Multiskalensimulation des Ladungstransports in Silizium-Nanodraht-Transistoren: Evaluation der Grenzen des Simulationsmodells: Ist die Bestimmung von physikalischen Parameten aus gemessenem Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinien möglich?

Durch Multiskalensimulationen wird der Ladungstransport in nanodrahtbasierten Schottky-Barrieren-Feldeffekt-Transistoren im Materialsystem Ni2Si/Si untersucht. Die Bedingungen an die Genauigkeit der verwendeten Eingangsparameter werden bestimmt und Vorhersagen über optimale Material- und Geräteparameter werden getroffen. Es wird die Frage beantwortet, ob die Bestimmung von physikalischen Parametern aus einzelnen gemessenen Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinie möglich ist. Der Feldeffekt wird durch Berechnungen auf Basis der Finiten-Elemente-Methode und die resultierenden Stromflüsse durch ein quantenmechanisches Transportmodell ermittelt. In der Untersuchung der geometrischen Eingangsparameter wird gezeigt, dass bis auf den Radius des Nanodrahtes die in einem Experiment zu erwartenden Messfehler keinen drastischen Einfluss auf die Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinie haben. Signifikant ist hingegen der Einfluss der Temperatur, der effektiven Ladungsträgermassen und der Höhe der Schottky-Barriere. Da diese drei Eingangsparameter des betrachteten Systems mit relativ großen Ungenauigkeiten behaftet sind, ist die Bestimmung von physikalischen Parametern aus einzelnen gemessenen Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinien auf die erhoffte Weise nicht möglich. Die Arbeit zeigt auch, dass bereits moderate Veränderungen der Arbeitstemperatur einen bedeutenden Einfluss auf die Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinie haben. Für die Konstruktion von Transistoren mit hoher Stromdichte kann anhand der ermittelten Daten die Verkleinerung der aktiven Region durch Oxidation vorgeschlagen werden.:Kurzfassung/Abstract I Verwendete Symbole IV Verwendete Parameter VI Verwendete Abkürzungen VII 1 Motivation 8 2 Grundlagen 9 2.1 Modellbildung und Simulation 9 2.2 Schottky-Diode 10 2.3 Feldeffekt-Transistor 12 2.4 Feldeffekt-Transistor auf der Basis von Silizium-Nanodrähten 13 3 Methoden 17 3.1 Simulationsmodell 17 3.2 Finite-Elemente-Methode 20 3.3 Landauer-Büttiker-Formalismus 21 3.4 Hamiltonoperator 22 3.5 Transmissionsfunktion 23 3.6 Büttiker Sonde 24 4 Ergebnisse und Diskussion 26 4.1 Implementierung des Simulationsprogrammes 26 4.2 Berechnung der Basis-Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinie 31 4.3 Wahl der Simulationsparameter 35 4.4 Abhängigkeit von geometrischen Parametern 41 4.5 Abhängigkeit von physikalischen Parametern 49 5 Zusammenfassung, Schlussfolgerungen und Ausblick 55 Abbildungsverzeichnis 59 Literatur 62Charge transport in nanowire-based Schottky-barrier field-effect transistors in the material system Ni2Si/Si is examined by multi-scale simulations. The requirements for the accuracy of the input parameters are determined and predictions about optimum material and device parameters are made. The question is answered, whether the determination of physical parameters from individual measured current-voltage curves is possible? The field effect is described by calculations based on the finite element method and the resulting currents are calculated with a quantum mechanical transport model. In the study of the geometric input parameters it is shown that experimental uncertainties do not drastically affect the current-voltage characteristic, except from the nanowire radius. However, significant is the influence of the temperature, the effective charge carrier mass and the height of the Schottky-barrier. Since these three input parameters are known only with low experimental accuracy for the considered system, the determination of physical parameters from individual measured current-voltage curves is not possible in the expected way. The results also show that moderate changes of the working temperature have a significant influence on the current-voltage characteristic. For the construction of transistors with high current density the reduction of the active region by oxidation is proposed.:Kurzfassung/Abstract I Verwendete Symbole IV Verwendete Parameter VI Verwendete Abkürzungen VII 1 Motivation 8 2 Grundlagen 9 2.1 Modellbildung und Simulation 9 2.2 Schottky-Diode 10 2.3 Feldeffekt-Transistor 12 2.4 Feldeffekt-Transistor auf der Basis von Silizium-Nanodrähten 13 3 Methoden 17 3.1 Simulationsmodell 17 3.2 Finite-Elemente-Methode 20 3.3 Landauer-Büttiker-Formalismus 21 3.4 Hamiltonoperator 22 3.5 Transmissionsfunktion 23 3.6 Büttiker Sonde 24 4 Ergebnisse und Diskussion 26 4.1 Implementierung des Simulationsprogrammes 26 4.2 Berechnung der Basis-Strom-Spannungs-Kennlinie 31 4.3 Wahl der Simulationsparameter 35 4.4 Abhängigkeit von geometrischen Parametern 41 4.5 Abhängigkeit von physikalischen Parametern 49 5 Zusammenfassung, Schlussfolgerungen und Ausblick 55 Abbildungsverzeichnis 59 Literatur 6

