FeII4L4 Tetrahedron Binds to Nonpaired DNA Bases.

A water-soluble self-assembled supramolecular FeII4L4 tetrahedron binds to single stranded DNA, mismatched DNA base pairs, and three-way DNA junctions. Binding of the coordination cage quenches fluorescent labels on the DNA strand, which provides an optical means to detect the interaction and allows the position of the binding site to be gauged with respect to the fluorescent label. Utilizing the quenching and binding properties of the coordination cage, we developed a simple and rapid detection method based on fluorescence quenching to detect unpaired bases in double-stranded DNA.The authors acknowledge support from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC EP/M008258/1, EPSRC EP/P027067/1, and EPSRC EP/L015978/1). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 64219

Blistering of magnetron sputtered thin film CdTe devices

Magnetron sputtering is an industrially scalable technique for thin film deposition. It provides excellent coating uniformity and the deposition can be conducted at relatively low substrate temperatures. It is widely used in the manufacture of solar modules. However, its use for the deposition of thin film CdTe devices results in unusual problems. Blisters appear on the surface of the device and voids occur in the CdTe absorber. These problems appear after the cadmium chloride activation treatment. The voids often occur at the CdS/CdTe interface causing catastrophic delamination. This problem has been known for more than 25 years, but the mechanisms leading to blistering have not been understood. Using High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy we have discovered that during the activation process, argon trapped during the sputtering process diffuses in the lattice to form gas bubbles. The gas bubbles grow by agglomeration particularly at grain boundaries and at interfaces. The growth of the bubbles eventually leads to void formation and blistering

Activation of thin film CdTe solar cells using a cadmium bromide treatment

The activation of CdTe with a cadmium chloride annealing treatment is a vital step in the fabrication of high efficiency solar cells. Thin film MZO/CdTe cells have been activated using CdBr2 instead of CdCl2 with a lower activation process temperature. Using this method, CdBr2 does activate the cell as revealed by J-V and EQE measurements. TEM and EDX elemental maps from device cross-sections confirm that bromine is present in the grain boundaries. TEM shows that the treatment removes stacking faults at 425 °C. CdBr2 treatment resulted in a relatively modest conversion efficiency of 5.49% when treated at 375 °C. Nevertheless, the experiments shed further light on the mechanisms involved in the activation

Mainstreaming climate change education in UK higher education institutions

Key messages: • Mainstreaming Climate Change Education (CCE) across all learning and operational activities enables Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to better serve their core purpose of preparing learners for their roles in work and wider society, now and in the future. • Student and employer demand for climate change education is growing, not just in specialist subjects but across all degree pathways. • The attitudes, mindsets, values and behaviours that graduates need to engage with climate change include the ability to deal with complexity, work collaboratively across sectors and disciplines and address challenging ethical questions. • The complexity of the climate crisis means all disciplines have a role to play in delivering education for the net-zero transition. Embedding interdisciplinarity is crucial to ensuring that our response to climate change makes use of all of the expertise HEIs have to offer and promotes knowledge exchange and integration for students and staff. • Student-centered CCE, including peer-to-peer learning, is a powerful tool for facilitating an inclusive and empowering learning experience, and developing graduates as change agents for the climate and ecological crisis. • HEIs should develop learning outcomes for CCE that include understanding the scale, urgency, causes, consequences and solutions of climate change; how social norms and practices are driving the climate crisis; and the ability to identify routes to direct involvement in solutions via every discipline. • Pedagogical approaches to teaching CCE should enable learners to engage with, and respond to, climate change as a “real-world” problem, such as through experiential learning. • Further recommendations for the HEI sector include developing a strategy for aligning CCE teaching provision with governance structures; partnering with industry, government and third sector organisations to enable context-specific CCE; and working with trade unions and accreditation bodies to enable curriculum reform

Mainstreaming Climate Change Education in UK Higher Education Institutions

Key messages• Mainstreaming Climate Change Education (CCE) across all learning and operational activities enables Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to better serve their core purpose of preparing learners for their roles in work and wider society, now and in the future.• Student and employer demand for climate change education is growing, not just in specialist subjects but across all degree pathways.• The attitudes, mindsets, values and behaviours that graduates need to engage with climate change include the ability to deal with complexity, work collaboratively across sectors and disciplines and address challenging ethical questions.• The complexity of the climate crisis means all disciplines have a role to play in delivering education for the net-zero transition. Embedding interdisciplinarity is crucial to ensuring that our response to climate change makes use of all of the expertise HEIs have to offer and promotes knowledge exchange and integration for students and staff.• Student-centered CCE, including peer-to-peer learning, is a powerful tool for facilitating an inclusive and empowering learning experience, and developing graduates as change agents for the climate and ecological crisis.• HEIs should develop learning outcomes for CCE that include understanding the scale, urgency, causes, consequences and solutions of climate change; how social norms and practices are driving the climate crisis; and the ability to identify routes to direct involvement in solutions via every discipline.• Pedagogical approaches to teaching CCE should enable learners to engage with, and respond to, climate change as a “real-world” problem, such as through experiential learning.• Further recommendations for the HEI sector include developing a strategy for aligning CCE teaching provision with governance structures; partnering with industry, government and third sector organisations to enable context-specific CCE; and working with trade unions and accreditation bodies to enable curriculum reform

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

High rate deposition of CdSe thin films by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering

The efficiency of cadmium telluride solar cells has recently been increased by adding selenium as a CdSeTe alloy at the front of the device. In this paper, we report on the use of pulsed dc magnetron sputtering to deposit thin films of Cadmium Selenide from a compound target. The deposition rates are surprisingly high and exceed 10nm/sec at a power of only 1. SkW on a 6 inch diameter target. The deposited thin films are dense and columnar. The thin films have been characterized using xRay diffraction, UV-vis Spectrophotometry, SEM, and Hall effect to analyse the structural, optical and electrical properties. Magnetron sputtering is widely used in thin film manufacturing and the high rates reported here make the use of pulsed dc sputtering an attractive industrial production technique for CdSe deposition in the CdSeTe device stack

Comparison of Cadmium Selenide Thin Films deposited by chemical bath and pulsed DC sputtering for use in Cadmium Telluride devices

Cadmium selenide (CdSe) thin films deposited using chemical bath deposition and pulsed DC magnetron sputtering are compared for use in cadmium telluride/selenide (CST) photovoltaic (PV) devices. Full devices were made from the bath and sputtered films using a cadmium chloride (CdCl2) treatment temperature of 425°C, this gave an overall efficiency of 9.3% and 3.2% respectively. Photoluminescence (PL) of the sputtered sample confirmed a bandgap was present of 1.58 eV which suggested poor diffusion at 425°C. A (CdCl2) treatment temperature of 465°C gave a large PL peak at 1.37 eV which corresponds to the bandgap of CST, indicating diffusion was more effective at this temperature.</div