The use of trehalose in the preparation of specimens for molecular electron microscopy

Biological specimens have to be prepared for imaging in the electron microscope in a way that preserves their native structure. Two-dimensional (2D) protein crystals to be analyzed by electron crystallography are best preserved by sugar embedding. One of the sugars often used to embed 2D crystals is trehalose, a disaccharide used by many organisms for protection against stress conditions. Sugars such as trehalose can also be added to negative staining solutions used to prepare proteins and macromolecular complexes for structural studies by single-particle electron microscopy (EM). In this review, we describe trehalose and its characteristics that make it so well suited for preparation of EM specimens and we review specimen preparation methods with a focus on the use of trehalose.     

磁通量子比特qubit信号强度随势垒偏置电压的变化

在20mK极低温下,测量了超导磁通量子比特的环流方向,并测到量子比特(qubit)信号.通过改变磁通量子比特的势垒高度,得到qubit信号强度随势垒高度的变化的实验数据并建立理论模型解释了实验现象.     

负偏压作用下染料敏化太阳电池界面及光电性能研究

太阳电池组件由于局部电压不匹配,其中部分电池可能较长时间工作在负偏压状态下,从而影响电池光电性能.借助拉曼光谱、电化学阻抗谱和入射单色光量子效率(IPCE)等测试手段,研究长期负偏压作用下染料敏化太阳电池光电性能的变化及其影响机理.拉曼光谱研究结果表明:电池在1000 h负偏压作用下,电解质中阳离子(Li⁺)会向光阳极(TiO₂电极)移动并嵌入TiO₂薄膜中;长期负偏压作用还会致使TiO₂/电解质界面阻抗增大和IPCE下降,导致电池开路电压升高和短路电流减小.通过加入苯并咪唑(BI)添加剂,经1000 h负偏压后电池的拉曼光谱实验表明,BI能在一定程度阻碍Li⁺的嵌入,电池具有较好的长期稳定性.不同负偏压下的老化实验进一步表明,通过加入添加剂能够使电池在长期负偏压下保持较好的稳定性. 关键词： 染料敏化 太阳电池 组件 负偏压     

退火对IrMn基磁隧道结多层膜热稳定性的影响

采用磁控溅射方法制备了结构为IrMn/CoFe/AlO_x/CoFe的磁性隧道结多层膜,样品置于真空磁场中进行退火处理. 将在不同温度退火的磁隧道结结构多层膜置于负饱和场中等待,研究退火温度对样品热稳定性的影响. 结果表明:退火提高了多层膜反铁磁层的单轴各向异性能,增加了样品的交换偏置;随着负饱和场等待时间的延长,被钉扎层的磁滞回线向正场偏移,交换偏置单调减小,但退火减弱了这种趋势. 关键词： 磁隧道结 交换偏置 磁化反转     

Comment on “Negative refraction in 1D photonic crystals” [Solid State Communications 147 (2008) 157-160]

It can be shown that negative refraction cannot occur in one-dimensional photonic crystals oriented as in Srivastava et al. (2008) [1].     

A PSDPF interaction to describe the 1 ?ω intruder states in sd shell nuclei

In the level schemes of sd shell nuclei, there is generally at relatively low excitation energies, coexistence of normal 0 ?ω positive parity states and of intruder 1 ?ω negative parity states. The aim of the present work is to describe these intruder states in the full p-sd-pf model space with a ⁴He core allowing one nucleon jump between the major shells. To construct our PSDPF interaction, we first modified the p-sd and sd-pf cross-monopole terms and then applied a fitting procedure to adjust all PSDPF parameters by comparing an extended set of experimental and calculated excitation energies. Results obtained with the new interaction have been finally compared with experimental data for nuclei throughout the sd shell.     

The electronic transport properties in C60 molecular devices with different contact distances

By applying non-equilibrium Green?s functions in combination with the density-functional theory, we investigate the transport behavior of molecular devices composed by metal electrode-C₆₀ molecule-metal electrode. Our results show that the electronic transport properties are affected obviously by the different contact distances between the electrodes, and the tunneling current decreases approximately exponentially at a certain bias with the increasing of contact distances. The negative differential resistance is observed and the peak-to-valley ratio can be tuned by different contact distances. The mechanisms of the contact distance effect and the negative differential resistance behavior are proposed.     

Negative plasma potential in unmagnetized DC electropositive plasma with conducting walls

Negative plasma potentials were obtained in DC hot filament unmagnetized electropositive argon plasma for sufficiently low neutral pressure. Double layers provide ion and electron confinement near the walls. The potential profiles from the center of the plasma to the potential minima are quite similar in shape to those observed when the plasma has positive plasma potentials. The primary electrons emitted from the filaments are important for charge conservation and for modification of the Bohm criteria but are not important for current balance.     

Re-formulation of inverse Gaussian,reciprocal inverse Gaussian,and Birnbaum–Saunders kernel estimators

We reveal the boundary bias problem of Birnbaum–Saunders, inverse Gaussian, and reciprocal inverse Gaussian kernel estimators (Jin and Kawczak, 2003, Scaillet, 2004) and re-formulate these estimators to solve the problem. We investigate asymptotic properties of a new class of asymmetric kernel estimators.