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Detecting matter at a single-molecule level is the ultimate target in many branches of study. Nanosensors based on plasmonics have garnered significant interest owing to their ultrahigh sensitivity even at single-molecule level. However, currently, plasmonic-enhanced nanosensors have not achieved excellent performances in practical applications and their detection at femtomolar or attomolar concentrations remains highly challenging. Here we show a plasmonic sensing strategy, called buoyant plasmonic-particulate-based few-to-single particle-nanosensors. Large-sized floating particles combined with a slippery surface may prevent the coffee-ring effect and enhance the spatial enrichment capability of the analyte in plasmonic sensitive sites via the aggregation and lifting effect. Dimer and single particle-nanosensors demonstrate an enhanced surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and a high fluorescence sensitivity with an enrichment factor up to an order of ∼104 and the limit of detection of CV molecules down to femto- or attomolar levels. The current buoyant particulate strategy can be exploited in a wide range of plasmonic enhanced sensing applications for a cost-effective, simple, fast, flexible, and portable detection., Plasmonic-enhanced nanosensors are limited in practical applications, as it remains challenging to detect molecules at low concentrations. Here, the authors introduce a buoyant particulate strategy in order to enrich analytes in the plasmonic hot spots.

In this study, we perform an experimental investigation on the dynamical behaviors of a liquid bridge formed during droplet coalescence. Notably, the two droplets are constrained respectively by two vertically aligned needles. Of particular interest is the pinch-off of the liquid bridge under this constrained condition. We observe three typical behaviors of the liquid bridge: (1) reaching a stable shape after damped oscillations (regime I); (2) pinching off at both sides in the first necking stage with the largest oscillation amplitude (regime II); and (3) pinching off at only the upper side after once or twice necking (regime III). To indicate the condition when the pinch-off of the liquid bridge may occur, we develop a phase diagram based on the radius ratio of the droplet to the needle R d / R n and the Bond number Bo, which respectively characterizes the relative importance of surface tension to the constraint force from needles and that of gravity to surface tension. In general, the dynamical behavior of the liquid bridge transitions from regime II to regime I with R d / R n decreasing, and the critical value for this transition is 1.6. This transition indicates that the constraint force keeps the liquid bridge stable while the surface tension promotes its instability. Surprisingly, once the Bond number is sufficiently high (e.g., Bo > 0.05), regime III (i.e., pinch-off at only the upper side) is observed when R d / R n becomes around the regime II to I transition (i.e., R d / R n = 1.6). It is because the effect of gravity becomes predominant over the surface tension and the constrained force from needles. Moreover, we analyze the pinch-off characteristics of the liquid bridge lying in regimes II and III, including its pinch-off time (i.e., the time interval from the formation and pinch-off of the liquid bridge) and its neck shape at the instant of pinching off.

This paper reported experimental observations of the splashing morphology and the crown behavior of concentric impact between a falling droplet and a sessile droplet on a glass surface. To control the initial shape of the sessile droplet, we used two syringe pumps, to generate the sessile droplet by pumping the liquid through a holed glass substrate, and to produce the falling droplet, respectively. Both of the two droplets had the same liquid of ethylene glycol. Our experimental cases covered a wide range of the impact Weber number (i.e., We = 270–1500) and four different volume ratios of the sessile to the falling droplets (i.e., Vs/Vf = 1.5, 2.7, 4.3, and 5.7). It is found that the crown had a bowl shape, which it differs from the crown shape of the impact onto a uniform liquid film. We investigated the crown wall break-up phenomena, which occurs when the Weber number is higher than 964. Both of the upper diameter and the height of the crown were quantitatively analyzed, and fitted correlations were derived successfully for both of them.

In this paper, an online measurement method of oil discharge ratio (ODR) is experimentally investigated based on a compressor calorimeter with the Coriolis mass flowmeter (CMF). In this method, the oil concentration is determined by a linear mixing law of the specific volume model using the density of the refrigerant, oil and refrigerant-oil mixture obtained by CMF. During the testing, the light absorption method is also conducted simultaneously for the comparison. The results indicate that the presented CMF based density method has an average relative deviation of 4.28%. The accuracy of the CMF based density method is superior to the light absorption method, which has the relative deviation of −8∼23% compared with the standard sampling method. The presented CMF-based method can be expected to be used for future ODR measurement due to its non-sampling, online, and accurate features.

This study introduced a novel energy saving cooling system, i.e. a combined cycle coupled with a traditional vapor compression cycle with a pumped liquid two-phase cooling cycle. The system has two operation modes, i.e. the compression cycle mode driven by compressor and the pump cycle mode driven by refrigerant pump. A multi-purpose test bench was constructed to experimentally evaluate the performance of the integrated cycle system under various operation conditions. The effects of cycle working condition and the shift temperature between the two operation modes on the overall cycle performance were investigated in detail. It is found that the novel cycle system has a higher EER compared to the traditional compressor system when the ambient temperature is relatively low. The further experimental results and comparative annual energy saving analysis also indicated that the proper shift temperature is about −5 °C from the system EER and cooling capacity point of view.