Investigation of the interactions of methane with metal oxides is crucial for elucidating absorption configurations at active sites of catalysts, which has proven to be a challenging experimental target due to the difficulty in size selection of neutral systems. In this work, the interactions of methane with rare earth metal oxides are studied by using size-specific infrared-vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations. Two distinct configurations of methane adsorption are found in the MO(CH4)n (M = Ce, Y; n = 1-3) complexes. In the first configuration, the C and H atoms of methane are positioned between a Lewis acid-base pair (M2+-O2-); in the second configuration, one H atom of methane is oriented toward a Lewis basic oxygen anion (O2-). Such adsorption features of methane on cerium and yttrium monoxides are dominantly governed by electrostatic interactions. These findings provide key microscopic information for methane adsorption on metal oxides that are helpful for understanding the crucial initial steps in the catalytic cycles.

Understanding and controlling valley-specific light-matter interactions and non-equilibrium microscopic coupling mechanisms lie at the heart of valleytronics. Due to their strong in-plane anisotropy, which enables polarization-controlled optical transitions to distinct non-degenerate valleys, group-IV monochalcogenides have been recently proposed as promising candidates for next-generation valleytronic materials. However, ultrafast non-equilibrium dynamics following the optical preparation of valley-polarized states have received limited attention in these systems. Here, combining time- and angle-resolved extreme-ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy with time-dependent Boltzmann equation simulations, we investigate ultrafast valley polarization dynamics following polarization-controlled photoexcitation in SnSe. We show that selective excitation to valleys at global conduction minima yields nearly unity and time-independent valley polarization. By contrast, photoexcitation to the other valley channel leads to ultrafast decay and reversal of valley polarization on subpicosecond timescales due to intervalley scattering mediated by strong electron-phonon coupling with an optical phonon mode. Our findings reveal strongly anisotropic and radically different non-equilibrium valley physics than in most common two-dimensional valleytronics materials.

The rapid development of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence has sharply increased the demand for secure, low-cost, and scalable anticounterfeiting technologies. Physical unclonable functions (PUFs) offer intrinsic protection by converting stochastic material variations into unique identifiers, but their practical implementation is often limited by complex fabrication, toxic luminophores, and low information complexity arising from single-channel readout. Here, we develop a copper(I) iodide cluster-poly(methyl methacrylate) fluorescent PUF through a single ambient coating step. Nonequilibrium solvent evaporation and polymer solidification generate randomly distributed yellow-emissive microdomains together with three-dimensional surface relief, while the cluster and polymer concentrations regulate domain coverage, intensity, and morphology without prescribing their microscopic arrangement. Binary fluorescence keys exhibit a mean interlabel Hamming distance of 0.49935 and an intralabel value of 0.00219. Incorporating discretized surface height further enables multivalued fluorescence-topography encoding. The solution-processable composite is compatible with spin coating, spray coating, transfer printing, and direct writing, allowing stochastic fingerprints to be integrated into planar, flexible, and curved objects for diverse anticounterfeiting scenarios. The fingerprints remain readable after storage, water exposure, thermal treatment, and ultraviolet irradiation. Deep-learning retrieval combined with local-feature matching enables hierarchical identification and physical verification. This work provides a simple, lead-free route to multimodal PUFs for scalable anticounterfeiting and authentication.

Background: Scabies is a World Health Organization-designated neglected tropical disease of rising incidence with increasingly reported treatment failure, making objective verification of cure important. Dermoscopy is well established for diagnosis, but its role in assessing treatment response has never been mapped. Objectives: To map how dermoscopy assesses treatment response in scabies-which markers, timepoints and cure definitions are applied, and how it relates to clinical and microscopic standards. Methods: A scoping review following PRISMA-ScR searched PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, EBSCO and Scopus (2016-2026, English) using a two-concept strategy (scabies × dermoscopy); eligibility required baseline dermoscopy plus at least one further, separately reported dermoscopic assessment during or after therapy. Two reviewers screened independently, supplemented by citation searching. Results: Ten studies were included. The same mite structure appeared under at least four names; assessment timepoints (day 2 to beyond day 28) and cure definitions were inconsistent. Dermoscopy was the genuine object of investigation in few studies; only one used ultraviolet-induced fluorescence to track response. Conclusions: Despite the disease's recognised importance, dermoscopic monitoring of scabies remains a declared rather than a designed research aim. No standardised marker, timepoint or cure definition exists; consensus standards analogous to the 2020 IACS diagnostic criteria are needed.

