, these properties do not depend significantly on the coupling anymore. Vibro-polaritonic infrared spectra, in contrast, are always affected by the cavity mode due to the formation of excited vibrational polaritons. It is argued that the quantized nature of vibrational polaritons is key to not only interpreting molecular spectra in cavities but also understanding the experimentally observed modification of molecular reactivity in cavities. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0040853 SN - 0021-9606 SN - 1089-7690 VL - 154 IS - 10 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Eric W. A1 - Werther, Michael A1 - Bouakline, Foudhil A1 - Saalfrank, Peter T1 - A hierarchical effective mode approach to phonon-driven multilevel vibrational relaxation dynamics at surfaces JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistry N2 - We discuss an efficient Hierarchical Effective Mode (HEM) representation of a high-dimensional harmonic oscillator bath, which describes phonon-driven vibrational relaxation of an adsorbate-surface system, namely, deuterium adsorbed on Si(100). Starting from the original Hamiltonian of the adsorbate-surface system, the HEM representation is constructed via iterative orthogonal transformations, which are efficiently implemented with Householder matrices. The detailed description of the HEM representation and its construction are given in the second quantization representation. The hierarchical nature of this representation allows access to the exact quantum dynamics of the adsorbate-surface system over finite time intervals, controllable via the truncation order of the hierarchy. To study the convergence properties of the effective mode representation, we solve the time-dependent Schrodinger equation of the truncated system-bath HEM Hamiltonian, with the help of the multilayer extension of the Multiconfigurational Time-Dependent Hartree (ML-MCTDH) method. The results of the HEM representation are compared with those obtained with a quantum-mechanical tier-model. The convergence of the HEM representation with respect to the truncation order of the hierarchy is discussed for different initial conditions of the adsorbate-surface system. The combination of the HEM representation with the ML-MCTDH method provides information on the time evolution of the system (adsorbate) and multiple effective modes of the bath (surface). This permits insight into mechanisms of vibration-phonon coupling of the adsorbate-surface system, as well as inter-mode couplings of the effective bath. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0017716 SN - 0021-9606 SN - 1089-7690 VL - 153 IS - 6 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Eric Wolfgang A1 - Anders, Janet A1 - Saalfrank, Peter T1 - Cavity-altered thermal isomerization rates and dynamical resonant localization in vibro-polaritonic chemistry JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistr N2 - It has been experimentally demonstrated that reaction rates for molecules embedded in microfluidic optical cavities are altered when compared to rates observed under "ordinary" reaction conditions. However, precise mechanisms of how strong coupling of an optical cavity mode to molecular vibrations affects the reactivity and how resonance behavior emerges are still under dispute. In the present work, we approach these mechanistic issues from the perspective of a thermal model reaction, the inversion of ammonia along the umbrella mode, in the presence of a single-cavity mode of varying frequency and coupling strength. A topological analysis of the related cavity Born-Oppenheimer potential energy surface in combination with quantum mechanical and transition state theory rate calculations reveals two quantum effects, leading to decelerated reaction rates in qualitative agreement with experiments: the stiffening of quantized modes perpendicular to the reaction path at the transition state, which reduces the number of thermally accessible reaction channels, and the broadening of the barrier region, which attenuates tunneling. We find these two effects to be very robust in a fluctuating environment, causing statistical variations of potential parameters, such as the barrier height. Furthermore, by solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation in the vibrational strong coupling regime, we identify a resonance behavior, in qualitative agreement with experimental and earlier theoretical work. The latter manifests as reduced reaction probability when the cavity frequency omega(c) is tuned resonant to a molecular reactant frequency. We find this effect to be based on the dynamical localization of the vibro-polaritonic wavepacket in the reactant well. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0076434 SN - 0021-9606 SN - 1089-7690 VL - 156 IS - 15 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville, NY ER -