There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Semiconductor nanocrystals exhibit a wide range of size-dependent properties. Variations in fundamental characteristics ranging from phase transitions to electrical conductivity can be induced by controlling the size of the crystals. The present status and new opportunities for research in this area of materials physical chemistry are reviewed.

Perspectives on the Physical Chemistry of Semiconductor Nanocrystals

When a molecule absorbs a photon of appropriate energy, a chain of photophysical events ensues, such as internal conversion or vibrational relaxation (loss of energy in the absence of light emission), fluorescence, intersystem crossing (from singlet state to a triplet state) and phosphorescence, as shown in the Jablonski diagram for organic molecules (Fig. 1). Each of the processes occurs with a certain probability, characterized by decay rate constants (k). It can be shown that the average length of time τ for the set of molecules to decay from one state to another is reciprocally proportional to the rate of decay: τ = 1/k. This average length of time is called the mean lifetime, or simply lifetime. It can also be shown that the lifetime of a photophysical process is the time required by a population of N electronically excited molecules to be reduced by a factor of e. Correspondingly, the fluorescence lifetime is the time required by a population of excited fluorophores to decrease exponentially to N/e via the loss of energy through fluorescence and other non-radiative processes. The lifetime of photophycal processes vary significantly from tens of femotoseconds for internal conversion1,2 to nanoseconds for fluorescence and microseconds or seconds for phosphorescence.1






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Figure 1


Jablonski diagram and a timescale of photophysical processes for organic molecules.

/pdf/fluorescence-lifetime-measurements-and-biological-imaging-xfalzh4w7e.pdf

Fluorescence Lifetime Measurements and Biological Imaging

Polydopamine is the first adhesive polymer that can functionalize surfaces made of virtually all material chemistries. The material-independent surface modification properties of polydopamine allow the functionalization of various types of medical and energy devices. However, the mechanism of dopamine polymerization has not yet been clearly demonstrated. Covalent oxidative polymerization via 5,6-dihydroxyindole (DHI), which is similar to the mechanism for synthetic melanin synthesis, has been the clue. Here, it is reported that a physical, self-assembled trimer of (dopamine)2/DHI exists in polydopamine, which has been known to be formed only by covalent polymerization. It is also found that the trimeric complex is tightly entrapped within polydopamine and barely escapes from the polydopamine complex. The result explains the previously reported in vitro and in vivo biocompatibility. The study reveals a different perspective of polydopamine formation, where it forms in part by the self-assembly of dopamine and DHI, providing a new clue toward understanding the structures of catecholamines such as melanin.

Non-Covalent Self-Assembly and Covalent Polymerization Co-Contribute to Polydopamine Formation

In this article, we review the current state of knowledge concerning the physical and chemical properties of the eumelanin pigment. We examine properties related to its photoprotective functionality, and draw the crucial link between fundamental molecular structure and observable macroscopic behaviour. Where necessary, we also briefly review certain aspects of the pheomelanin literature to draw relevant comparison. A full understanding of melanin function, and indeed its role in retarding or promoting the disease state, can only be obtained through a full mapping of key structure-property relationships in the main pigment types. We are engaged in such an endeavor for the case of eumelanin.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1600-0749.2006.00345.x

The physical and chemical properties of eumelanin.

The PASADENA effect is a method for transient high-sensitivity proton spin-labelling by molecular addition of dihydrogen. When the parahydrogen mole fraction differs from the high-temperature limit of 1/4, this population difference constitutes a form of spin order which can be converted to magnetization observable by NMR. Large NMR signals are observed, if subsequent to the hydrogen addition, the two protons experience magnetic inequivalence and spin-spin coupling and if observation is made before spin-lattice relaxation restores the equilibrium spin order. The analogous effect for D2 is also possible. The kinetic mechanisms of the homogeneous hydrogenation catalysts which permit the realization of the PASADENA effect have been the target of the experimental applications. The enhancement of the NMR transitions has facilitated the determination of true molecular rate constants. Ordinarily, the activity of a catalyst is assessed by dividing the observed rate by the total catalyst concentration. However, the question as to whether most of the catalytic rate is due to a tiny fraction of active species or a large fraction with a relatively low molecular rate is not clearly addressed by such an analysis. This ambiguity is entirely avoided in the PASADENA studies, since only active catalyst molecules can contribute to the enhanced signals from which all kinetic inferences are made. The sensitivity enhancement has also led to the identification of a novel intermediate in the mechanism for the Rh(DIPHOS)+ catalyzed hydrogenation of styrene. The rate of conversion of this species into product and starting material has been studied using two-dimensional NMR. The dramatically improved sensitivity should make it possible to observe key catalytic intermediates which do not build up in sufficient quantity to allow detection by conventional NMR arising from Curie-Law magnetization. The study of surface sites which bind pairwise with H2 is also a potentially fruitful area for future experimental work. The ambient temperature NMR spectroscopy of surfaces is not often feasible due to sensitivity limitations. Simulations have been performed using typical shift and coupling parameters in an effort to characterize the enhanced lineshapes which can be expected. The inverse of the PASADENA effect has also been proposed, whereby the spin order of a molecule containing hydrogen is probed by measuring the branching ratio to ortho and para dihydrogen. This RAYMOND phenomenon (radiowave application yields modulated ortho number desorbed) has the potential for measuring precursor NMR with extraordinary sensitivity, since it finesses the need for detection of radiowaves.