Focusing of synchrotron light across the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft x-ray regimes is increasingly desired for photoemission-based techniques where reduced beam width gives access to smaller samples, such as microscopic single crystals and functioning two-dimensional heterostructures and devices. Many existing focusing methods, however, are not able to take full advantage of the synchrotron beam due to limited photon energy range or low transmission. Modern capillary optics have enabled achromatic, high transmission focusing of XUV and x-ray light. Here, we present a detailed characterization of such an achromatic capillary optic installed at the AU-SGM4 beamline for spatial- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments at the ASTRID2 light source. The transmission of the capillary as a function of photon energy is given, and the dependence of the beam width, position, and transmission is measured against the source size. Analysis of the far-field image of the beam allows for slope errors on the inner surface of the capillary to be overcome by selectively aperturing the beam, resulting in a minimum beam width of 900 nm measured in a photoemission geometry.

Ion beam figuring (IBF) improves laser damage resistance in fused silica, yet its radiation reliability after surface hydration remains unclear. We show that surface hydration significantly reduces the damage threshold of irradiated IBF samples, whereas non-hydrated counterparts remain stable. Degradation follows a coupled pathway where IBF-induced deoxygenation creates reactive Si-rich surfaces that hydrate into Si-OH groups. Gamma irradiation subsequently ruptures O-H bonds, generating non-bridging oxygen hole centers (NBOHCs) and thereby enhancing ultraviolet (UV) absorption. ReaxFF simulations support this microscopic transition from Si-rich defects to hydrated structures. Our results reveal a mechanism involving deoxygenation, hydration, and defect formation, highlighting the critical role of surface hydration in the radiation stability of optics.

Living tissues contain dynamic biochemical information that is difficult to capture with conventional hyperspectral microscopes because sequential spectral acquisition is poorly matched to in vivo molecular processes that evolve during measurement. Here, we introduce a task-specific optical encoding framework for video-rate molecular inference in living plant tissue. The system integrates a passive spectral encoder, implemented here as a low-angle scattering low-density polyethylene (LDPE) layer, into a 22-mm miniaturized probe and learns a supervised mapping from ultraviolet-excited autofluorescence measurements to biomolecular abundance maps. Unlike conventional pipelines that first reconstruct hyperspectral datacubes and then perform spectral unmixing, the deployed system directly estimates endogenous molecular contrast associated primarily with lignin and chlorophyll in poplar tissue, with additional suberin-associated contrast evaluated in suberin-rich tissue. This reframing makes the measurement task biomolecular inference rather than spectral reconstruction, enabling biochemical mapping under low-photon autofluorescence conditions while reducing data burden and computational latency. In living poplar stems, the platform captures autofluorescence-derived videos of embolism propagation and wound-induced biochemical remodeling, dynamic processes for which sequential spectral acquisition can introduce temporal mixing because the molecular contrast evolves during the scan itself. The system also resolves genotype-dependent reductions in lignin-associated autofluorescence in engineered poplar lines. Direct molecular inference improves biomolecular estimation relative to a reconstruction-based pipeline, while probabilistic decoding provides uncertainty estimates. These results show that compact passive spectral encoding, when optimized for biological inference rather than datacube recovery, enables deployable, label-free molecular videography of living plant tissue dynamics after task-specific calibration.

Intrinsically low lattice thermal conductivity is essential for high-performance thermoelectrics. Recently, the hexagonal GeSe polymorph has been reported to host stereochemically active lone-pair electron states (LPEs), offering a promising platform for exploring ultralow thermal transport. However, the specific role of these LPEs in phonon dynamics remains unexplored. In this work, we report the excellent near-room-temperature thermoelectric performance of layered hexagonal γ-GeSe using first-principles calculations combined with Boltzmann transport theory. The lattice thermal conductivity is highly anisotropic, with an ultralow out-of-plane value of 0.12 W m[-1] K[-1] and a much larger in-plane value of 3.33 W m[-1] K[-1] at 300 K. The maximum out-of-plane ZT values are 2.43 at 400 K for n-type doping and 2.26 at 450 K for p-type doping. Our analysis identifies stereochemically active LPEs as the microscopic origin of the strongly suppressed out-of-plane phonon transport in γ-GeSe. Specifically, lone-pair-driven weak interlayer restoring forces and bond softening jointly give rise to extremely low phonon group velocities and strong anharmonicity, leading to the ultralow thermal conductivity. These results establish γ-GeSe as a promising candidate for near-room-temperature thermoelectric applications and clarify the important role of lone pairs in suppressing phonon heat transport, offering useful guidance for the design of thermoelectric materials with intrinsically low lattice thermal conductivity.

