122 research outputs found
Microwave Transport in Metallic Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
The dynamical conductance of electrically contacted single-walled carbon
nanotubes is measured from dc to 10 GHz as a function of source-drain voltage
in both the low-field and high-field limits. The ac conductance of the nanotube
itself is found to be equal to the dc conductance over the frequency range
studied for tubes in both the ballistic and diffusive limit. This clearly
demonstrates that nanotubes can carry high-frequency currents at least as well
as dc currents over a wide range of operating conditions. Although a detailed
theoretical explanation is still lacking, we present a phenomenological model
of the ac impedance of a carbon nanotube in the presence of scattering that is
consistent with these results.Comment: Added reference
Electronic Devices Based on Purified Carbon Nanotubes Grown By High Pressure Decomposition of Carbon Monoxide
The excellent properties of transistors, wires, and sensors made from
single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) make them promising candidates for use
in advanced nanoelectronic systems. Gas-phase growth procedures such as the
high pressure decomposition of carbon monoxide (HiPCO) method yield large
quantities of small diameter semiconducting SWNTs, which are ideal for use in
nanoelectronic circuits. As-grown HiPCO material, however, commonly contains a
large fraction of carbonaceous impurities that degrade properties of SWNT
devices. Here we demonstrate a purification, deposition, and fabrication
process that yields devices consisting of metallic and semiconducting nanotubes
with electronic characteristics vastly superior to those of circuits made from
raw HiPCO. Source-drain current measurements on the circuits as a function of
temperature and backgate voltage are used to quantify the energy gap of
semiconducting nanotubes in a field effect transistor geometry. This work
demonstrates significant progress towards the goal of producing complex
integrated circuits from bulk-grown SWNT material.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Nature Material
Electrical properties of 0.4 cm long single-walled carbon nanotubes
Centimeter scale aligned carbon nanotube arrays are grown from nanoparticle
metal catalyst pads. We find the nanotubes grow both with and against the wind.
A metal underlayer provides in-situ electrical contact to these long nanotubes
with no post growth processing needed. Using the electrically contacted
nanotubes, we study electrical transport of 0.4 cm long nanotubes. The source
drain I-V curves are quantitatively described by a classical, diffusive model.
Our measurements show that the outstanding transport properties of nanotubes
can be extended to the cm scale and open the door to large scale integrated
nanotube circuits with macroscopic dimensions.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure
Regulation of caspase-3 processing by cIAP2 controls the switch between pro-inflammatory activation and cell death in microglia.
Cell Death and Disease is an open-access journal published by Nature Publishing Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons licence, users will need to obtain permission from the licence holder to reproduce the material.The activation of microglia, resident immune cells of the central nervous system, and inflammation-mediated neurotoxicity are typical features of neurodegenerative diseases, for example, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. An unexpected role of caspase-3, commonly known to have executioner role for apoptosis, was uncovered in the microglia activation process. A central question emerging from this finding is what prevents caspase-3 during the microglia activation from killing those cells? Caspase-3 activation occurs as a two-step process, where the zymogen is first cleaved by upstream caspases, such as caspase-8, to form intermediate, yet still active, p19/p12 complex; thereafter, autocatalytic processing generates the fully mature p17/p12 form of the enzyme. Here, we show that the induction of cellular inhibitor of apoptosis protein 2 (cIAP2) expression upon microglia activation prevents the conversion of caspase-3 p19 subunit to p17 subunit and is responsible for restraining caspase-3 in terms of activity and subcellular localization. We demonstrate that counteracting the repressive effect of cIAP2 on caspase-3 activation, using small interfering RNA targeting cIAP2 or a SMAC mimetic such as the BV6 compound, reduced the pro-inflammatory activation of microglia cells and promoted their death. We propose that the different caspase-3 functions in microglia, and potentially other cell types, reside in the active caspase-3 complexes formed. These results also could indicate cIAP2 as a possible therapeutic target to modulate microglia pro-inflammatory activation and associated neurotoxicity observed in neurodegenerative disorders
Low-frequency Current Fluctuations in Individual Semiconducting Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes
We present a systematic study on low-frequency current fluctuations of
nano-devices consisting of one single semiconducting nanotube, which exhibit
significant 1/f-type noise. By examining devices with different switching
mechanisms, carrier types (electrons vs. holes), and channel lengths, we show
that the 1/f fluctuation level in semiconducting nanotubes is correlated to the
total number of transport carriers present in the system. However, the 1/f
noise level per carrier is not larger than that of most bulk conventional
semiconductors, e.g. Si. The pronounced noise level observed in nanotube
devices simply reflects on the small number of carriers involved in transport.
