926 research outputs found
Mixing-induced anisotropic correlations in molecular crystalline systems
We investigate the structure of mixed thin films composed of pentacene (PEN)
and diindenoperylene (DIP) using X-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence X-ray
diffraction. For equimolar mixtures we observe vanishing in-plane order
coexisting with an excellent out-of-plane order, a yet unreported disordering
behavior in binary mixtures of organic semiconductors, which are crystalline in
their pure form. One approach to rationalize our findings is to introduce an
anisotropic interaction parameter in the framework of a mean field model. By
comparing the structural properties with those of other mixed systems, we
discuss the effects of sterical compatibility and chemical composition on the
mixing behavior, which adds to the general understanding of interactions in
molecular mixtures.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. Let
The influence of lithium excess in the target on the properties andcompositions of Li1+ x Mn2O4− δ thin films prepared by PLD
Li-Mn-O thin films were deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) onto stainless steel substrates using targets containing different concentrations of added Li2O. The influence of the target composition on the stoichiometry of the resulting thin films, the surface morphology and the electrochemical properties was studied. The application of the target with added 7.5 mol% Li2O results in an almost ideal lithium content, while all films were still oxygen deficient. The thin films were applied as electrodes in Li//Li1+x Mn2O4−δ cells (i.e. model cells for a rechargeable Li-ion battery) and characterized by cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge/discharge experiments. The electrochemical measurements of the thin films confirmed that the thin films can serve as good model systems and that they show a sufficient cyclabilit
On the analysis of island shape evolution from diffuse x-ray scattering of organic thin films and the implications for growth
Understanding the growth of organic semi-conducting molecules with shape
anisotropy is of high relevance to the processing of optoelectronic devices.
This work provides insight into the growth of thin films of the prototypical
rodlike organic semiconductor diindenoperylene on a microscopic level, by
analyzing in detail the film morphology. We model our data, which were obtained
by high-resolution grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS),
using a theoretical description from small angle scattering theory derived for
simple liquids. Based on form factor calculations for different object types we
determine how the island shapes change in the respective layers. Atomic force
microscopy measurements approve our findings.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.
Mn incorporation in as-grown and annealed (Ga,Mn)As layers studied by x-ray diffraction and standing-wave uorescence
A combination of high-resolution x-ray diffraction and a new technique of
x-ray standing wave uorescence at grazing incidence is employed to study the
structure of (Ga,Mn)As diluted magnetic semiconductor and its changes during
post-growth annealing steps. We find that the film is formed by a uniform,
single crystallographic phase epilayer covered by a thin surface layer with
enhanced Mn concentration due to Mn atoms at random non-crystallographic
positions. In the epilayer, Mn incorporated at interstitial position has a
dominant effect on lattice expansion as compared to substitutional Mn. The
expansion coeffcient of interstitial Mn estimated from our data is consistent
with theory predictions. The concentration of interstitial Mn and the
corresponding lattice expansion of the epilayer are reduced by annealing,
accompanied by an increase of the density of randomly distributed Mn atoms in
the disordered surface layer. Substitutional Mn atoms remain stable during the
low-temperature annealing.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Low voltage control of ferromagnetism in a semiconductor p-n junction
The concept of low-voltage depletion and accumulation of electron charge in
semiconductors, utilized in field-effect transistors (FETs), is one of the
cornerstones of current information processing technologies. Spintronics which
is based on manipulating the collective state of electron spins in a
ferromagnet provides complementary technologies for reading magnetic bits or
for the solid-state memories. The integration of these two distinct areas of
microelectronics in one physical element, with a potentially major impact on
the power consumption and scalability of future devices, requires to find
efficient means for controlling magnetization electrically. Current induced
magnetization switching phenomena represent a promising step towards this goal,
however, they relay on relatively large current densities. The direct approach
of controlling the magnetization by low-voltage charge depletion effects is
seemingly unfeasible as the two worlds of semiconductors and metal ferromagnets
are separated by many orders of magnitude in their typical carrier
concentrations. Here we demonstrate that this concept is viable by reporting
persistent magnetization switchings induced by short electrical pulses of a few
volts in an all-semiconductor, ferromagnetic p-n junction.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Microscopic analysis of the valence band and impurity band theories of (Ga,Mn)As
We analyze microscopically the valence and impurity band models of
ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As. We find that the tight-binding Anderson approach with
conventional parameterization and the full potential LDA+U calculations give a
very similar picture of states near the Fermi energy which reside in an
exchange-split sp-d hybridized valence band with dominant orbital character of
the host semiconductor; this microscopic spectral character is consistent with
the physical premise of the k.p kinetic-exchange model. On the other hand, the
various models with a band structure comprising an impurity band detached from
the valence band assume mutually incompatible microscopic spectral character.