Bacterial wilt and soft rot, caused by Ralstonia solanacearum and Pectobacterium carotovorum, are major threats to potato production and export. Surface irrigation water (SIW) can transmit these pathogens. This study validated and optimized a multi-processor UV-C (MP UV-C) reactor to ensure effective pathogen inactivation while minimizing energy use and operational cost. Physicochemical analysis revealed moderate turbidity and total suspended solids (TSS) in SIW, with UV transmittance (UVT) levels below the optimal range. This necessitates pre-filtration. Passing water through a 5-micron sediment filter improved UVT from 75% to 85%, reduced turbidity from 7.82 to 2.7 nephelometric turbidity units, and lowered TSS, chemical oxygen demand, and total dissolved solids, thereby placing the water within recommended ranges for UV-C disinfection. Collimated beam tests established UV dose-response curves, showing strong polynomial correlations (R[2] > 0.99) between the applied UV dose and log inactivation. R. solanacearum exhibited higher UV sensitivity (6.23 mJ/cm[2]/log) than P. carotovorum (10.30 mJ/cm[2]/log). Reactor optimization identified an operational optimal setting of 270 W lamp power at a 35 m[3]/h flow rate, delivering 52.54 mJ/cm[2] and achieving a 4-log reduction in both pathogens. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis of R. solanacearum revealed severe cell wall damage at higher UV doses. Bioassays confirmed that UV-C-treated SIW significantly suppressed bacterial wilt in tomato seedlings and soft rot in potato tubers. Future work should assess the large-scale economic feasibility of UV-C treatment and its long-term effects on soil microbial biodiversity to ensure both sustainability and microbial balance in agricultural systems.

Quantum correlations offer the possibility of surpassing classical limits in optical measurements, but their integration into nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy has remained largely unexplored. Here, we introduce a quantum-enhanced implementation of coherent Raman spectroscopy that employs broadband squeezed-light detection to interrogate relative intensity correlations between Stokes and anti-Stokes fields generated in an ultrafast four-wave-mixing process. By exploiting nonclassical correlations between these fields, we suppress the nonresonant background and enhance the signal-to-noise performance in both temporal and spectral domains, enabling detection sensitivities beyond the classical shot-noise limit. Importantly, the quantum advantage demonstrated here does not arise solely from improved detection statistics. Rather, it originates from microscopic intermolecular correlations mediated by cascaded exchange of a virtual photon between molecular pairs. This mechanism establishes a fundamentally distinct and significant pathway for information extraction in vibrational spectroscopy, providing access to structural and dynamical observables that are intrinsically inaccessible by conventional classical Raman techniques. Numerical simulations illustrate the power of the technique by resolving intradimer [Formula: see text] bond splitting in cyclobutane thymine dimers following ultraviolet excitation, highlighting its potential for probing ultrafast photochemical processes with quantum-limited sensitivity and for label-free biomedical optical sensing and imaging.

In response to the demand for ultrasmooth surfaces of gallium nitride (wurtzite structure) in the microelectronics field, this paper proposes a method of UV(Ultraviolet)-E(Electro)-M(Magnetic) multifield coupling colloid jet machining to achieve efficient removal of microprotrusions on the surface of gallium nitride (GaN) workpieces. In this paper, material removal models for multifield-coupled nanoparticle colloid jet machining with microprotrusions and micropits are respectively established, and the distribution characteristics of the fluid dynamic pressure field, electric field, and magnetic field at the microprotrusions and micropits on the workpiece surface during the multifield-coupled nanoparticle colloid jet machining process are compared and analyzed. The experiments of photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange and adsorption experiments verify the enhancement effect of the applied electric field and magnetic field on the photocatalytic performance of the polishing liquid and the adsorption degree of nanoparticles on the workpiece surface. The optimal combination of process parameters is obtained through multifactor experiments. Using the optimized process parameters, a GaN workpiece with an original surface roughness (measurement range 10 × 10 μm) Sa of 0.949 nm is polished by UV field, UV-E field, and UV-E-M multifield-coupled nanoparticle colloid jet. The comparison results of the microscopic morphology and surface roughness of the workpiece surface after polishing show that the multifield-coupled nanoparticle colloid jet machining has a better removal effect on the microprotrusions on the workpiece surface and reduces the surface roughness of GaN to Sa 0.122 nm.

