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    Graphene and silicene quantum dots for nanomedical diagnostics
    (Cambridge : RSC, 2019) Drissi, L. B.; Ouarrad, H.; Ramadan, F. Z.; Fritzsche, W.
    In the present work, the prominent effects of edge functionalization, size variation and base material on the structural, electronic and optical properties of diamond shaped graphene and silicene quantum dots are investigated. Three functional groups, namely (-CH3, -OH and -COOH) are investigated using the first principles calculations based on the density functional, time-dependent density functional and many-body perturbation theories. Both the HOMO-LUMO energy gap, the optical absorption and the photoluminescence are clearly modulated upon functionalization compared to the H-passivated counterparts. Besides the functional group, the geometric distortion induced in some QDs also influences their optical features ranging from near ultra-violet to near infra-red. All these results indicate that edge-functionalizations provide a favorable key factor for adjusting the optoelectronic properties of quantum dots for a wide variety of nanomedical applications, including in vitro and in vivo bioimaging in medical diagnostics and therapy. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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    Ultrafast phosphate hydration dynamics in bulk H2O
    (Melville, NY : American Institute of Physics, 2015) Costard, Rene; Tyborski, Tobias; Fingerhut, Benjamin P.; Elsaesser, Thomas
    Phosphate vibrations serve as local probes of hydrogen bonding and structural fluctuations of hydration shells around ions. Interactions of H2PO4− ions and their aqueous environment are studied combining femtosecond 2D infrared spectroscopy, ab-initio calculations, and hybrid quantum-classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Two-dimensional infrared spectra of the symmetric (𝜈𝑆(PO−2)) and asymmetric (𝜈𝐴𝑆(PO−2)) PO−2 stretching vibrations display nearly homogeneous lineshapes and pronounced anharmonic couplings between the two modes and with the δ(P-(OH)2) bending modes. The frequency-time correlation function derived from the 2D spectra consists of a predominant 50 fs decay and a weak constant component accounting for a residual inhomogeneous broadening. MD simulations show that the fluctuating electric field of the aqueous environment induces strong fluctuations of the 𝜈𝑆(PO−2) and 𝜈𝐴𝑆(PO−2) transition frequencies with larger frequency excursions for 𝜈𝐴𝑆(PO−2). The calculated frequency-time correlation function is in good agreement with the experiment. The 𝜈(PO−2) frequencies are mainly determined by polarization contributions induced by electrostatic phosphate-water interactions. H2PO4−/H2O cluster calculations reveal substantial frequency shifts and mode mixing with increasing hydration. Predicted phosphate-water hydrogen bond (HB) lifetimes have values on the order of 10 ps, substantially longer than water-water HB lifetimes. The ultrafast phosphate-water interactions observed here are in marked contrast to hydration dynamics of phospholipids where a quasi-static inhomogeneous broadening of phosphate vibrations suggests minor structural fluctuations of interfacial water.