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Self-assembled short peptide-based gels are highly promising drug delivery systems. However, implementing a stimulus often requires screening different structures to obtain gels with suitable properties, and drugs might not be well encapsulated and/or cause undesirable effects on the gel's properties. To overcome this challenge, a new design approach is presented to modulate the release of doxorubicin as a model chemotherapeutic drug through the interplay of (di)phenylalanine-coated magnetic nanoparticles, PEGylated liposomes and doxorubicin co-assembly in dehydropeptide-based gels. The composites enable an enhancement of the gelation kinetics in a concentration-dependent manner, mainly through the use of PEGylated liposomes. The effect of the co-assembly of phenylalanine-coated nanoparticles with the hydrogel displays a concentration and size dependence. Finally, the integration of liposomes as doxorubicin storage units and of nanoparticles as composites that co-assemble with the gel matrix enables the tuneability of both passive and active doxorubicin release through a thermal, and a low-frequency alternating magnetic field-based trigger. In addition to the modulation of the gel properties, the functionalization with (di)phenylalanine improves the cytocompatibility of the nanoparticles. Hereby, this work paves a way for the development of peptide-based supramolecular systems for on-demand and controlled release of drugs.

There is an increasing demand for accurate, non-invasive and self-reference temperature measurements as technology progresses into the nanoscale. This is particularly so in micro- and nanofluidics where the comprehension of heat transfer and thermal conductivity mechanisms can play a crucial role in areas as diverse as energy transfer and cell physiology. Here we present two luminescent ratiometric nanothermometers based on a magnetic core coated with an organosilica shell co-doped with Eu(3+) and Tb(3+) chelates. The design of the hybrid host and chelate ligands permits the working of the nanothermometers in a nanofluid at 293-320 K with an emission quantum yield of 0.38 ± 0.04, a maximum relative sensitivity of 1.5% K(-1) at 293 K and a spatio-temporal resolution (constrained by the experimental setup) of 64 × 10(-6) m/150 × 10(-3) s (to move out of 0.4 K--the temperature uncertainty). The heat propagation velocity in the nanofluid, (2.2 ± 0.1) × 10(-3) m s(-1), was determined at 294 K using the nanothermometers' Eu(3+)/Tb(3+) steady-state spectra. There is no precedent of such an experimental measurement in a thermographic nanofluid, where the propagation velocity is measured from the same nanoparticles used to measure the temperature.

Here we report the chemical synthesis of cobalt aluminum oxide (CoAl2O4) nanoparticles by a non-aqueous sol-gel route. The one-pot procedure is carried out at mild temperatures (in the 150 to 300 °C range), and consists of the reaction between cobalt acetate and aluminium isopropoxide in benzyl alcohol. The resulting CoAl2O4 nanoparticles show an unusually low average size, between 2.5 and 6.2 nm, which can be controlled by the synthesis temperature. The colorimetric properties of the nanoparticles are also determined by the synthesis temperature and the characteristic blue color of CoAl2O4 pigments is achieved in samples prepared at T ≥ 200 °C. The nanoparticles are antiferromagnetically ordered below ∼27 K with an uncompensated configuration. The uncompensated moment shows the typical features of strongly interacting superparamagnetic nanoparticles and spin-glass systems.

Non-invasive precise thermometers working at the nanoscale with high spatial resolution, where the conventional methods are ineffective, have emerged over the last couple of years as a very active field of research. This has been strongly stimulated by the numerous challenging requests arising from nanotechnology and biomedicine. This critical review offers a general overview of recent examples of luminescent and non-luminescent thermometers working at nanometric scale. Luminescent thermometers encompass organic dyes, QDs and Ln(3+)ions as thermal probes, as well as more complex thermometric systems formed by polymer and organic-inorganic hybrid matrices encapsulating these emitting centres. Non-luminescent thermometers comprise of scanning thermal microscopy, nanolithography thermometry, carbon nanotube thermometry and biomaterials thermometry. Emphasis has been put on ratiometric examples reporting spatial resolution lower than 1 micron, as, for instance, intracellular thermometers based on organic dyes, thermoresponsive polymers, mesoporous silica NPs, QDs, and Ln(3+)-based up-converting NPs and β-diketonate complexes. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the development for highly sensitive ratiometric thermometers operating at the physiological temperature range with submicron spatial resolution.