Cadmium (Cd) is a heavy metal that adversely affects the environment, as well as the cellular and metabolic systems of organisms. Cadmium salts, such as cadmium chloride (CdCl2; CD), are one of the most common pollutants. As CD is not easily degradable, its risk to humans via food-chain contamination is constantly increasing. Crocin (CRO), a potent antioxidant, is isolated from saffron, an important spice rich in carotenoids, commonly consumed globally and used as a drug to treat numerous diseases. This study mainly examined the amelioration of hepatotoxicity and oxidative stress damage induced by CD in male rats by CRO administration. CRO was chemically characterised using Infrared (FT-IR), ultraviolet (UV-Vis), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron microscope (SEM), and Transmission electron microscope (TEM); it was confirmed to contain hydroxyl, ketonic ester and glycoside groups. Twenty-four male albino rats were randomised into the following groups. Control, CD (5 mg/kg), CRO (50 mg/kg), CD plus CRO at the same dose. At the end, liver and blood samples were analysed for biochemical, molecular and histological variations, revealing that CD administration notably reduced hepatic superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione (GSH) levels. Meanwhile, along with hyperlipidemia, Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP) activities, and malonyldialdehyde levels (MDA) were elevated. Histopathology of liver sections revealed inflammatory cell infiltration, hepatocellular necrosis and areas of haemorrhage. Furthermore, significant induction of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and ATK1 protein kinase, which is part of the AKT subfamily of serine/threonine kinases and is involved in many signalling pathways essential for normal cell function, was observed in comparison to the control group. Meanwhile, a marked decline in beclin, autophagy-related protein light chain 3 (LC3 II) a protein involved in autophagy and cell metabolism, and Phosphatase and Tensin homolog "PTEN"-induced kinase 1 levels was detected in the hepatocytes. Western blots revealed an enhanced release of cytochrome c from the CD group compared with the CRO-treated group. In contrast to CRO-based improvement, significant hepatic amelioration was observed, with a decline in hepatocellular congestion post-CRO administration; meanwhile, no hepatocellular haemorrhage or hepatic necrosis was observed. In summary, CRO alleviated CD-induced hepatic injury due to its potent antioxidant capacities and hepatoprotective activities.

In this study, Eu[3+]-doped SrY2O4 red-emitting phosphors were successfully synthesized via a conventional solid-state reaction route, and their structural, optical and luminescence properties were systematically investigated. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the formation of a single-phase orthorhombic SrY2O4 host, while microscopic and spectroscopic studies revealed high crystallinity and homogeneous incorporation of Eu[3+] ions into the lattice. Increasing the Eu[3+] concentration from 1 to 6 mol% induced a slight lattice expansion and reduced the optical band gap from 6.13 to 5.30 eV. Under near-ultraviolet and blue-light excitation, the phosphors exhibited intense red emission dominated by the [5]D0 → [7]FJ transition of Eu[3+] ions, indicating the occupation of non-centrosymmetric lattice sites. Judd-Ofelt analysis was employed to evaluate the local environment and radiative emission properties of Eu[3+] ions; the results indicate that Eu[3+] ions occupy non-centrosymmetric sites with local asymmetry at C s sites, with the Ω 2 value increasing slightly from 2.623 × 10[-20] to 2.795 × 10[-20] cm[2] as the Eu concentration rises from 1% to 5%. The optimum emission intensity was achieved at 5 mol% Eu[3+], beyond which concentration quenching occurred through non-radiative energy transfer between neighboring activator ions. The phosphors demonstrated excellent thermal stability with an average activation energy of 0.242 eV, high color purity exceeding 85%, and an internal quantum efficiency of 67.74%. These results highlight the potential of SrY2O4:Eu[3+] phosphors as efficient red-emitting components for warm white light-emitting diode (WLED) technologies.