Herding cats: managing gold atoms on common transparent dielectrics

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked DownloadSimple methods to control the self-organization of gold atoms on commonly employed transparent dielectrics are presented. On one hand, surface diffusion of gold atoms can be suppressed to a sufficient degree as to realize ultra-thin (as low as approximately 5 nm) void-free semi-transparent conducting gold films over macroscopic areas while, on the other hand, their high surface mobility can be harnessed to fabricate large-area substrates compatible with cell culturing and imaging, having widely tunable field-enhancement properties for surface-enhanced Raman scattering.Icelandic Research Fun

Fourteen sequence variants that associate with multiple sclerosis discovered by meta-analysis informed by genetic correlations

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked FilesA meta-analysis of publicly available summary statistics on multiple sclerosis combined with three Nordic multiple sclerosis cohorts (21,079 cases, 371,198 controls) revealed seven sequence variants associating with multiple sclerosis, not reported previously. Using polygenic risk scores based on public summary statistics of variants outside the major histocompatibility complex region we quantified genetic overlap between common autoimmune diseases in Icelanders and identified disease clusters characterized by autoantibody presence/absence. As multiple sclerosis-polygenic risk scores captures the risk of primary biliary cirrhosis and vice versa (P = 1.6 x 10(-7), 4.3 x 10(-9)) we used primary biliary cirrhosis as a proxy-phenotype for multiple sclerosis, the idea being that variants conferring risk of primary biliary cirrhosis have a prior probability of conferring risk of multiple sclerosis. We tested 255 variants forming the primary biliary cirrhosis-polygenic risk score and found seven multiple sclerosis-associating variants not correlated with any previously established multiple sclerosis variants. Most of the variants discovered are close to or within immune-related genes. One is a low-frequency missense variant in TYK2, another is a missense variant in MTHFR that reduces the function of the encoded enzyme affecting methionine metabolism, reported to be dysregulated in multiple sclerosis brain.Swedish Research Council Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation AFA Foundation Swedish Brain Foundatio

Ultra-thin gold films on transparent polymers

Fabrication of continuous ultra-thin gold films (<10 nm) on the surface of optical polymers (CYCLOTENE and ORMOCLEAR) is reported. Using a range of electrical, optical and structural characterization techniques, we show that polymers can be superior to more conventional (inorganic) materials as optical substrates for realizing ultra-thin gold films. Using these transparent polymer substrates, smooth, patternable gold films can be fabricated with conventional deposition techniques at room temperature, without adhesion or seeding layers, facilitating new photonic and plasmonic nanostructures, including transparent electrical contacts, thin film waveguides, metamaterials, biosensors and high-contrast superlenses

Magnetic Anisotropy in the (Cr0.5Mn0.5)(2)GaC MAX Phase

Magnetic MAX phase (Cr0.5Mn0.5)(2)GaC thin films grown epitaxially on MgO(111) substrates were studied by ferromagnetic resonance at temperatures between 110 and 300 K. The spectroscopic splitting factor g = 2.00 +/- 0.01 measured at all temperatures indicates pure spin magnetism in the sample. At all temperatures we find the magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy to be negligible which is in agreement with the identified pure spin magnetism.Funding Agencies|EC [280670]; UDE; ERC [258509]; Swedish Research Council (VR) [642-2013-8020]; SSF synergy grant FUNCASE</p

Structural and magnetic properties of (Cr1-xMnx)(5)Al-8 solid solution and structural relation to hexagonal nanolaminates

Electron microscopy is used to reveal the competitive epitaxial growth of bcc structure (Cr1-x Mn (x) )(5)Al-8 and (Cr1-y Mn (y) )(2)AlC [M (n+1)AX (n) (MAX)] phase during both magnetron sputtering and arc deposition. X-ray diffraction theta-2 theta measurements display identical peak positions of (000n)-oriented MAX phase and (Cr1-x Mn (x) )(5)Al-8, due to the interplanar spacing of (Cr1-x Mn (x) )(5)Al-8 that matches exactly half a unit cell of (Cr1-y Mn (y) )(2)AlC. Vibrating sample magnetometry shows that a thin film exclusively consisting of (Cr1-x Mn (x) )(5)Al-8 exhibits a magnetic response, implying that the potential presence of this phase needs to be taken into consideration when evaluating the magnetic properties of (Cr, Mn)(2)AlC.Funding Agencies|European Research Council under the European Communities Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)/ERC [258509]; Swedish Research Council [642-2013-8020]; KAW Fellowship program; Swedish Research Council; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; SSF Synergy Grant FUNCASE Functional Carbides and Advanced Surface Engineering; Carl Trygger Foundation</p

MAP1B mutations cause intellectual disability and extensive white matter deficit

Intellectual disability (ID) is characterized by an intelligence quotient of below 70 and impaired adaptive skills. Here, analyzing whole genome sequences from 31,463 Icelanders, Walters et al. identify variants in MAP1B associated with ID and extensive brain-wide white matter deficits