174 research outputs found
Spin-transfer in an open ferromagnetic layer: from negative damping to effective temperature
Spin-transfer is a typical spintronics effect that allows a ferromagnetic
layer to be switched by spin-injection. Most of the experimental results about
spin transfer are described on the basis of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert
equation of the magnetization, in which additional current-dependent damping
factors are added, and can be positive or negative. The origin of the damping
can be investigated further by performing stochastic experiments, like one shot
relaxation experiments under spin-injection in the activation regime of the
magnetization. In this regime, the N\'eel-Brown activation law is observed
which leads to the introduction of a current-dependent effective temperature.
In order to justify the introduction of these counterintuitive parameters
(effective temperature and negative damping), a detailed thermokinetic analysis
of the different sub-systems involved is performed. We propose a thermokinetic
description of the different forms of energy exchanged between the electric and
the ferromagnetic sub-systems at a Normal/Ferromagnetic junction. The
corresponding Fokker Planck equations, including relaxations, are derived. The
damping coefficients are studied in terms of Onsager-Casimir transport
coefficients, with the help of the reciprocity relations. The effective
temperature is deduced in the activation regime.Comment: 65 pages, 10 figure
Fermi-Edge Singularities in AlxGa1-xAs Quantum Wells : Extrinsic Versus Many-Body Scattering Processes
A Fano resonance mechanism is evidenced to control the formation of optical
Fermi-edge singularities in multi-subband systems such as remotely doped
AlxGa1-xAs heterostructures. Using Fano parameters, we probe the physical
nature of the interaction between Fermi-sea electrons and empty conduction
subbands. We show that processes of extrinsic origin like alloy-disorder
prevail easily at 2D over multiple diffusions from charged valence holes
expected by many-body scenarios.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Spatiotemporal PET reconstruction using ML-EM with learned diffeomorphic deformation
Patient movement in emission tomography deteriorates reconstruction quality
because of motion blur. Gating the data improves the situation somewhat: each
gate contains a movement phase which is approximately stationary. A standard
method is to use only the data from a few gates, with little movement between
them. However, the corresponding loss of data entails an increase of noise.
Motion correction algorithms have been implemented to take into account all the
gated data, but they do not scale well, especially not in 3D. We propose a
novel motion correction algorithm which addresses the scalability issue. Our
approach is to combine an enhanced ML-EM algorithm with deep learning based
movement registration. The training is unsupervised, and with artificial data.
We expect this approach to scale very well to higher resolutions and to 3D, as
the overall cost of our algorithm is only marginally greater than that of a
standard ML-EM algorithm. We show that we can significantly decrease the noise
corresponding to a limited number of gates
Diverse and productive source of biopolymer inspiration: marine collagens
Marine biodiversity is expressed through the huge variety of vertebrate and invertebrate species inhabiting intertidal to deep-sea environments. The extraordinary variety of â forms and functionsâ  exhibited by marine animals suggests they are a promising source of bioactive molecules and provides potential inspiration for different biomimetic approaches. This diversity is familiar to biologists and has led to intensive investigation of metabolites, polysaccharides, and other compounds. However, marine collagens are less well-known. This review will provide detailed insight into the diversity of collagens present in marine species in terms of their genetics, structure, properties, and physiology. In the last part of the review the focus will be on the most common marine collagen sources and on the latest advances in the development of innovative materials exploiting, or inspired by, marine collagens.The authors are grateful for the financial support from
European Union, under the scope of European Regional
Development Fund((ERDF) through the POCTEP project
0687_NOVOMAR_1_P and Structured Project NORTE-01-
0145-FEDER-000021 and from the Portuguese Foundation for
Science and Technology (FCT), under the scope of the
BiogenInk project (M-ERA-NET2/0022/2016) and from the
European Cooperation in Science & Technology program (EU
COST). Grant title: “Stem cells of marine/aquatic inverte brates: from basic research to innovative applications”
(MARISTEM). MSR acknowledges FCT for the Ph.D.
