192,349 research outputs found
Rapid bedside inactivation of Ebola virus for safe nucleic acid tests
Rapid bedside inactivation of Ebola virus would be a solution for the safety of medical and technical staff, risk containment, sample transport and high-throughput or rapid diagnostic testing during an outbreak. We show that the commercially available MagNA Pure lysis/binding buffer used for nucleic acid extraction inactivates Ebola virus. A rapid bedside inactivation method for nucleic acid tests is obtained by simply adding MagNA Pure lysis/binding buffer directly into vacuum blood collection EDTA-tubes using a thin needle and syringe prior to sampling. The ready-to-use inactivation vacuum tubes are stable for more than 4 months and Ebola virus RNA is preserved in the MagNA Pure lysis/binding buffer for at least 5 weeks independent of the storage temperature. We also show that Ebola virus RNA can be manually extracted from MagNA Pure lysis/binding buffer-inactivated samples using the QIAamp Viral RNA mini kit. We present an easy and convenient method for bedside inactivation using available blood collection vacuum tubes and reagents. We propose to use this simple method for fast, safe and easy bedside inactivation of Ebola virus for safe transport and routine nucleic acid detection
Buffer gas cooling and trapping of atoms with small magnetic moments
Buffer gas cooling was extended to trap atoms with small magnetic moment
(mu). For mu greater than or equal to 3mu_B, 1e12 atoms were buffer gas cooled,
trapped, and thermally isolated in ultra high vacuum with roughly unit
efficiency. For mu < 3mu_B, the fraction of atoms remaining after full thermal
isolation was limited by two processes: wind from the rapid removal of the
buffer gas and desorbing helium films. In our current apparatus we trap atoms
with mu greater than or equal to 1.1mu_B, and thermally isolate atoms with mu
greater than or equal to 2mu_B. Extrapolation of our results combined with
simulations of the loss processes indicate that it is possible to trap and
evaporatively cool mu = 1mu_B atoms using buffer gas cooling.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
Indigenous development of ultra high vacuum (UHV) magnetron sputtering system for the preparation of Permalloy magnetic thin films
We have designed and developed an indigenous ultra high vacuum (UHV) sputtering system which can deposit magnetic thin films with high purity and good uniformity. The equipment consists of state-of the-art technologies and sophistication. With this system it is possible to deposit coatings of various materials on a sample size of 3”3” 3”. The Ni81Fe19 ferromagnetic thin films, with Tantalum (Ta) as a buffer and cap layers have been deposited on silicon substrates using this ultra high vacuum (UHV) sputtering system. The magneto transport measurement study indicated a significant variation in the AMR values of the films for varying thicknesses of tantalum and NiFe layers
Optical emission investigation of laser-produced MgB2 plume expanding in an Ar buffer gas
Optical emission spectroscopy is used to study the dynamics of the plasma
generated by pulsed-laser irradiation of a MgB2 target, both in vacuum and at
different Ar buffer gas pressures. The analysis of the time-resolved emission
of selected species shows that the Ar background gas strongly influences the
plasma dynamics. Above a fixed pressure, plasma propagation into Ar leads to
the formation of blast waves causing both a considerable increase of the
fraction of excited Mg atoms and a simultaneous reduction of their kinetic flux
energy. These results can be particularly useful for optimizing MgB2 thin film
deposition processes.Comment: 11 pages,4 figures, Applied Physics Letters in pres
In-situ Magnesium Diboride Superconducting Thin Films grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition
Superconducting thin films of MgB2 were deposited by Pulsed Laser Deposition
on magnesium oxide and sapphire substrates. Samples grown at 450C in an argon
buffer pressure of about 10-2 mbar by using a magnesium enriched target
resulted to be superconducting with a transition temperature of about 25 K.
Film deposited from a MgB2 sintered pellet target in ultra high vacuum
conditions showed poor metallic or weak semiconducting behavior and they became
superconducting only after an ex-situ annealing in Mg vapor atmosphere. Up to
now, no difference in the superconducting properties of the films obtained by
these two procedures has been evidenced.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Synthesis of as-grown superconducting MgB_2 thin films by molecular beam epitaxy in UHV conditions
As-grown superconducting MgB_2 thin films have been grown on SrTiO_3(001),
MgO(001), and Al_2O_3(0001) substrates by a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) method
with novel co-evaporation conditions of low deposition rate in ultra-high
vacuum. The structural and physical properties of the films were studied by
RHEED, XRD, electrical resistivity measurements, and SQUID magnetometer. The
RHEED patterns indicate three-dimensional growth for MgB_2. The highest T_c
determined by resistivity measurement was about 36K in these samples. And a
clear Meissner effect below T_c was observed using magnetic susceptibility
measurement. We will discuss the influence of B buffer layer on the structural
and physical properties.Comment: 9 pages with 4 figures, ISS2003 proceedin
Progress Toward a Compact, Highly Stable Ion Clock
There was an update on the subject of two previous NASA Tech Briefs articles: Compact, Highly Stable Ion Clock (NPO-43075), Vol. 32, No. 5 (May 2008), page 63; and Neon as a Buffer Gas for a Mercury-Ion Clock (NPO-42919), Vol. 32, No. 7 (July 2008), page 62. To recapitulate: A developmental miniature mercury-ion clock has stability comparable to that of a hydrogen-maser clock. The ion-handling components are housed in a sealed vacuum tube, wherein a getter pump maintains the partial vacuum, and the evacuated tube is backfilled with mercury vapor in a neon buffer gas. There was progress in the development of the clock, with emphasis on the design, fabrication, pump-down, and bake-out of the vacuum tube (based on established practice in the travelingwave- tube-amplifier industry) and the ability of the tube to retain a vacuum after a year of operation. Other developments include some aspects of the operation of mercury-vapor source (a small appendage oven containing HgO) so as to maintain the optimum low concentration of mercury vapor, and further efforts to miniaturize the vacuum and optical subsystems to fit within a volume of 2 L
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