1,115 research outputs found
Negative thermal expansion in the Prussian Blue analog Zn3[Fe(CN)6]2: X-ray diffraction and neutron vibrational studies
The cubic Prussian Blue (PB) analog, Zn3 [Fe(CN)6]2, has been studied by
X-ray powder diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering (INS). X-ray data
collected at 300 and 84 K revealed negative thermal expansion (NTE) behaviour
for this material. The NTE coefficient was found to be -31.1 x 10-6 K-1. The
neutron vibrational spectrum for Zn3[Fe(CN)6]2.xH2O, was studied in detail. The
INS spectrum showed well-defined, well-separated bands corresponding to the
stretching of and deformation modes of the Fe and Zn octahedra, all below 800
cm-1.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Neutron Scattering to Characterize Cu/Mg(Li) Destabilized Hydrogen Storage Materials
Cu-Li-Mg-(H,D) was studied as an example of destabilizer of the Ti-(H,D) system. A Cu-Li-Mg alloy was prepared resulting in the formation of a system with 60.5 at% of CuLi0.08Mg1.92, 23.9 at% of CuMg 2 and 15.6 at% of Cu2Mg. Titanium was added to a fraction of this mixture so that 68.2 at% (47.3 wt%) of the final mixture was Ti. The mixture was ground and kept at 200 °C/473 K for 7h under H2 or 9h under D2 at P = 34 bar. Under those conditions, neutron powder diffraction shows the formation of TiD2, as well as of the deuteride of CuLi0.08Mg1.92. Similarly inelastic neutron scattering shows that at 10 K TiH2 is present in the sample, together with the hydride of CuLi0.08Mg1.92. Interestingly, at 10 K TiH 2 is very clearly detected and at 300 K TiH2 is still clearly present as indicated by the neutron vibrational spectrum, but CuLi 0.08Mg1.92-H is not detected anymore. These results indicate that Ti(H,D)2 is possibly formed by diffusion of hydrogen from the Cu-Li-Mg-(H,D) alloys. This is an intriguing result since TiH 2 is normally synthesized from the metal at T > 400°C/673 K (and most commonly at T ∼ 700 °C/973 K). In the presence of CuLi 0.08Mg1.92, TiH2 forms at a temperature that is 300 - 400 K lower than that needed to synthesize it just from the elements
Microwave vortex dynamics in Tl-2212 thin films
We present measurements of the effective surface impedance changes due to a
static magnetic field, \Delta Z(H,T)=\Delta R(H,T)+\rmi \Delta X(H,T), in a
Tl-2212 thin film with 103 K, grown on a CeO buffered sapphire
substrate. Measurements were performed through a dielectric resonator operating
at 47.7 GHz, for temperatures 60 K and magnetic fields T.
We observe exceptionally large field induced variations and pronounced
super-linear field dependencies in both and with
in almost the whole range explored. A careful
analysis of the data allows for an interpretation of these results as dominated
by vortex dynamics. In the intermediate-high field range we extract the main
vortex parameters by resorting to standard high frequency model and by taking
into proper account the creep contribution. The pinning constant shows a marked
decrease with the field which can be interpreted in terms of flux lines
softening associated to an incipient layer decoupling. Small vortex viscosity,
by an order of magnitude lower than in Y-123 are found. Some speculations about
these findings are provided.Comment: pdfTeX, 4 pages, 3 figures, VORTEX 2007 proceedings, to appear in
Physica
Immunological and Clinical Effects of Vaccines Targeting p53-Overexpressing Malignancies
Approximately 50% of human malignancies carry p53 mutations, which makes it a potential antigenic target for cancer immunotherapy. Adoptive transfer with p53-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) and CD4+ T-helper cells eradicates p53-overexpressing tumors in mice. Furthermore, p53 antibodies and p53-specific CTLs can be detected in cancer patients, indicating that p53 is immunogenic. Based on these results, clinical trials were initiated. In this paper, we review immunological and clinical responses observed in cancer patients vaccinated with p53 targeting vaccines. In most trials, p53-specific vaccine-induced immunological responses were observed. Unfortunately, no clinical responses with significant reduction of tumor-burden have occurred. We will elaborate on possible explanations for this lack of clinical effectiveness. In the second part of this paper, we summarize several immunopotentiating combination strategies suitable for clinical use. In our opinion, future p53-vaccine studies should focus on addition of these immunopotentiating regimens to achieve clinically effective therapeutic vaccination strategies for cancer patients
Anharmonicity of flux lattices and thermal fluctuations in layered superconductors
We study elasticity of a perpendicular flux lattice in a layered
superconductor with Josephson coupling between layers. We find that the energy
contains ln(flux displacement) terms, so that elastic constants cannot be
strictly defined. Instead we define effective elastic constants by a thermal
average. The tilt modulus has terms with ln(T) which for weak fields, i.e.
Josephson length smaller than the flux line spacing, lead to displacement
square average proportional to T/ln(T). The expansion parameter indicates that
the dominant low temperature phase transition is either layer decoupling at
high fields or melting at low fields.Comment: 15 pages, 2 eps figures, Revtex, submitted to Phys. Rev. B.
Sunj-class: superconductivit
Disorder Induced Transitions in Layered Coulomb Gases and Superconductors
A 3D layered system of charges with logarithmic interaction parallel to the
layers and random dipoles is studied via a novel variational method and an
energy rationale which reproduce the known phase diagram for a single layer.
Increasing interlayer coupling leads to successive transitions in which charge
rods correlated in N>1 neighboring layers are nucleated by weaker disorder. For
layered superconductors in the limit of only magnetic interlayer coupling, the
method predicts and locates a disorder-induced defect-unbinding transition in
the flux lattice. While N=1 charges dominate there, N>1 disorder induced defect
rods are predicted for multi-layer superconductors.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, RevTe
Phase Transitions of the Flux Line Lattice in High-Temperature Superconductors with Weak Columnar and Point Disorder
We study the effects of weak columnar and point disorder on the
vortex-lattice phase transitions in high temperature superconductors. The
combined effect of thermal fluctuations and of quenched disorder is
investigated using a simplified cage model. For columnar disorder the problem
maps into a quantum particle in a harmonic + random potential. We use the
variational approximation to show that columnar and point disorder have
opposite effect on the position of the melting line as observed experimentally.
Replica symmetry breaking plays a role at the transition into a vortex glass at
low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages in 2 columns format + 2 eps figs included, uses RevTeX and
multicol.st
Josephson Plasma Resonance in with Spatially Dependent Interlayer-Phase Coherence
We study the Josephson plasma resonance (JPR) in
BiSrCaCuO (BSCCO) with spatially dependent interlayer-phase
coherence (IPC). The half-irradiated BSCCO (HI-BSCCO), in which columnar
defects are introduced only in a half of the sample, shows several resonance
peaks, which are not simple superposition of the peaks in irradiated- and
pristine-parts. JPR in HI-BSCCO changes its character from irradiated- to
pristine-type at a crossover frequency (). We demonstrate that the
one-dimensional \LSGE, which takes into account the spatial dependence of IPC,
can reproduce most of the experimental findings including the presence of
.Comment: 4 figure
Vortex shear effects in layered superconductors
Motivated by recent transport and magnetization measurements in BSCCO samples
[B. Khaykovich et. al., Phys. Rev. B 61, R9261 (2000)], we present a simple
macroscopic model describing effects of inhomogeneous current distribution and
shear in a layered superconductor. Parameters of the model are deduced from a
microscopic calculation. Our model accounts for the strong current
non-linearities and the re-entrant temperature dependence observed in the
experiment.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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