278 research outputs found
Crosstalk Correction in Atomic Force Microscopy
Commercial atomic force microscopes usually use a four-segmented photodiode
to detect the motion of the cantilever via laser beam deflection. This read-out
technique enables to measure bending and torsion of the cantilever separately.
A slight angle between the orientation of the photodiode and the plane of the
readout beam, however, causes false signals in both readout channels, so-called
crosstalk, that may lead to misinterpretation of the acquired data. We
demonstrate this fault with images recorded in contact mode on ferroelectric
crystals and present an electronic circuit to compensate for it, thereby
enabling crosstalk-free imaging
Contrast Mechanisms for the Detection of Ferroelectric Domains with Scanning Force Microscopy
We present a full analysis of the contrast mechanisms for the detection of
ferroelectric domains on all faces of bulk single crystals using scanning force
microscopy exemplified on hexagonally poled lithium niobate. The domain
contrast can be attributed to three different mechanisms: i) the thickness
change of the sample due to an out-of-plane piezoelectric response (standard
piezoresponse force microscopy), ii) the lateral displacement of the sample
surface due to an in-plane piezoresponse, and iii) the electrostatic tip-sample
interaction at the domain boundaries caused by surface charges on the
crystallographic y- and z-faces. A careful analysis of the movement of the
cantilever with respect to its orientation relative to the crystallographic
axes of the sample allows a clear attribution of the observed domain contrast
to the driving forces respectively.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Critical Casimir effect in classical binary liquid mixtures
If a fluctuating medium is confined, the ensuing perturbation of its
fluctuation spectrum generates Casimir-like effective forces acting on its
confining surfaces. Near a continuous phase transition of such a medium the
corresponding order parameter fluctuations occur on all length scales and
therefore close to the critical point this effect acquires a universal
character, i.e., to a large extent it is independent of the microscopic details
of the actual system. Accordingly it can be calculated theoretically by
studying suitable representative model systems.
We report on the direct measurement of critical Casimir forces by total
internal reflection microscopy (TIRM), with femto-Newton resolution. The
corresponding potentials are determined for individual colloidal particles
floating above a substrate under the action of the critical thermal noise in
the solvent medium, constituted by a binary liquid mixture of water and
2,6-lutidine near its lower consolute point. Depending on the relative
adsorption preferences of the colloid and substrate surfaces with respect to
the two components of the binary liquid mixture, we observe that, upon
approaching the critical point of the solvent, attractive or repulsive forces
emerge and supersede those prevailing away from it. Based on the knowledge of
the critical Casimir forces acting in film geometries within the Ising
universality class and with equal or opposing boundary conditions, we provide
the corresponding theoretical predictions for the sphere-planar wall geometry
of the experiment. The experimental data for the effective potential can be
interpreted consistently in terms of these predictions and a remarkable
quantitative agreement is observed.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figure
Collective magnetism at multiferroic vortex domain walls
Topological defects have been playgrounds for many emergent phenomena in
complex matter such as superfluids, liquid crystals, and early universe.
Recently, vortex-like topological defects with six interlocked structural
antiphase and ferroelectric domains merging into a vortex core were revealed in
multiferroic hexagonal manganites. Numerous vortices are found to form an
intriguing self-organized network. Thus, it is imperative to find out the
magnetic nature of these vortices. Using cryogenic magnetic force microscopy,
we discovered unprecedented alternating net moments at domain walls around
vortices that can correlate over the entire vortex network in hexagonal ErMnO3
The collective nature of domain wall magnetism originates from the
uncompensated Er3+ moments and the correlated organization of the vortex
network. Furthermore, our proposed model indicates a fascinating phenomenon of
field-controllable spin chirality. Our results demonstrate a new route to
achieving magnetoelectric coupling at domain walls in single-phase
multiferroics, which may be harnessed for nanoscale multifunctional devices.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure
Constructing TI-Friendly Substitution Boxes Using Shift-Invariant Permutations
The threat posed by side channels requires ciphers that can be efficiently protected in both software and hardware against such attacks. In this paper, we proposed a novel Sbox construction based on iterations of shift-invariant quadratic permutations and linear diffusions. Owing to the selected quadratic permutations, all of our Sboxes enable uniform 3-share threshold implementations, which provide first order SCA protections without any fresh randomness. More importantly, because of the shift-invariant property, there are ample implementation trade-offs available, in software as well as hardware. We provide implementation results (software and hardware) for a four-bit and an eight-bit Sbox, which confirm that our constructions are competitive and can be easily adapted to various platforms as claimed. We have successfully verified their resistance to first order attacks based on real acquisitions. Because there are very few studies focusing on software-based threshold implementations, our software implementations might be of independent interest in this regard
Shuffle and Mix: On the Diffusion of Randomness in Threshold Implementations of Keccak
Threshold Implementations are well-known as a provably firstorder secure Boolean masking scheme even in the presence of glitches. A precondition for their security proof is a uniform input distribution at each round function, which may require an injection of fresh randomness or an increase in the number of shares. However, it is unclear whether violating
the uniformity assumption causes exploitable leakage in practice. Recently, Daemen undertook a theoretical study of lossy mappings to extend the understanding of uniformity violations. We complement his work by entropy simulations and practical measurements of Keccak’s round function. Our findings shed light on the necessity of mixing operations in addition to bit-permutations in a cipher’s linear layer to propagate
randomness between S-boxes and prevent exploitable leakage. Finally, we argue that this result cannot be obtained by current simulation methods, further stressing the continued need for practical leakage measurements
An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics
For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types
Suppression of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in central Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb
collisions at = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE
Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral
collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross
section. The measured charged particle spectra in and GeV/ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same
, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon
collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification
factor . The result indicates only weak medium effects ( 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions,
reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at -7GeV/ and increases
significantly at larger . The measured suppression of high- particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies,
indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at
the LHC.Comment: 15 pages, 5 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 10,
published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/98
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