Light-induced dipolar spectroscopy - A quantitative comparison between LiDEER and LaserIMD

Nanometric distance measurements with EPR spectroscopy yield crucial information on the structure and interactions of macromolecules in complex systems. The range of suitable spin labels for such measurements was recently expanded with a new class of light-inducible labels: the triplet state of porphyrins. Importantly, accurate distance measurements between a triplet label and a nitroxide have been reported with two distinct light-induced spectroscopy techniques, (light-induced) triplet-nitroxide DEER (LiDEER) and laser-induced magnetic dipole spectroscopy (LaserIMD). In this work, we set out to quantitatively compare the two techniques under equivalent conditions at Q band. Since we find that LiDEER using a rectangular pump pulse does not reach the high modulation depth that can be achieved with LaserIMD, we further explore the possibility of improving the LiDEER experiment with chirp inversion pulses. LiDEER employing a broadband pump pulse results in a drastic improvement of the modulation depth. The relative performance of chirp LiDEER and Laser-IMD in terms of modulation-to-noise ratio is found to depend on the dipolar evolution time: While LaserIMD yields higher modulation-to-noise ratios than LiDEER at short dipolar evolution times ({\tau}=2 {\mu}s), the high phase memory time of the triplet spins causes the situation to revert at {\tau}=6 {\mu}s.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures and supporting information (18 pages, 11 figures

Adapting a practical EPR dosimetry protocol to measure output factors in small fields with alanine.

PURPOSE Modern radiotherapy techniques often deliver small radiation fields. In this work, a practical Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) dosimetry protocol is adapted and applied to measure output factors (OF) in small fields of a 6 MV radiotherapy system. Correction factors and uncertainties are presented and OFs are compared to the values obtained by following TRS-483 using an ionization chamber (IC). METHODS Irradiations were performed at 10 cm depth inside a water phantom positioned at 90 cm source to surface distance with a 6 MV flattening filter free photon beam of a Halcyon radiotherapy system. OFs for different nominal field sizes (1 × 1, 2 × 2, 3 × 3, 4 × 4, normalized to 10 × 10 cm2 ) were determined with a PinPoint 3D (PTW 31022) IC following TRS-483 as well as with alanine pellets with a diameter of 4 mm and a height of 2.4 mm. EPR readout was performed with a benchtop X-band spectrometer. Correction factors due to volume averaging and due to positional uncertainties were derived from 2D film measurements. RESULTS OFs obtained from both dosimeter types agreed within 0.7% after applying corrections for the volume averaging effect. For the used alanine pellets, volume averaging correction factors of 1.030(2) for the 1 × 1 cm2 field and <1.002 for the larger field sizes were determined. The correction factor for positional uncertainties of 1 mm was in the order of 1.018 for the 1 × 1 cm2 field. Combined relative standard uncertainties uc for the OFs resulting from alanine measurements were estimated to be below 1.5% for all field sizes. For IC measurements, uc was estimated to be below 1.0%. CONCLUSIONS A practical EPR dosimetry protocol is adaptable for precisely measuring OFs in small fields down to 1 × 1 cm2 . It is recommended to consider the effect of positional uncertainties for field sizes <2 × 2 cm2

Reproducción humana asistida : los problemas que suscita desde la bioética y el derecho

El artículo trata de los problemas éticos y jurídicos que surgen a raíz de la puesta en práctica de técnicas de reproducción asistida, al querer determinar la paternidad o poder elegir el sexo de un embrión viable, entre otros.The article deals with the ethical and juridical problems derived from the implementation of assisted reproduction techniques in determining paternity a the sex of au embryo, among other questions

Molecular quantum spin network controlled by a single qubit

Scalable quantum technologies will require an unprecedented combination of precision and complexity for designing stable structures of well-controllable quantum systems. It is a challenging task to find a suitable elementary building block, of which a quantum network can be comprised in a scalable way. Here we present the working principle of such a basic unit, engineered using molecular chemistry, whose control and readout are executed using a nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The basic unit we investigate is a synthetic polyproline with electron spins localized on attached molecular sidegroups separated by a few nanometers. We demonstrate the readout and coherent manipulation of very few ($\leq 6$) of these $S=1/2$ electronic spin systems and access their direct dipolar coupling tensor. Our results show, that it is feasible to use spin-labeled peptides as a resource for a molecular-qubit based network, while at the same time providing simple optical readout of single quantum states through NV-magnetometry. This work lays the foundation for building arbitrary quantum networks using well-established chemistry methods, which has many applications ranging from mapping distances in single molecules to quantum information processing.Comment: Author name typ