2,977 research outputs found
Silicon surface passivation by Al2O3: Recombination parameters and inversion layer solar cells
The interface between p- and n-type FZ-Si and an amorphous aluminum oxide (Al2O3) surface passivation layer deposited by plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition (ALD) was investigated by frequency-dependent conductance measurements. The hole capture cross section in the lower half of the bandgap, σp = (4±3)×10 -16 cm2, was found to be independent of energy. The electron capture cross section σn in the upper half of the bandgap decreases from σn = (7±4)×10-15 cm2 at midgap over two orders of magnitude towards the conduction band edge. Numerical simulations of the effective surface recombination velocity based on these recombination parameters show a good agreement with experimental surface recombination velocities for a wide range of excess carrier and surface charge densities. Carrier transport in the inversion layer formed at the n-Si/Al2O3 interface was investigated yielding a sheet resistance of 15 kΩ/, which was reduced to 6 kΩ/ for a surface charge density of -2×1013 cm-2 obtained by corona charging. The applicability of Al2O3 inversion layers as emitters in n-type inversion layer solar cells was demonstrated by short circuit current densities of up to 25 mA/cm2, which show a pronounced dependence on surface charge density.BMU/032505
Systematic screening of polyphosphate (poly P) levels in yeast mutant cells reveals strong interdependence with primary metabolism
BACKGROUND: Inorganic polyphosphate (poly P) occurs universally in all organisms from bacteria to man. It functions, for example, as a phosphate and energy store, and is involved in the activation and regulation of proteins. Despite its ubiquitous occurrence and important functions, it is unclear how poly P is synthesized or how poly P metabolism is regulated in higher eukaryotes. This work describes a systematic analysis of poly P levels in yeast knockout strains mutated in almost every non-essential gene. RESULTS: After three consecutive screens, 255 genes (almost 4% of the yeast genome) were found to be involved in the maintenance of normal poly P content. Many of these genes encoded proteins functioning in the cytoplasm, the vacuole or in transport and transcription. Besides reduced poly P content, many strains also exhibited reduced total phosphate content, showed altered ATP and glycogen levels and were disturbed in the secretion of acid phosphatase. CONCLUSION: Cellular energy and phosphate homeostasis is suggested to result from the equilibrium between poly P, ATP and free phosphate within the cell. Poly P serves as a buffer for both ATP and free phosphate levels and is, therefore, the least essential and consequently most variable component in this network. However, strains with reduced poly P levels are not only affected in their ATP and phosphate content, but also in other components that depend on ATP or free phosphate content, such as glycogen or secreted phosphatase activity
Threshold resummation for high-transverse-momentum Higgs production at the LHC
We study the resummation of large logarithmic QCD corrections for the process
pp ->H+ X when the Higgs boson H is produced at high transverse momentum. The
corrections arise near the threshold for partonic reaction and originate from
soft gluon emission. We perform the all-order resummation at next-to-leading
logarithmic accuracy and match the resummed result with the next-to-leading
order perturbative predictions. The effect of resummation on the Higgs
transverse momentum distribution at the LHC is discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure
Extraction of Spin-Dependent Parton Densities and Their Uncertainties
We discuss techniques and results for the extraction of the nucleon's
spin-dependent parton distributions and their uncertainties from data for
polarized deep-inelastic lepton-nucleon and proton-proton scattering by means
of a global QCD analysis. Computational methods are described that
significantly increase the speed of the required calculations to a level that
allows to perform the full analysis consistently at next-to-leading order
accuracy. We examine how the various data sets help to constrain different
aspects of the quark, anti-quark, and gluon helicity distributions. Uncertainty
estimates are performed using both the Lagrange multiplier and the Hessian
approaches. We use the extracted parton distribution functions and their
estimated uncertainties to predict spin asymmetries for high-transverse
momentum pion and jet production in polarized proton-proton collisions at 500
GeV center-of-mass system energy at BNL-RHIC, as well as for W boson
production.Comment: 25 pages, 15 eps figures, v2: minor changes, final version to appear
in Phys. Rev.
Joint Resummation for Higgs Production
We study the application of the joint resummation formalism to Higgs
production via gluon-gluon fusion at the LHC, defining inverse transforms by
analytic continuation. We work at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We find
that at low Q_T the resummed Higgs Q_T distributions are comparable in the
joint and pure-Q_T formalisms, with relatively small influence from threshold
enhancement in this range. We find a modest (about ten percent) decrease in the
inclusive cross section, relative to pure threshold resummation.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures as eps file
Substrate induced nanoscale resistance variation in epitaxial graphene
Graphene, the first true two-dimensional material, still reveals the most remarkable transport properties among the growing class of two-dimensional materials. Although many studies have investigated fundamental scattering processes, the surprisingly large variation in the experimentally determined resistances is still an open issue. Here, we quantitatively investigate local transport properties of graphene prepared by polymer assisted sublimation growth using scanning tunneling potentiometry. These samples exhibit a spatially homogeneous current density, which allows to analyze variations in the local electrochemical potential with high precision. We utilize this possibility by examining the local sheet resistance finding a significant variation of up to 270% at low temperatures. We identify a correlation of the sheet resistance with the stacking sequence of the 6H silicon carbide substrate and with the distance between the graphene and the substrate. Our results experimentally quantify the impact of the graphene-substrate interaction on the local transport properties of graphene
Reflections upon separability and distillability
We present an abstract formulation of the so-called Innsbruck-Hannover
programme that investigates quantum correlations and entanglement in terms of
convex sets. We present a unified description of optimal decompositions of
quantum states and the optimization of witness operators that detect whether a
given state belongs to a given convex set. We illustrate the abstract
formulation with several examples, and discuss relations between optimal
entanglement witnesses and n-copy non-distillable states with non-positive
partial transpose.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, proceedings of the ESF QIT Conference Gdansk,
July 2001, submitted to special issue of J. Mod. Op
TGF-β inhibitor Smad7 regulates dendritic cell-induced autoimmunity
TGF-β is an anti-inflammatory cytokine whose signaling is negatively controlled by Smad7. Previously, we established a role for Smad7 in the generation of autoreactive T cells; however, the function of Smad7 in dendritic cells (DCs) remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate that DC-specific Smad7 deficiency resulted in elevated expression of the transcription factors Batf3 and IRF8, leading to increased frequencies of CD8(+)CD103(+) DCs in the spleen. Furthermore, Smad7-deficient DCs expressed higher levels of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), an enzyme associated with tolerance induction. Mice devoid of Smad7 specifically in DCs are resistant to the development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) as a result of an increase of protective regulatory T cells (Tregs) and reduction of encephalitogenic effector T cells in the central nervous system. In agreement, inhibition of IDO activity or depletion of Tregs restored disease susceptibility. Intriguingly, when Smad7-deficient DCs also lacked the IFN-γ receptor, the mice regained susceptibility to EAE, demonstrating that IFN-γ signaling in DCs mediates their tolerogenic function. Our data indicate that Smad7 expression governs splenic DC subset differentiation and is critical for the promotion of their efficient function in immunity
Next-to-leading order QCD evolution of transversity fragmentation functions
We derive the next-to-leading order splitting kernels for the scale evolution
of fragmentation functions for transversely polarized quarks into transversely
polarized hadrons.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe
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