Parahydrogen and Synthesis Allow Dramatically Enhanced Nuclear Alignment

Melanosomes in black and red human hair are isolated and characterized by various chemical and physical techniques. Different yields of 4-amino-hydroxyphenolanaline by HI hydrolysis (a marker for pheomelanin) and pyrrole-2,3,5-tricarboxylic acid by KMnO(4)/H(+) oxidation (a marker for eumelanin) indicate that the melanosomes in black hair are eumelanosomes, whereas those in red hair are mainly pheomelanosomes. Atomic force microscopy reveals that eumelanosomes and pheomelanosomes have ellipsoidal and spherical shapes, respectively. Eumelanosomes maintain structural integrity upon extraction from the keratin matrix, whereas pheomelanosomes tend to fall apart. The black-hair eumelanosomes have an average of 14.6 +/- 0.5% amino acids content, which is attributed to the internal proteins entrapped in the melanosomes granules. The red-hair melanosomes contain more than 44% of amino acid content even after extensive proteolytic digestion. This high content of amino acids and the poorly reserved integrity of red-hair melanosomes suggest that some proteins are possibly covalently bonded with the melanin constituents in addition to those that are entrapped inside the melanin species. Soluene solubilization assay indicates the absorbance of melanin per gram of sample, adjusted for the amino acid content, is a factor of 2.9 greater for the black-hair melanosomes than the red-hair melanosomes. Metal analysis reveals significant amounts of diverse heavy metal ions bound to the two types of melanosomes. The amount of Cu(II) and Zn(II) are similar but Fe(III) content is four times higher in the red-hair melanosomes. (13)C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectra and infrared spectra are presented and are shown to be powerful techniques for discerning differences in the amino acid contents, the 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid:5,6-dihydroxyindole ratio, and the degree of cross-linking in the pigment. Excellent agreement is observed between these spectral results and the chemical degradation data.

https://bioone.org/journals/photochemistry-and-photobiology/volume-81/issue-1/2004-08-03-RA-259.1/Comparison-of-Structural-and-Chemical-Properties-of-Black-and-Red/10.1562/2004-08-03-RA-259.1.pdf

Comparison of structural and chemical properties of black and red human hair melanosomes

Resistive or hybrid magnets can achieve substantially higher fields than those available in superconducting magnets, but their spatial homogeneity and temporal stability are unacceptable for high-resolution NMR. We show that modern stabilization and shimming technology, combined with detection of intermolecular zero-quantum coherences (iZQCs), can remove almost all of the effects of inhomogeneity and drifts, while retaining chemical shift differences and J couplings. In a 25-T electromagnet (1 kHz/s drift, 3 kHz linewidth over 1 cm(3)), iZQC detection removes >99% of the remaining inhomogeneity, to generate the first high-resolution liquid-state NMR spectra acquired at >1 GHz.

High-resolution, >1 GHz NMR in unstable magnetic fields.

High capacity production of >65% spin polarized xenon-129 for NMR spectroscopy and imaging.

Melanosomes were isolated from the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), iris and choroid of mature (age >2 years) and newborn (age iris > RPE, and exhibit decreasing yields with age. 13C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic analysis of iris and choroid melanosomes indicates the same trends. These observations suggest that the 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acid contents decrease in the following order: choroid > iris > RPE, and decrease with age. Moreover, the 13C solid-state NMR spectra show (1) for the same age samples, the CH:Cq ratio for choroid is larger than that for iris melanosomes; and (2) an increase in the concentration of carbonyl groups with age within each type of melanosome.

Comparisons of the Structural and Chemical Properties of Melanosomes Isolated from Retinal Pigment Epithelium, Iris and Choroid of Newborn and Mature Bovine Eyes¶

Clifford R. Bowers

Papers

Parahydrogen and Synthesis Allow Dramatically Enhanced Nuclear Alignment

Comparison of structural and chemical properties of black and red human hair melanosomes

High-resolution, >1 GHz NMR in unstable magnetic fields.

High capacity production of >65% spin polarized xenon-129 for NMR spectroscopy and imaging.

Comparisons of the Structural and Chemical Properties of Melanosomes Isolated from Retinal Pigment Epithelium, Iris and Choroid of Newborn and Mature Bovine Eyes¶