Category: News

Piezoelectricity of green carp scales

Today is Children’s Day in Japan and many mulit-colored carp-shaped koinobori streamers will flutter in the wind.

So it is the perfect day to share the publication “Piezoelectricity of green carp scales” by Y. Jiang et al. with you.

Piezoelectricity takes part in multiple important functions and processes in biomaterials often vital to the survival of organisms. In their publication , “Piezoelectricity of green carp scales” Y. Jiang et al. investigate the piezoelectric properties of fish scales of green carp by directly examining their morphology at nanometer levels. From the clear distinctions between the composition of the inner and outer surfaces of the scales that could be found, the authors identified the piezoelectricity to originate from the presence of hydroxyapatite which only exists on the surface of the fish scales.*

koinobori - carp streamers on children's day in Matsumoto Japan
koinobori – carp streamers in Matsumoto Japan

These findings reveal a different mechanism of how green carp are sensitive to their surroundings and should be helpful to studies related to the electromechanical properties of marine life and the development of bio-inspired materials. As easily accessible natural polymers, fish scales can be employed as highly sensitive piezoelectric materials in high sensitive and high speed devices as well as be exploited for invasive diagnostics and other biomedical implications.*

For the harmonic responses of both 1st order and 2nd order described in this publication, NanoWorld Arrow-CONTPt AFM probes were used.

FIG. 6 from “Piezoelectricity of green carp scales “ by H. Y. Jiang et al.: First and second harmonic responses of (a) domain I and (b) domain IV. The straight line fitting for the amplitude of first harmonic response of (c) domain I and (d) domain IV by applying a series of bias. NanoWorld Arrow-CONTPt AFM probes were used.
FIG. 6 from “Piezoelectricity of green carp scales “ by H. Y. Jiang et al.: First and second harmonic responses of (a) domain I and (b) domain IV. The straight line fitting for the amplitude of first harmonic response of (c) domain I and (d) domain IV by applying a series of bias.

*Y. Jiang, F. Yen, C. W. Huang, R. B. Mei, and L. Chen
Piezoelectricity of green carp scales
AIP Advances 7, 045215 (2017)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4979503

Please follow this external link to access the full article: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.4979503

Open Access The article “Piezoelectricity of green carp scales” by Y. Jiang, F. Yen, C. W. Huang, R. B. Mei and L. Chen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Rapid changes in tissue mechanics regulate cell behaviour in the developing embryonic brain

In their short report “Rapid changes in tissue mechanics regulate cell behaviour in the developing embryonic brain” published in January 2019, Amelia J Thompson, Eva K Pillai, Ivan B Dimov, Sarah K Foster, Christine E Holt, and Kristian Franze describe how they used time-lapse in vivo atomic force microscopy (tiv-AFM), a method that combines sensitive upright epi-fluorescence imaging of opaque samples, with iterated AFM indentation measurements of in vivo tissue at cellular resolution and at a time scale of tens of minutes, in order to enable time-resolved measurements of developmental tissue mechanics.*

The technique developed by Thompson, Pillai et al. is a useful tool that can help elucidate how variations in stiffness control the brain wiring process. It could also be used to look into how other developmental or regenerative processes, such as the way neurons reconnect after injuries to thebrain or spinal cord, may be regulated by mechanical tissue properties.*

NanoWorld Arrow-TL1 tipless cantilevers were used for the AFM-based stiffness measurements. (Monodisperse spherical polystyrene beads were glued to the cantilever ends as probes.)

NanoWorld Arrow-TL1 tipless cantilever for atomic force microscopy
NanoWorld Arrow-TL1 tipless AFM cantilever

*Amelia J Thompson, Eva K Pillai, Ivan B Dimov, Sarah K Foster, Christine E Holt, Kristian Franze
Rapid changes in tissue mechanics regulate cell behaviour in the developing embryonic brain
eLife 2019; 8:e39356
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.39356

Please follow this external link to the full article: https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/39356/elife-39356-v1.pdf

Open Access: The article « Rapid changes in tissue mechanics regulate cell behaviour in the developing embryonic brain » by Amelia J Thompson et al. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

 

New Insights in the Ion Beam Sputtering Deposition of ZnO-Fluoropolymer Nanocomposites

Surface modification treatments able to confer antistain/antibacterial properties to natural or synthetic materials are receiving increasing attention among scientists. Ion beam co-sputtering (IBS) of zinc oxide (ZnO) and poly-tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) targets allows for the preparation of novel multifunctional coatings composed of antimicrobial ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) finely dispersed in an antistain PTFE polymeric matrix.*

In the article “New Insights in the Ion Beam Sputtering Deposition of ZnO-Fluoropolymer Nanocomposites” Maria Chiara Sportelli, Marco Valentini, Rosaria Anna Picca, Antonella Milella, Angelo Nacci, Antonio Valentini and Nicola Cioffi describe the use of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) for the characterization of the IBS deposited coatings in order to obtain information on the materials’ surface composition, with deep insight into the nanocoatings’ morphology as a function of the ZnONP loadings.*

The AFM micrographs shown in this article were acquired on 150-nm-thick films in dynamic (“tapping”) mode, in air, using NanoWorld Pointprobe® NCL AFM probes.

Figure 2 from “New Insights in the Ion Beam Sputtering Deposition of ZnO-Fluoropolymer Nanocomposites” by Maria Chiara Sportelli et al.: Atomic force microscopy (AFM) micrographs of ZnO-CFx nanocomposites having an inorganic phase volume fraction of φ = 0.05 (a–a’), φ = 0.10 (b–b’), and φ = 0.15 (c–c’). NanoWorld Pointprobe® NCL AFM probes were used.
Figure 2 from “New Insights in the Ion Beam Sputtering Deposition of ZnO-Fluoropolymer Nanocomposites” by Maria Chiara Sportelli et al.: Atomic force microscopy (AFM) micrographs of ZnO-CFx nanocomposites having an inorganic phase volume fraction of φ = 0.05 (a–a’), φ = 0.10 (b–b’), and φ = 0.15 (c–c’).

*Maria Chiara Sportelli, Marco Valentini, Rosaria Anna Picca, Antonella Milella, Angelo Nacci, Antonio Valentini and Nicola Cioffi
New Insights in the Ion Beam Sputtering Deposition of ZnO-Fluoropolymer Nanocomposites
Applied Sciences 2018, 8(1), 77
DOI: 10.3390/app8010077

Please follow this external link for the full article: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/8/1/77/htm

Open Access: The article « New Insights in the Ion Beam Sputtering Deposition of ZnO-Fluoropolymer Nanocomposites » by Maria Chiara Sportelli et al. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.