Tianyu Li, Feng Li, Wentian Xiang, Yu Yi, Yuyan Chen, Liang Cheng, Zhuang Liu and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2016, 8, 22106–22112. Selenium has attracted increasing interest in the past decades because of the function of regulating the redox balance in human body. However, biomedical studies of selenium are still limited. Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), typically prepared by a first reduction step followed by a second stabilization step, are widely applied in biomedical studies. But their own anti-cancer activity is less studied. Here, we report 2-nm AuNPs with significant anti-...

Fuqiang Fan, Lu Wang, Feng Li, Yu Fu and Huaping Xu ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2016, 8, 17004-17010. Tellurium-containing photoresponsive polyelectrolyte multilayer films were fabricated by layer-by-layer assembly of a tellurium-containing polymer, photosensitizer, and poly(styrenesulfonate). The resulting films were investigated by UV/vis spectroscopy, XPS, EPR, and fluorescence spectroscopy. Under visible light, the photosensitizer in the film is excited and transforms triplet oxygen into singlet oxygen in aqueous solution. Singlet oxygen oxidizes −Te– to high valence state (Te═O) on...

Lu Wang, Wei Cao and Huaping Xu ChemNanoMat, 2016, 2, 479-488. Tellurium-containing polymers have been increasingly attractive owing to their unique properties as biomaterials and optoelectronic material. The relatively large atom size and low electronegativity of tellurium give tellurium many unique properties, such as coordination ability and redox sensitivity. Introducing of tellurium can endow materials different responsiveness, which makes them possible to be employed as biomaterials. The narrow band gap of polytellurophene also makes it possible to be used in optoelectronic materia...