How Ordinary Elimination Became Gaussian Elimination

Newton, in notes that he would rather not have seen published, described a process for solving simultaneous equations that later authors applied specifically to linear equations. This method that Euler did not recommend, that Legendre called "ordinary," and that Gauss called "common" - is now named after Gauss: "Gaussian" elimination. Gauss's name became associated with elimination through the adoption, by professional computers, of a specialized notation that Gauss devised for his own least squares calculations. The notation allowed elimination to be viewed as a sequence of arithmetic operations that were repeatedly optimized for hand computing and eventually were described by matrices.Comment: 56 pages, 21 figures, 1 tabl

Engineering improved ethylene production: Leveraging systems Biology and adaptive laboratory evolution

Ethylene is a small hydrocarbon gas widely used in the chemical industry. Annual worldwide production currently exceeds 150 million tons, producing considerable amounts of CO2 contributing to climate change. The need for a sustainable alternative is therefore imperative. Ethylene is natively produced by several different microorganisms, including Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola via a process catalyzed by the ethylene forming enzyme (EFE), subsequent heterologous expression of EFE has led to ethylene production in non-native bacterial hosts including E. coli and cyanobacteria. However, solubility of EFE and substrate availability remain rate limiting steps in biological ethylene production. We employed a combination of genome scale metabolic modelling, continuous fermentation, and protein evolution to enable the accelerated development of a high efficiency ethylene producing E. coli strain, yielding a 49-fold increase in production, the most significant improvement reported to date. Furthermore, we have clearly demonstrated that this increased yield resulted from metabolic adaptations that were uniquely linked to the EFE enzyme (WT vs mutant). Our findings provide a novel solution to deregulate metabolic bottlenecks in key pathways, which can be readily applied to address other engineering challenges

Congenital microcephaly: Case definition & guidelines for data collection, analysis, and presentation of safety data after maternal immunisation.

Need for developing case definitions and guidelines for data collection, analysis, and presentation for congenital microcephaly as an adverse event following maternal immunisation Congenital microcephaly, also referred to as primary microcephaly due to its presence in utero or at birth, is a descriptive term for a structural defect in which a fetus or infant’s head (cranium) circumference is smaller than expected when compared to other fetuses or infants of the same gestational age, sex and ethnic background

Developments and applications of the OPTIMADE API for materials discovery, design, and data exchange

The Open Databases Integration for Materials Design (OPTIMADE) application programming interface (API) empowers users with holistic access to a growing federation of databases, enhancing the accessibility and discoverability of materials and chemical data. Since the first release of the OPTIMADE specification (v1.0), the API has undergone significant development, leading to the upcoming v1.2 release, and has underpinned multiple scientific studies. In this work, we highlight the latest features of the API format, accompanying software tools, and provide an update on the implementation of OPTIMADE in contributing materials databases. We end by providing several use cases that demonstrate the utility of the OPTIMADE API in materials research that continue to drive its ongoing development

Engineering improved ethylene production: Leveraging systems Biology and adaptive laboratory evolution

