Yong‐Sang Ryu

During vesicular trafficking and release of enveloped viruses, the budding and fission processes dynamically remodel the donor cell membrane in a protein- or a lipid-mediated manner. In all cases, in addition to the generation or relief of the curvature stress, the buds recruit specific lipids and proteins from the donor membrane through restricted diffusion for the development of a ring-type raft domain of closed topology. Here, by reconstituting the bud topography in a model membrane, we demon

Despite growing ecological concerns, studies on microplastics and nanoplastics are still in their initial stages owing to technical hurdles in analytical techniques, especially for nanoplastics. We provide an overview of the general attributes of micro/nanoplastics in natural environments and analytical techniques commonly used for their analysis. After demonstrating the analytical challenges associated with the identification of nanoplastics due to their distinctive characteristics, we discuss

Emerging as substantial concerns in the ecosystem, submicron plastics have attracted much attention for their considerable hazards. However, their effect and even amount in the environment remain unclear. Establishing a substantive analytic platform is essential to expand the understanding of nanoplastics. However, the issues of diffusion and detection limit that arise from ultradiluted concentration and extremely small scales of nanoplastics leave significant technical hurdles to analyze the na

Probing the kinetic evolution of nanoparticle (NP) growth in liquids is essential for understanding complex nano-phases and their corresponding functions. Terahertz (THz) sensing, an emerging technology for next-generation laser photonics, has been developed with unique photonic features, including label-free, non-destructive, and molecular-specific spectral characteristics. Recently, metasurface-based sensing platforms have helped trace biomolecules by overcoming low THz absorption cross-sectio

We introduce a robust control method of terahertz (THz) transmission by tuning filling factors of Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) inside nano slot antennas. AuNPs in sub-100 nm diameters were spread over the nano slot antennas, followed by sweeping them into the slots. AuNPs can be efficiently localized and inserted into nano slots where the THz fields are greatly enhanced, by a "squeegee" made of the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The sweeping of the AuNPs results in further dramatic reduction of THz tr

During vesicle budding or endocytosis, biomembranes undergo a series of lipid- and protein-mediated deformations involving cholesterol-enriched lipid rafts. If lipid rafts of high bending rigidities become confined to the incipient curved membrane topology such as a bud-neck interface, they can be expected to reform as ring-shaped rafts. Here, we report on the observation of a disk-to-ring shape morpho-chemical transition of a model membrane in the absence of geometric constraints. The raft shap

A liquid-permeable concept in a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure is proposed to achieve highly sensitive color-tuning property through the change of the effective refractive index of the dielectric insulator layer. A semicontinuous top metal film with nanoapertures, adopted as a transreflective layer for MIM resonator, allows to tailor the nanomorphology of a dielectric layer through selective etching of the underneath insulator layer, resulting in nanopillars and hollow voids in the insula

The Fabry-Perot (FP) resonator is an intuitive and versatile optical structure owing to its uniqueness in light-matter interactions, yielding resonance with a wide range of wavelengths as it couples with photonic materials encapsulated in a dielectric cavity. Leveraging the FP resonator for molecular detection, a simple geometry of the metal-dielectric-metal structure is demonstrated to allow tuning of the enhancement factors (EFs) of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The optimum near-fi

We show that the selective localization of cholesterol-rich domains and associated ganglioside receptors prefer to occur in the monolayer across continuous monolayer-bilayer junctions (MBJs) in supported lipid membranes. For the MBJs, glass substrates were patterned with poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) oligomers by thermally-assisted contact printing, leaving behind 3 nm-thick PDMS patterns. The hydrophobicity of the transferred PDMS patterns was precisely tuned by the stamping temperature. Lipid

Hall-effect, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) transmission, and photopresponse measurements were performed to investigate the optical and electrical properties of as-grown and in situ-annealed Hg0.7Cd0.3Te epilayers grown on CdTe buffers on GaAs (211) B substrates layers by using molecular-beam epitaxy. Hall-effect measurements showed that as-grown n-Hg0.7Cd0.3Te epilayers were converted to p-Hg0.7Cd0.3Te epilayers due to in situ annealing. The carrier concentration and the mobility as function

With strong demands of real-time monitoring of biomolecules or environmental pollutants, overcoming technical hurdles on control and detection of freely diffusive nanoscale objects become a question of issue to solve in a variety of research fields. Most existing optical techniques inevitably require labeling to the target material, which sometimes denature the measuring biomaterials. For highly efficient real-time monitoring without complicated pretreatment or labeling, many successes in develo

With the advancements of nanotechnology, innovative photonic designs coupled with functional materials provide a unique way to acquire, share, and respond effectively to information. It is found that the simple deposition of a 30 nm-thick palladium nanofilm on a terahertz (THz) metasurface chip with a 14 nm-wide effective nanogap of asymmetric materials and geometries allows the tracking of both interatomic and interfacial gas-matter interactions, including gas adsorption, hydrogenation (or dehy