179 research outputs found
Introduction to Tapestries Volume 7: Breaking the Shackles of Silence: Knowledge Production as Activism and Resistance
Introduction to volume 7 of Macalester College\u27s journal Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities
Large-area van der Waals epitaxy and magnetic characterization of Fe3GeTe2films on graphene
Scalable fabrication of magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures constitutes a crucial step for scaling down current spintronic devices and the development of novel spintronic applications. Here, we report on van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy of the layered magnetic metal Fe3GeTe2 (FGT) - a 2D crystal with highly tunable properties and a high prospect for room temperature ferromagnetism (FM) - directly on graphene by employing molecular beam epitaxy. Morphological and structural characterization confirmed the realization of large-area, continuous FGT/graphene heterostructure films with stable interfaces and good crystalline quality. Furthermore, magneto-transport and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism investigations confirmed a robust out-of-plane FM in the layers, comparable to state-of-the-art exfoliated flakes from bulk crystals. These results are highly relevant for further research on wafer-scale growth of vdW heterostructures combining FGT with other layered crystals such as transition metal dichalcogenides for the realization of multifunctional, atomically thin devices.They also acknowledge the provision of beamtime under the project HC-4068 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), located in Grenoble (France). ICN2 researchers acknowledge support from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 881603 (Graphene Flagship)
Control of oxygen vacancy ordering in brownmillerite thin films via ionic liquid gating
Oxygen defects and their atomic arrangements play a significant role in the physical properties of many transition metal oxides. The exemplary perovskite SrCoO3-δ (P-SCO) is metallic and ferromagnetic. However, its daughter phase, the brownmillerite SrCoO2.5 (BM-SCO), is insulating and an antiferromagnet. Moreover, BM-SCO exhibits oxygen vacancy channels (OVCs) that in thin films can be oriented either horizontally (H-SCO) or vertically (V-SCO) to the film’s surface. To date, the orientation of these OVCs has been manipulated by control of the thin film deposition parameters or by using a substrate-induced strain. Here, we present a method to electrically control the OVC ordering in thin layers via ionic liquid gating (ILG). We show that H-SCO (antiferromagnetic insulator, AFI) can be converted to P-SCO (ferromagnetic metal, FM) and subsequently to V-SCO (AFI) by the insertion and subtraction of oxygen throughout thick films via ILG. Moreover, these processes are independent of substrate-induced strain which favors formation of H-SCO in the as-deposited film. The electric-field control of the OVC channels is a path toward the creation of oxitronic devices
Large-area van der Waals epitaxy and magnetic characterization of Fe3GeTe2films on graphene
Scalable fabrication of magnetic 2D materials and heterostructures constitutes a crucial step for scaling down current spintronic devices and the development of novel spintronic applications. Here, we report on van der Waals (vdW) epitaxy of the layered magnetic metal Fe3GeTe2 (FGT) - a 2D crystal with highly tunable properties and a high prospect for room temperature ferromagnetism (FM) - directly on graphene by employing molecular beam epitaxy. Morphological and structural characterization confirmed the realization of large-area, continuous FGT/graphene heterostructure films with stable interfaces and good crystalline quality. Furthermore, magneto-transport and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism investigations confirmed a robust out-of-plane FM in the layers, comparable to state-of-the-art exfoliated flakes from bulk crystals. These results are highly relevant for further research on wafer-scale growth of vdW heterostructures combining FGT with other layered crystals such as transition metal dichalcogenides for the realization of multifunctional, atomically thin devices
Large-area synthesis of ferromagnetic FeGeTe/graphene van der Waals heterostructures with Curie temperature above room temperature
Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures combining layered ferromagnets and other
two-dimensional (2D) crystals are promising building blocks for the realization
of ultra-compact devices with integrated magnetic, electronic and optical
functionalities. Their implementation in various technologies depends strongly
on the development of a bottom-up scalable synthesis approach allowing to
realize highly uniform heterostructures with well-defined interfaces between
different 2D layered materials. It also requires that each material component
of the heterostructure remains functional, which ideally includes ferromagnetic
order above room temperature for 2D ferromagnets. Here, we demonstrate
large-area growth of FeGeTe/graphene heterostructures achieved by
vdW epitaxy of FeGeTe on epitaxial graphene. Structural
characterization confirmed the realization of a continuous vdW heterostructure
film with a sharp interface between FeGeTe and graphene. Magnetic
and transport studies revealed that the ferromagnetic order persists well above
300 K with a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. In addition, epitaxial graphene
on SiC(0001) continues to exhibit a high electronic quality. These results
represent an important advance beyond non-scalable flake exfoliation and
stacking methods, thus marking a crucial step toward the implementation of
ferromagnetic 2D materials in practical applications
Improved gut microbiome recovery following drug therapy is linked to abundance and replication of probiotic strains
Probiotics have been used for decades to alleviate the negative side-effects of oral antibiotics, but our mechanistic understanding on how they work is so far incomplete. Here, we performed a metagenomic analysis of the fecal microbiota in participants who underwent a 14-d Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy with or without consumption of a multi-strain probiotic intervention (L. paracasei CNCM I-1518, L. paracasei CNCM I-3689, L. rhamnosus CNCM I-3690, and four yogurt strains) in a randomized, double-blinded, controlled clinical trial. Using a strain-level analysis for detection and metagenomic determination of replication rate, ingested strains were detected and replicated transiently in fecal samples and in the gut during and following antibiotic administration. Consumption of the fermented milk product led to a significant, although modest, improvement in the recovery of microbiota composition. Stratification of participants into two groups based on the degree to which their microbiome recovered showed i) a higher fecal abundance of the probiotic L. paracasei and L. rhamnosus strains and ii) an elevated replication rate of one strain (L. paracasei CNCMI-1518) in the recovery group. Collectively, our findings show a small but measurable benefit of a fermented milk product on microbiome recovery after antibiotics, which was linked to the detection and replication of specific probiotic strains. Such functional insight can form the basis for the development of probiotic-based intervention aimed to protect gut microbiome from drug treatments
Induction of cancer-specific cytotoxicity towards human prostate and skin cells using quercetin and ultrasound
Bioflavonoids, such as quercetin, have recently emerged as a new class of chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of various cancer types, but are marred by their low potency and poor selectivity. We report that a short application of low-frequency ultrasound selectively sensitises prostate and skin cancer cells against quercetin. Pretreatment of cells with ultrasound (20 kHz, 2 W cm−2, 60 s) selectively induced cytotoxicity in skin and prostate cancer cells, while having minimal effect on corresponding normal cell lines. About 90% of the viable skin cancer cell population was lost within 48 h after ultrasound-quercetin (50 μM) treatment. Ultrasound reduced the LC50 of quercetin for skin cancer cells by almost 80-fold, while showing no effect on LC50 for nonmalignant skin cells
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