Ethylene is a small hydrocarbon gas widely used in the chemical industry. Annual worldwide production currently exceeds 150 million tons, producing considerable amounts of CO2 contributing to climate change. The need for a sustainable alternative is therefore imperative. Ethylene is natively produced by several different microorganisms, including Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola via a process catalyzed by the ethylene forming enzyme (EFE), subsequent heterologous expression of EFE has led to ethylene production in non-native bacterial hosts including E. coli and cyanobacteria. However, solubility of EFE and substrate availability remain rate limiting steps in biological ethylene production. We employed a combination of genome scale metabolic modelling, continuous fermentation, and protein evolution to enable the accelerated development of a high efficiency ethylene producing E. coli strain, yielding a 49-fold increase in production, the most significant improvement reported to date. Furthermore, we have clearly demonstrated that this increased yield resulted from metabolic adaptations that were uniquely linked to the EFE enzyme (WT vs mutant). Our findings provide a novel solution to deregulate metabolic bottlenecks in key pathways, which can be readily applied to address other engineering challenges

Signal transduction-related responses to phytohormones and environmental challenges in sugarcane

BACKGROUND: Sugarcane is an increasingly economically and environmentally important C4 grass, used for the production of sugar and bioethanol, a low-carbon emission fuel. Sugarcane originated from crosses of Saccharum species and is noted for its unique capacity to accumulate high amounts of sucrose in its stems. Environmental stresses limit enormously sugarcane productivity worldwide. To investigate transcriptome changes in response to environmental inputs that alter yield we used cDNA microarrays to profile expression of 1,545 genes in plants submitted to drought, phosphate starvation, herbivory and N(2)-fixing endophytic bacteria. We also investigated the response to phytohormones (abscisic acid and methyl jasmonate). The arrayed elements correspond mostly to genes involved in signal transduction, hormone biosynthesis, transcription factors, novel genes and genes corresponding to unknown proteins. RESULTS: Adopting an outliers searching method 179 genes with strikingly different expression levels were identified as differentially expressed in at least one of the treatments analysed. Self Organizing Maps were used to cluster the expression profiles of 695 genes that showed a highly correlated expression pattern among replicates. The expression data for 22 genes was evaluated for 36 experimental data points by quantitative RT-PCR indicating a validation rate of 80.5% using three biological experimental replicates. The SUCAST Database was created that provides public access to the data described in this work, linked to tissue expression profiling and the SUCAST gene category and sequence analysis. The SUCAST database also includes a categorization of the sugarcane kinome based on a phylogenetic grouping that included 182 undefined kinases. CONCLUSION: An extensive study on the sugarcane transcriptome was performed. Sugarcane genes responsive to phytohormones and to challenges sugarcane commonly deals with in the field were identified. Additionally, the protein kinases were annotated based on a phylogenetic approach. The experimental design and statistical analysis applied proved robust to unravel genes associated with a diverse array of conditions attributing novel functions to previously unknown or undefined genes. The data consolidated in the SUCAST database resource can guide further studies and be useful for the development of improved sugarcane varieties

Regulation of the Transglutaminase I gene

The transglutaminase I (TGase I) gene encodes an enzyme that catalyzes the cross-linking of structural proteins involved in the formation of the cornified envelope during squamous cell differentiation. To identify DNA elements important for the transcriptional control of the TGase I gene, we analyzed the ability of a 2.9-kilobase pair (kb) upstream regulatory region to control the expression of a reporter gene in vivo and in vitro. Transgenic mice bearing the pTG(-2.9kb)CAT construct exhibited the same pattern of tissue-specific expression of CAT as reported for TGase I. Deletion analysis in transiently transfected rabbit tracheal epithelial cells indicated that two sequences from bp -490 to -470 and from -54 to -37 are involved in the activation of TGase I transcription. Point mutation analysis and mobility shift assays showed that the sequence located between -54 and -37 is a functional Sp1-like transcription element. Sp1 and Sp3, but not Sp2, are part of nuclear protein complexes from differentiated RbTE cells binding to this site. The element TGATGTCA between bp -490 and -470 is contained in a larger 22-bp palindrome and resembles the consensus cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB)/AP-1 element recognized by dimeric complexes of members of the CREB, ATF, Fos, and Jun families. Mutations in this sequence greatly reduced promoter activity. Supershift analysis identified CREB1, JunB, c-Fos, Fra-1, and c-Jun in protein complexes isolated from differentiated rabbit tracheal epithelial cells binding to this site. Our study shows that the Sp1- and CREB/AP-1-like sites act in concert to stimulate transcription of the TGase I gene. The 2.9-kb promoter region could guide expression of specific genes in the granular layer of the epidermis and could be useful in gene therapy