Lithiasis continues to be an important factor in chronic renal disease, since it leads to chronic tubulo-interstitial nephritis, which is estimated to be involved in 15- 30% of cases of end stage chronic renal insufficiency. It is believed that in order for a stone to be formed, a solid phase needs to be first produced from microcrystals (the nucleus), which are formed from salts (and other sub...

Organic field-effect transistors using small-molecule organic single crystals are developed to investigate fundamental aspects of organic thin-film transistors that have been widely studied for possible future markets for 'plastic electronics'. In reviewing the physics and chemistry of single-crystal organic field-effect transistors (SC-OFETs), the nature of intrinsic charge dynamics is elucida...

Excellent crystals of (TMTSF)(2)AsF(6) (TMTSF, tetramethyltetraselenafulvalene) were employed to obtain x-ray diffraction data for a determination of the electron density distribution in this organic superconductor. Electron density was observed between molecules in a stack of donors of an organic metal and between certain interstack selenium atoms of these donors.

The formation of two-dimensional (2D) oriented porous organic cage crystals (consisting of imine-based tetrahedral molecules) on various substrates (such as silicon wafers and glass) by solution-processing is reported. Insight into the crystallinity, preferred orientation, and cage crystal growth was obtained by experimental and computational techniques. For the first time, structural defects i...

Generally, crystals of synthetic porous materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are commonly made up from one kind of repeating pore structure which predominates the whole material. Surprisingly, little is known about how to introduce heterogeneously arranged pores within a crystal of homogeneous pores without losing the crystalline nature of the material. Here, we outline a strategy ...

Edited by Reed M. Izatt. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inorganic zeolites [1], mesoporous silica [2], and porous carbon [3] are useful materials because of their permanent porosity imparted by their architectural stability in the absence of guest molecules. The chemical functionalization and structure control of these classes of porous materials have b...

The frequency distributions of monoclinic crystals as a function of the lattice-parameter ratios resemble the corresponding ones of orthorhombic crystals: an exponential component, with more or less pronounced sharp peaks, with in general the most important peak at the ratio value 1. In addition, the distribution as a function of the monoclinic angle beta has a sharp peak at 90 degrees and decr...

Bivalve nacre is a brick-wall-patterned biocomposite of aragonite platelets surrounded by organic matter. SEM-electron back scatter diffraction analysis of nacre of the bivalve family Pteriidae reveals that early aragonite crystals grow with their c-axes oriented perpendicular to the growth surface but have their a- and b-axes disoriented. With the accumulation of successive lamellae, crystals ...

Crystalline thin films of organic semiconductors are a good candidate for field effect transistor (FET) materials in printed electronics. However, there are currently two main problems, which are associated with inhomogeneity and poor thermal durability of these films. Here we report that liquid crystalline materials exhibiting a highly ordered liquid crystal phase of smectic E (SmE) can solve ...

BACKGROUND Cell membranes and their lipids play critical roles in calcification. Specific membrane phospholipids promote the formation of calcium phosphate and become a part of the organic matrix of growing calcification. We propose that membrane lipids also promote the formation of calcium oxalate (CaOx) and calcium phosphate (CaP) containing kidney stones, and become a part of their stone mat...