These results not only provide the basis to quantify the noise behavior in a
one-dimensional transport system, but also suggest a valuable way to
characterize low-dimensional nanostructures based on the 1/f fluctuation
phenomenon
A fast and low-power microelectromechanical system-based non-volatile memory device
Several new generation memory devices have been developed to overcome the low performance of conventional silicon-based flash memory. In this study, we demonstrate a novel non-volatile memory design based on the electromechanical motion of a cantilever to provide fast charging and discharging of a floating-gate electrode. The operation is demonstrated by using an electromechanical metal cantilever to charge a floating gate that controls the charge transport through a carbon nanotube field-effect transistor. The set and reset currents are unchanged after more than 11 h constant operation. Over 500 repeated programming and erasing cycles were demonstrated under atmospheric conditions at room temperature without degradation. Multinary bit programming can be achieved by varying the voltage on the cantilever. The operation speed of the device is faster than a conventional flash memory and the power consumption is lower than other memory devices
Wide Contact Structures for Low-Noise Nanochannel Devices Based on a Carbon Nanotube Network
We have developed a wide contact structure for low-noise nanochannel devices based on a carbon nanotube (CNT) network. This low-noise CNT network-based device has a dumbbell-shaped channel, which has wide CNT/electrode contact regions and, in effect, reduces the contact noise. We also performed a systematic analysis of structured CNT networks and established an empirical formula that can explain the noise behavior of arbitrary-shaped CNT network-based devices including the effect of contact regions and CNT alignment. Interestingly, our analysis revealed that the noise amplitude of aligned CNT networks behaves quite differently compared with that of randomly oriented CNT networks. Our results should be an important guideline in designing low-noise nanoscale devices based on a CNT network for various applications such as a highly sensitive low-noise sensor
A Large-Scale Rheumatoid Arthritis Genetic Study Identifies Association at Chromosome 9q33.2
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic autoimmune disease affecting both joints and extra-articular tissues. Although some genetic risk factors for RA are well-established, most notably HLA-DRB1 and PTPN22, these markers do not fully account for the observed heritability. To identify additional susceptibility loci, we carried out a multi-tiered, case-control association study, genotyping 25,966 putative functional SNPs in 475 white North American RA patients and 475 matched controls. Significant markers were genotyped in two additional, independent, white case-control sample sets (661 cases/1322 controls from North America and 596 cases/705 controls from The Netherlands) identifying a SNP, rs1953126, on chromosome 9q33.2 that was significantly associated with RA (ORcommon = 1.28, trend Pcomb = 1.45E-06). Through a comprehensive fine-scale-mapping SNP-selection procedure, 137 additional SNPs in a 668 kb region from MEGF9 to STOM on 9q33.2 were chosen for follow-up genotyping in a staged-approach. Significant single marker results (Pcomb<0.01) spanned a large 525 kb region from FBXW2 to GSN. However, a variety of analyses identified SNPs in a 70 kb region extending from the third intron of PHF19 across TRAF1 into the TRAF1-C5 intergenic region, but excluding the C5 coding region, as the most interesting (trend Pcomb: 1.45E-06 → 5.41E-09). The observed association patterns for these SNPs had heightened statistical significance and a higher degree of consistency across sample sets. In addition, the allele frequencies for these SNPs displayed reduced variability between control groups when compared to other SNPs. Lastly, in combination with the other two known genetic risk factors, HLA-DRB1 and PTPN22, the variants reported here generate more than a 45-fold RA-risk differential
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