scholarship (PD/BD/143091/2018)
Spin relaxation in low-dimensional systems
We review some of the newest findings on the spin dynamics of carriers and
excitons in GaAs/GaAlAs quantum wells. In intrinsic wells, where the optical
properties are dominated by excitonic effects, we show that exciton-exciton
interaction produces a breaking of the spin degeneracy in two-dimensional
semiconductors. In doped wells, the two spin components of an optically created
two-dimensional electron gas are well described by Fermi-Dirac distributions
with a common temperature but different chemical potentials. The rate of the
spin depolarization of the electron gas is found to be independent of the mean
electron kinetic energy but accelerated by thermal spreading of the carriers.Comment: 1 PDF file, 13 eps figures, Proceedings of the 1998 International
Workshop on Nanophysics and Electronics (NPE-98)- Lecce (Italy
Energy spectra of fractional quantum Hall systems in the presence of a valence hole
The energy spectrum of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the
fractional quantum Hall regime interacting with an optically injected valence
band hole is studied as a function of the filling factor and the
separation between the electron and hole layers. The response of the 2DEG
to the hole changes abruptly at of the order of the magnetic length
. At , the hole binds electrons to form neutral () or
charged () excitons, and the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum probes the
lifetimes and binding energies of these states rather than the original
correlations of the 2DEG. The ``dressed exciton'' picture (in which the
interaction between an exciton and the 2DEG was proposed to merely enhance the
exciton mass) is questioned. Instead, the low energy states are explained in
terms of Laughlin correlations between the constituent fermions (electrons and
's) and the formation of two-component incompressible fluid states in the
electron--hole plasma. At , the hole binds up to two Laughlin
quasielectrons (QE) of the 2DEG to form fractionally charged excitons
QE. The previously found ``anyon exciton'' QE is shown to be
unstable at any value of . The critical dependence of the stability of
different QE complexes on the presence of QE's in the 2DEG leads to the
observed discontinuity of the PL spectrum at or .Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PR
Photoluminescence investigations of 2D hole Landau levels in p-type single Al_{x}Ga_{1-x}As/GaAs heterostructures
We study the energy structure of two-dimensional holes in p-type single
Al_{1-x}Ga_{x}As/GaAs heterojunctions under a perpendicular magnetic field.
Photoluminescence measurments with low densities of excitation power reveal
rich spectra containing both free and bound-carrier transitions. The
experimental results are compared with energies of valence-subband Landau
levels calculated using a new numerical procedure and a good agreement is
achieved. Additional lines observed in the energy range of free-carrier
recombinations are attributed to excitonic transitions. We also consider the
role of many-body effects in photoluminescence spectra.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, accepted to Physical Review
Spin Caloritronics
This is a brief overview of the state of the art of spin caloritronics, the
science and technology of controlling heat currents by the electron spin degree
of freedom (and vice versa).Comment: To be published in "Spin Current", edited by S. Maekawa, E. Saitoh,
S. Valenzuela and Y. Kimura, Oxford University Pres
Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Autoimmunity: A French Cohort Study
Background and ObjectivesTo report the clinical, biological, and imaging features and clinical course of a French cohort of patients with glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) autoantibodies.MethodsWe retrospectively included all patients who tested positive for GFAP antibodies in the CSF by immunohistochemistry and confirmed by cell-based assay using cells expressing human GFAPα since 2017 from 2 French referral centers.ResultsWe identified 46 patients with GFAP antibodies. Median age at onset was 43 years, and 65% were men. Infectious prodromal symptoms were found in 82%. Other autoimmune diseases were found in 22% of patients, and coexisting neural autoantibodies in 11%. Tumors were present in 24%, and T-cell dysfunction in 23%. The most frequent presentation was subacute meningoencephalitis (85%), with cerebellar dysfunction in 57% of cases. Other clinical presentations included myelitis (30%) and visual (35%) and peripheral nervous system involvement (24%). MRI showed perivascular radial enhancement in 32%, periventricular T2 hyperintensity in 41%, brainstem involvement in 31%, leptomeningeal enhancement in 26%, and reversible splenial lesions in 4 cases. A total of 33 of 40 patients had a monophasic course, associated with a good outcome at last follow-up (Rankin Score ≤2: 89%), despite a severe clinical presentation. Adult and pediatric features are similar. Thirty-two patients were treated with immunotherapy. A total of 11/22 patients showed negative conversion of GFAP antibodies.DiscussionGFAP autoimmunity is mainly associated with acute/subacute meningoencephalomyelitis with prodromal symptoms, for which tumors and T-cell dysfunction are frequent triggers. The majority of patients followed a monophasic course with a good outcome
- …