A label-free gold-nanoparticle-based SERS assay for direct cyanide detection at the parts-per-trillion level

Cyanide is an extremely toxic lethal poison known to humankind. Developing rapid, highly sensitive, and selective detection of cyanide from water samples is extremely essential for human life safety. Driven by the need, here we report a gold-nanoparticle-based label-free surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) system for highly toxic cyanide ion recognition in parts-per-trillion level and to examine gold-nanoparticle-cyanide interaction. We have shown that the SERS assay can be used to probe the gold nanoparticle dissociation process in the presence of cyanide ions. Our experimental data indicates that gold-nanoparticle-based SERS can detect cyanide from a water sample at the 110 ppt level with excellent discrimination against other common anions and cations. The results also show that the SERS probe can be used to detect cyanide from environmental samples.     

Examining the robustness of first-principles calculations for metal hydride reaction thermodynamics by detection of metastable reaction pathways

First principles calculations have played a useful role in screening mixtures of complex metal hydrides to find systems suitable for H(2) storage applications. Standard methods for this task efficiently identify the lowest energy reaction mechanisms among all possible reactions involving collections of materials for which DFT calculations have been performed. The resulting mechanism can potentially differ from physical reality due to inaccuracies in the DFT functionals used, or due to other approximations made in estimating reaction free energies. We introduce an efficient method to probe the robustness of DFT-based predictions that relies on identifying reactions that are metastable relative to the lowest energy reaction path predicted with DFT. An important conclusion of our calculations is that in many examples DFT cannot unambiguously predict a single reaction mechanism for a well defined metal hydride mixture because two or more mechanisms have reaction energies that differ by a small amount. Our approach is illustrated by analyzing a series of single step reactions identified in our recent work that examined reactions with a large database of solids [Kim et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2011, 13, 7218].     

Methyl hydrogen peroxide dimer: A structural study

Methyl hydrogen peroxide (MHP) exhibits a tendency to form a stable dimer by hydrogen-bonding. Ab initio theoretical investigations on methyl hydrogen peroxide dimer (MHPD) carried out herein lead to several energetically stable structures that have a direct bearing on the reactivity of the monomer in terms of its molecular electrostatic potential (MESP). To gauge the role played by the electron-correlation in lending stability to MHP and its dimer, we employ the density functional theory (DFT) (as implemented by B3LYP-functional), and subsequently second order Møller-Plesset (MP2) perturbation theory, using the basis sets 6-31G(d, p) and 6-311++G(2d, 2p). Simulated infra-red vibrational spectra lead to spectral intensity redistribution upon dimerization. Energetically the lowest MHPD is endowed with inversion symmetry and has two hydrogen bonds, while three other structures emerge: one energetically very close with two H-bonds, and the two others, with three H-bonds each, yet higher by about 2 kcal mol⁻¹.     

Flip-flop of glycosylphosphatidylinositols (GPI's) across the ER

The transbilayer flip-flop of early intermediates in the glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) biosynthetic pathway has been demonstrated using novel fluorescent GPI probes and a biochemical reconstitution approach.     

Purification of orthodiphenol oxidoreductase from potatoes by affinity chromatography on coir pith lignin

Orthodiphenol oxidoreductase, ODOR (E.C.I.10.3.1) from potato tubers (Solanurn tuberosum) has been purified on coir pith lignin by affinity chromatography. All isozymes get adsorbed and can be eluted with 70% recovery. The enzyme shows high purity, as judged by specific activity and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.     

Interpretation of non-equilibrium measurements on MOS devices using the linear voltage ramp technique

An analytical and experimental study is presented of MOS devices subjected to a linear voltage ramp such that the rate of change of voltage is sufficiently high to take the device into the non-equilibrium mode of operation. Various areas of the resulting current-voltage plots are identified with physical quantities such as gate charge and surface potential, a knowledge of which is very useful in studying non-equilibrium mechanisms. To circumvent the difficulty of tedious graphical integration involved in the process of extracting these quantities from the experimental current-voltage plots, an experimental technique is presented which facilitates the direct measurement of these quantities. The resulting plots of displacement current, surface potential and gate charge vs gate voltage are related to each other in a manner which gives interesting insight into the mechanisms occurring within the device, and agreement with the existing theories is found to be extremely good.     

Top-down design methodology of a multi-bit continuous-time delta–sigma modulator

Transistor-level simulation of complex systems involving analog and digital parts is a time-consuming task. The growing interaction of analog and digital devices calls for the use of top-down design methodologies, resulting in behavioral modeling at different levels of abstraction. In this article, an advanced design methodology using a combination of behavioral models and transistor-level models is presented. This methodology is very interesting for complex mixed-signal IC design, improving the design flexibility and reducing the simulation time. To validate the proposed methodology, a continuous-time delta–sigma modulator based on a high-speed low-resolution quantizer is modeled, taking into account their nonidealities such as excess loop delay, clock jitter and feedback DAC element mismatch. The main features of the multi-bit quantizer are 3-bit resolution with 4 GHz sampling rate and FOM of about 7 pJ/conv. This modulator samples signals at high-IF, performing directly the analog-to-digital conversion in the modern RF front-end receivers.     

Evaluation of physical carrier sense based spanner construction and maintenance as well as broadcast and convergecast in ad hoc networks

While the use of physical carrier sensing for medium access control in ad hoc wireless networks is well established, exploiting physical carrier sensing directly for network layer functions is largely unexplored. We conduct extensive simulation evaluations of recently proposed algorithms that directly exploit physical carrier sensing for backbone network (spanner) construction, broadcast, and convergecast in wireless ad hoc networks. Our algorithms accommodate interference ranges larger than transmission ranges, explicitly incorporate the medium access control and packet collisions, and do not require any prior knowledge of the network. For spanner construction, our algorithms include three self-stabilizing phases that establish leader nodes able to reach all nodes in one hop, assign the leaders non-interfering transmission rounds, and connect the leaders through gateway nodes. We evaluate the backbone construction and maintenance as well as broadcast and convergecast through simulations. We find that over 75% of the control messages for backbone network construction are received from physical carrier sensing. While the number of backbone nodes is relatively large, the backbone is very robust, quickly self-stabilizing, and only a fraction of the backbone nodes are used for broadcast.     

Universal cycles of classes of restricted words

It is well known that Universal cycles (U-cycles) of k-letter words on an n-letter alphabet exist for all k and n. In this paper, we prove that Universal cycles exist for several restricted classes of words, including non-bijections, “equitable” words (under suitable restrictions), ranked permutations, and “passwords”. In each case, proving the connectedness of the underlying de Bruijn digraph is a non-trivial step.     

Effect of crystallographic defects on the reverse performance of 4H-SiC JBS diodes

A quantitative analysis of the effect of crystallographic defects on the performance of 4H-SiC junction barrier Schottky (JBS) diodes was performed. It has been shown that higher leakage current in diodes is associated with a greater number of elementary screw dislocations. Further, threading dislocation pair arrays were observed in some of the fabricated devices and, for the first time, the role of such defects on JBS reverse leakage currents is investigated.