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Ho‐doped sesquioxide is one of the most important laser gain media for 2 micron wavelength band laser applications. It is hard to be transparent by sintering because of its high melting point. Herein, the structural and spectral properties of 0.5 at% Ho:(Y1−xScx)2O3 (x = 0, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0) ceramics fabricated by vacuum pressureless sintering are studied. Then, 0.5 at% Ho:(Y0.7Sc0.3)2O3 transparent ceramics with 1.0 at% ZrO2 as a sintering aid are prepared by vacuum pressureless presintering (1680 °C for 4 h) combined with hot isostatic pressing sintering treatment (1600 °C/190 MPa for 3 h). The transmittance of Ho:(Y0.7Sc0.3)2O3 ceramic reaches 80.8% at 1100 nm (6 mm in thickness), which is close to its theoretic value. The addition of ZrO2 has no significant influence on spectroscopic properties of 0.5 at% Ho:(Y0.7Sc0.3)2O3 ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) is a natural biophysical phenomenon that underlies an emerging technique to monitor protein–protein interactions in living cells in real time. Here, we present a series of technical advances to enhance the utility of the BRET assay in plants. A series of recombination cloning vectors was generated to accelerate the expression of proteins tagged with Renilla luciferase or yellow fluorescent protein under transient assay conditions and in stable transgenic plants. Working in stably transformed Arabidopsis or tobacco, we then detected BRET between three pairs of candidate interaction partners: dimerization of the E3 ubiquitin ligase COP1, interaction between COP1 and the B-box protein STH, and interaction between the light regulatory bZip transcription factors HY5 and HYH. A codon-optimized version of the Renilla luciferase gene resulted in improved expression in Arabidopsis. Renilla luciferase was active in a variety of subcellular organelles, including plastids, mitochondria, peroxisomes and Golgi stacks. In a survey of the Arabidopsis light signaling machinery as a model system, we estimated the likelihood that a known protein–protein interaction can be documented using BRET. Finally, we show that Renilla luciferase may serve as a reporter of protein stability in a cycloheximide chase assay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]