Impact of Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Experimental Variables on Adsorbed Protein Films,as Illustrated by Bovine Serum Albumin

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is often used to examine protein films, such as Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) films formed by incubation on platinum electrodes. Literature EIS experiments often vary in terms of whether blank EIS spectra are collected prior to film formation, whether a redox probe like ferricyanide is used, and the potential at which the EIS spectrum is collected. These experimental differences may lead to significant differences in the protein film and the results measured. This paper examines the impact of these factors on the Nyquist plots recorded for BSA films formed by adsorption on platinum electrodes.     

Effect of guided resonance modes on emission from GaN core–shell nanorod arrays

We model the process of incoherent emission from \(\hbox {In}_{x}\hbox {Ga}_{1-x}\hbox {N/GaN}\) quantum wells in GaN core–shell nanorod arrays using finite-difference time-domain simulations. We find that high-intensity features in the emitted field correspond to guided resonance modes near the \(\varGamma \) -point of the photonic band structure. We identify one \(\varGamma \) -point mode whose electric field intensity profile is ideal for core–shell nanorod array geometries. Using this mode, we are able to simultaneously enhance the radiative recombination rate and extraction efficiency relative to an in-filled slab. We determine the conditions on radiative and nonradiative recombination rates for which the nanorod array has a higher internal and external quantum efficiency than a reference slab. We present one nanorod array geometry where the external quantum efficiency is enhanced up to a factor of 25.     

Ultrafast interference imaging of air in splashing dynamics

A drop impacting a solid surface with sufficient velocity will emit many small droplets creating a splash. However, splashing is completely suppressed if the surrounding gas pressure is lowered. The mechanism by which the gas affects splashing remains unknown. We use high-speed interference imaging to measure the air beneath all regions of a spreading viscous drop as well as optical absorption to measure the drop thickness. Although an initial air bubble is created on impact, no significant air layer persists until the time a splash is created. This suggests that splashing in our experimentally accessible range of viscosities is initiated at the edge of the drop as it encroaches into the surrounding gas.     

Ultrafast relaxation of hot optical phonons in monolayer and multilayer graphene on different substrates

Hot carrier cooling in few-layer and multilayer epitaxial graphene on SiC, and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown graphene transferred onto a glass substrate was investigated by transient absorption spectroscopy and imaging. Coupling to the substrate was found to play a critical role in charge carrier cooling. For both multilayer epitaxial graphene and monolayer CVD graphene, charge carriers transfer heat predominantly to intrinsic in-plane optical phonons of graphene. At high pump intensity, a significant number of optical phonons are accumulated, and the optical phonon lifetime presents a bottleneck for charge carrier cooling. This hot phonon effect did not occur in few-layer epitaxial graphene because of strong coupling to the substrate, which provided additional cooling channels. The limiting charge carrier lifetimes at high excitation densities were 1.8 ± 0.1 ps and 1.4 ± 0.1 ps for multilayer epitaxial graphene and monolayer CVD graphene, respectively. These values represent lower limits on the optical phonon lifetime for the graphene samples.