Magnetic and electronic properties of bulk and two-dimensional FeBi_(2)Te_(4):A first-principles study

Layered magnetic materials,such as MnBi_(2)Te_(4),have drawn much attention owing to their potential for realizing twodimensional(2D)magnetism and possible topological states.Recently,FeBi_(2)Te_(4),which is isostructural to MnBi_(2)Te_(4),has been synthesized in experiments,but its detailed magnetic ordering and band topology have not been clearly understood yet.Here,based on first-principles calculations,we investigate the magnetic and electronic properties of FeBi_(2)Te_(4)in bulk and 2D forms.We show that different from MnBi_(2)Te_(4),the magnetic ground states of bulk,single-layer,and bilayer FeBi_(2)Te_(4)all favor a 120°noncollinear antiferromagnetic ordering,and they are topologically trivial narrow-gap semiconductors.For the bilayer case,we find that a quantum anomalous Hall effect with a unit Chern number is realized in the ferromagnetic state,which may be achieved in experiment by an external magnetic field or by magnetic proximity coupling.Our work clarifies the physical properties of the new material system of FeBi_(2)Te_(4)and reveals it as a potential platform for studying magnetic frustration down to 2D limit as well as quantum anomalous Hall effect.

Sheathless inertial cell focusing and sorting with serial reverse wavy channel structures

Inertial microfluidics utilizing passive hydrodynamic forces has been attracting significant attention in the field of precise microscale manipulation owing to its low cost,simplicity and high throughput.In this paper,we present a novel channel design with a series of reverse wavy channel structures for sheathless inertial particle focusing and cell sorting.A single wavy channel unit consists of four semicircular segments,which produce periodically reversed Dean secondary flow along the cross-section of the channel.The balance between the inertial lift force and the Dean drag force results in deterministic equilibrium focusing positions,which also depends on the size of the flow-through particles and cells.Six sizes of fluorescent microspheres(15,10,7,5,3 and 1μm)were used to study the sizedependent inertial focusing behavior.Our novel design with sharp-turning subunits could effectively focus particles as small as 3μm,the average size of platelets,enabling the sorting of cancer cells from whole blood without the use of sheath flows.Utilizing an optimized channel design,we demonstrated the size-based sorting of MCF-7 breast cancer cells spiked in diluted whole blood samples without using sheath flows.A single sorting process was able to recover 89.72% of MCF-7 cells from the original mixture and enrich MCF-7 cells from an original purity of 5.3% to 68.9% with excellent cell viability.

Polyetherimide functionalized carbon dots with enhanced red emission in aqueous solution for bioimaging

Red emissive carbon dots(CDs)are highly desired for biological applications.However,serious luminescence quenching of red emissive CDs in aqueous solution greatly hinders their application in high performance biological imaging.Herein,we reported a facile strategy to realize enhanced red emission of CDs in aqueous solution by surface modification with polyetherimide(PEI)via microwave heating method.High photoluminescence quantum yield(PLQY)of 25%was realized from the PEI functionalized CDs(CDs@PEI)in aqueous solution.The proposed PEI functionalization strategy not only protects the red emission against water molecules quenching,but also reverses the surface charges from negativity to positivity to promote cellular uptake of CDs,leading to clear cell imaging in red fluorescence region.More important,CDs@PEI exhibits much better photostability than commercial red emissive dye(MitoT racker red)in cell fluorescent imaging.Potential application of CDs@PEI on fast staining of cells for clonogenic assay has also been demonstrated.