Spin–triplet current in half metal/conical helimagnet/superconductor heterojunctions

The BTK theory is extended to investigate spin–triplet current and differential conductance spectrum in the half metal/conical helimagnet (Holmium)/s-wave superconductor heterojunctions. We show that the effective spin–split and spin–flip scatterings of the Holmium layer control the conversion efficiency between the spin–singlet and equal-spin triplet pair correlations, leading to a tunneling current oscillation with the thickness of the Holmium layer. This can provide qualitative explanations on the current oscillation in Ho/Co/Ho-based Josephson junction experiment. The differential conductance spectrum confirms spin–flip Andreev reflection induced long-ranged equal-spin triplet pair correlations.     

Highly sensitive multianalyte immunochromatographic test strip for rapid chemiluminescent detection of ractopamine and salbutamol

A novel immunochromatographic assay (ICA) was proposed for rapid and multiple assay of β₂-agonists, by utilizing ractopamine (RAC) and salbutamol (SAL) as the models. Owing to the introduction of chemiluminescent (CL) approach, the proposed protocol shows much higher sensitivity. In this work, the described ICA was based on a competitive format, and horseradish peroxidase-tagged antibodies were used as highly sensitive CL probes. Quantitative analysis of β₂-agonists was achieved by recording the CL signals of the probes captured on the two test zones of the nitrocellulose membrane. Under the optimum conditions, RAC and SAL could be detected within the linear ranges of 0.50–40 and 0.10–50 ng mL⁻¹, with the detection limits of 0.20 and 0.040 ng mL⁻¹ (S/N = 3), respectively. The whole process for multianalyte immunoassay of RAC and SAL can be completed within 20 min. Furthermore, the test strip was validated with spiked swine urine samples and the results showed that this method was reliable in measuring β₂-agonists in swine urine. This CL-based multianalyte test strip shows a series of advantages such as high sensitivity, ideal selectivity, simple manipulation, high assay efficiency and low cost. Thus, it opens up new pathway for rapid screening and field analysis, and shows a promising prospect in food safety.     

Effect of heat treatment on the properties of dc magnetron sputtered LaB6/ITO films

Two types of LaB₆/ITO films with different deposition times were deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering. After the films were fabricated, AFM, XRD, FESEM, Step-Height Profiler, UV-Vis Spectrophotometer and Hall Measurement Instrument were used to study their performances. After 400 °C's annealing, morphology of fracture cross-sections of the films exhibit evolutions from strongly columnar to the equiaxial (30 min), the films prepared with short time transformed from amorphous to polycrystalline, and Ar pressure generated little effect on the film's transmissivity. The resistivity declined over one order of magnitude, and the films with higher surface roughness value were more resistant, while that for films unheatreated was just the opposite.     

Surface plasmon polaritons maskless lithography of metal–dielectric multilayers with tunable resolution

We report the design of surface plasmon polaritons maskless lithography based on metal–dielectric multilayers. The interference pattern is generated by the interference of the counter-propagating bulk plasmon polariton (BPP) modes, which are excited by the attenuated total reflection method. The resolution of the interference fringes can be tuned with the incident angles, because different BPP modes are excited in the metal–dielectric multilayers. The feature size as small as 34 nm (about λ/13) can be realized under the 436 nm TM-polarized illumination, which is suitable for deep-subwavelength lithography. The exposure depth decreases with increasing the resonant angle. Electromagnetic simulations by a finite difference time-domain method on the two-dimensional and three-dimensional examples have been performed to validate the designs.     

Complex-amplitude-based phase unwrapping method for digital holographic microscopy

A complex-amplitude-based phase unwrapping approach for digital holographic microscopy is proposed in this paper. A quality map is derived directly from the reconstructed complex amplitude distribution of object wave to evaluate noise influence and phase reliability in the wrapped phase image. Quality-guided phase unwrapping algorithm is then implemented with the quality map to retrieve continuous phase profile. Unwrapping errors caused by unreliable phase data are successfully suppressed. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated with simulation and experimental results.     

A molecule based on polyoxometalate acid and crown ether: synthesis and characterization of [(H3O)(C20H24O6)]2[HPMo12O40]·C20H24O6·3MeCN·H2O (C20H24O6=dibenzo-18-crown-6)

The new molecule based on 12-molybdophosphate acid and dibenzo-18-crown-6, [(H₃O)(C₂₀H₂₄O₆)]₂[HPMo₁₂O₄₀]·C₂₀H₂₄O₆·3MeCN·H₂O 1, was synthesized in acetonitrile and characterized by elemental analyses, IR, ¹H NMR, electrospray mass spectra and single crystal X-ray diffraction, indicating that it contains [(H₃O)(dibenzo-18-crown-6)]⁺ cations, where oxonium ions are out of the planes defined by crown ether oxygen atoms, and disordered PMo₁₂O₄₀³⁻ anions with α-Keggin structure where the crystal has high lattice energy so that it is difficult to dissolve it. The crystallographic disorder averages Mo-Mo distances and Mo-O_b/c-Mo angles between the M₃ triplets and within the M₃ triplet. The interactions between crown ether molecules and oxonium ions are hydrogen-bonding with the O(crown ether)-OH₃⁺ distances of 2.510(10)-2.783(7) Å. The interactions between [(H₃O)(dibenzo-18-crown-6)]⁺ cations and PMo₁₂O₄₀³⁻ anions are dominantly electrostatic. The electrical conductivity is <10⁻⁷ S.cm⁻¹.