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    Magnetic Nanoparticle Chains in Gelatin Ferrogels: Bioinspiration from Magnetotactic Bacteria
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2019) Sturm, Sebastian; Siglreitmeier, Maria; Wolf, Daniel; Vogel, Karin; Gratz, Micha; Faivre, Damien; Lubk, Axel; Büchner, Bernd; Sturm, Elena V.; Cölfen, Helmut
    Inspired by chains of ferrimagnetic nanocrystals (NCs) in magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), the synthesis and detailed characterization of ferrimagnetic magnetite NC chain-like assemblies is reported. An easy green synthesis route in a thermoreversible gelatin hydrogel matrix is used. The structure of these magnetite chains prepared with and without gelatin is characterized by means of transmission electron microscopy, including electron tomography (ET). These structures indeed bear resemblance to the magnetite assemblies found in MTB, known for their mechanical flexibility and outstanding magnetic properties and known to crystallographically align their magnetite NCs along the strongest <111> magnetization easy axis. Using electron holography (EH) and angular dependent magnetic measurements, the magnetic interaction between the NCs and the generation of a magnetically anisotropic material can be shown. The electro- and magnetostatic modeling demonstrates that in order to precisely determine the magnetization (by means of EH) inside chain-like NCs assemblies, their exact shape, arrangement and stray-fields have to be considered (ideally obtained using ET). © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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    Real-Time IR Tracking of Single Reflective Micromotors through Scattering Tissues
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2019) Aziz, Azaam; Medina-Sánchez, Mariana; Koukourakis, Nektarios; Wang, Jiawei; Kuschmierz, Robert; Radner, Hannes; Czarske, Jürgen W.; Schmidt, Oliver G.
    Medical micromotors have the potential to lead to a paradigm shift in future biomedicine, as they may perform active drug delivery, microsurgery, tissue engineering, or assisted fertilization in a minimally invasive manner. However, the translation to clinical treatment is challenging, as many applications of single or few micromotors require real-time tracking and control at high spatiotemporal resolution in deep tissue. Although optical techniques are a popular choice for this task, absorption and strong light scattering lead to a pronounced decrease of the signal-to-noise ratio with increasing penetration depth. Here, a highly reflective micromotor is introduced which reflects more than tenfold the light intensity of simple gold particles and can be precisely navigated by external magnetic fields. A customized optical IR imaging setup and an image correlation technique are implemented to track single micromotors in real-time and label-free underneath phantom and ex vivo mouse skull tissues. As a potential application, the micromotors speed is recorded when moving through different viscous fluids to determine the viscosity of diverse physiological fluids toward remote cardiovascular disease diagnosis. Moreover, the micromotors are loaded with a model drug to demonstrate their cargo-transport capability. The proposed reflective micromotor is suitable as theranostic tool for sub-skin or organ-on-a-chip applications. © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.
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    Synthesis of Doped Porous 3D Graphene Structures by Chemical Vapor Deposition and Its Applications
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2019) Ullah, Sami; Hasan, Maria; Ta, Huy Q.; Zhao, Liang; Shi, Qitao; Fu, Lei; Choi, Jinho; Yang, Ruizhi; Liu, Zhongfan; Rümmeli, Mark H.
    Graphene doping principally commenced to compensate for its inert nature and create an appropriate bandgap. Doping of 3D graphene has emerged as a topic of interest because of attempts to combine its large available surface area—arising from its interconnected porous architecture—with superior catalytic, structural, chemical, and biocompatible characteristics that can be induced by doping. In light of the latest developments, this review provides an overview of the scalable chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-based growth of doped 3D graphene materials as well as their applications in various contexts, such as in devices used for energy generation and gas storage and biosensors. In particular, single- and multielement doping of 3D graphene by various dopants (such as nitrogen (N), boron (B), sulfur (S) and phosphorous (P)), the doping configurations of the resultant materials, an overview of recent developments in the field of CVD, and the influence of various parameters of CVD on graphene doping and 3D morphologies are focused in this paper. Finally, this report concludes the discussion by mentioning the existing challenges and future opportunities of these developing graphitic materials, intending to inspire the unveiling of more exciting functionalized 3D graphene morphologies and their potential properties, which can hopefully realize many possible applications. © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim