Chemistry – An Asian Journal

Great walls from China: By directly growing In₂O₃ nanowalls (see picture), which are comprised of vertically grown ultrathin single-crystalline In₂O₃ nanosheets, on patterned ITO substrates, electronic devices such as gas sensors can be easily constructed by the bottom-up method based on a smart bridgework-like strategy, which demonstrated a detection limit as low as 50 ppb to NO₂ under mild conditions.

Let the light shine: Two new benzotriazole-bridged dyes containing a furan moiety for DSSCs have been synthesized. DSSCs based on the dye with a furan and branched alkyl chain showed a high open-circuit voltage of 834 mV (see picture). Most importantly, long-term stability these DSSCs with ionic-liquid electrolytes under 1000 h light-soaking was demonstrated and exhibited good photovoltaic performance of up to 5.06 % power conversion efficiency.

Shine on: In this mercury(II) sensing approach, the non-fluorescent probe SAN undergoes Hg²⁺-promoted deprotection reaction, resulting in the formation of the two-photon-fluorescent product AAN. The system shows high sensitivity and selectivity and also can be used in live-cell environments.