By adapting the tight-binding Anderson calculations individually to each of the
impurity band pictures in the single Mn impurity limit and then by exploring
the entire doping range we find that a detached impurity band does not persist
in any of these models in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As.Comment: 29 pages, 25 figure
Enhanced annealing, high Curie temperature and low-voltage gating in (Ga,Mn)As: A surface oxide control study
(Ga,Mn)As and related diluted magnetic semiconductors play a major role in
spintronics research because of their potential to combine ferromagnetism and
semiconducting properties in one physical system. Ferromagnetism requires
~1-10% of substitutional Mn_Ga. Unintentional defects formed during growth at
these high dopings significantly suppress the Curie temperature. We present
experiments in which by etching the (Ga,Mn)As surface oxide we achieve a
dramatic reduction of annealing times necessary to optimize the ferromagnetic
film after growth, and report Curie temperature of 180 K at approximately 8% of
Mn_Ga. Our study elucidates the mechanism controlling the removal of the most
detrimental, interstitial Mn defect. The limits and utility of electrical
gating of the highly-doped (Ga,Mn)As semiconductor are not yet established; so
far electric-field effects have been demonstrated on magnetization with tens of
Volts applied on a top-gate, field effect transistor structure. In the second
part of the paper we present a back-gate, n-GaAs/AlAs/GaMnAs transistor
operating at a few Volts. Inspired by the etching study of (Ga,Mn)As films we
apply the oxide-etching/re-oxidation procedure to reduce the thickness (arial
density of carriers) of the (Ga,Mn)As and observe a large enhancement of the
gating efficiency. We report gatable spintronic characteristics on a series of
anisotropic magnetoresistance measurements.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
The Pauli equation with complex boundary conditions
We consider one-dimensional Pauli Hamiltonians in a bounded interval with
possibly non-self-adjoint Robin-type boundary conditions. We study the
influence of the spin-magnetic interaction on the interplay between the type of
boundary conditions and the spectrum. A special attention is paid to
PT-symmetric boundary conditions with the physical choice of the time-reversal
operator T.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
Parental heights and maternal education as predictors of length/height of children at birth, age 3 and 19 years, independently on diet: the ELSPAC study
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Little is currently known about the relationship between the parental diet during pregnancy and the growth of the child from early childhood until early adulthood. This study was designed to examine whether the dietary patterns of the parents during a pregnancy and of the respective child at 3 years are associated with the length/height-for-age z-score of child at birth, 3 years of age and at 19 years of age. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Dietary patterns of pregnant women and their partners, and offspring at 3 years that were enroled in the 1990-1991 period in the Czech part of the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood. Multivariable linear regression models were used to estimate the relationship between the dietary patterns of parents (835 child-mother-father trios) during pregnancy and the length/height-for-age z-score of their offspring at birth, 3 years and 19 years. RESULTS: The maternal health-conscious food pattern was found to predict lower child height at 3 years, but not at birth nor at 19 years of age. An increase in the health-conscious pattern score of the maternal diet was associated with significantly lower height-for-age z-score at 3 years; however, the observed effect lost its significance after the adjustment for diet of the child at 3 years. CONCLUSIONS: After full adjustment, the only significant predictors of the height-for-age z-score of the child at 3 years were the heights of both parents and maternal education. More research into the association of maternal diet in pregnancy and height of child is necessary.European Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication, 8 February 2017; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2016.244
Analysis of the giant genomes of Fritillaria (Liliaceae) indicates that a lack of DNA removal characterizes extreme expansions in genome size.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Plants exhibit an extraordinary range of genome sizes, varying by > 2000-fold between the smallest and largest recorded values. In the absence of polyploidy, changes in the amount of repetitive DNA (transposable elements and tandem repeats) are primarily responsible for genome size differences between species. However, there is ongoing debate regarding the relative importance of amplification of repetitive DNA versus its deletion in governing genome size. Using data from 454 sequencing, we analysed the most repetitive fraction of some of the largest known genomes for diploid plant species, from members of Fritillaria. We revealed that genomic expansion has not resulted from the recent massive amplification of just a handful of repeat families, as shown in species with smaller genomes. Instead, the bulk of these immense genomes is composed of highly heterogeneous, relatively low-abundance repeat-derived DNA, supporting a scenario where amplified repeats continually accumulate due to infrequent DNA removal. Our results indicate that a lack of deletion and low turnover of repetitive DNA are major contributors to the evolution of extremely large genomes and show that their size cannot simply be accounted for by the activity of a small number of high-abundance repeat families.Thiswork was supported by the Natural Environment ResearchCouncil (grant no. NE/G017 24/1), the Czech Science Fou nda-tion (grant no. P501/12/G090), the AVCR (grant no.RVO:60077344) and a Beatriu de Pinos postdoctoral fellowshipto J.P. (grant no. 2011-A-00292; Catalan Government-E.U. 7thF.P.)
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