1,305 research outputs found
Ferroelectricity and structure of BaTiO3 grown on YBa2Cu3O7-d thin films
We have investigated the crystal structure and the ferroelectric properties
of BaTiO3 thin films with YBa2Cu3O7-d as the bottom and Au as the top
electrode. Epitaxial heterostructures of YBa2Cu3O7-d and BaTiO3 were prepared
by dc and rf sputtering, respectively. The crystal structure of the films was
characterised by x-ray diffraction. The ferroelectric behaviour of the BaTiO3
films was confirmed by hysteresis loop measurements using a Sawyer Tower
circuit. We obtain a coercive field of 30 kV/cm and a remanent polarisation of
1.25 \muC/cm. At sub-switching fields the capacitance of the films obeys a
relation analogous to the Rayleigh law. This behaviour indicates an interaction
of domain walls with randomly distributed pinning centres. At a field of 5 MV/m
we calculate 3% contribution of irreversible domain wall motion to the total
dielectric constant.Comment: 12 pages and 9 figure
PPM-Extended (PPMX) - a catalogue of positions and proper motions
Aims: We build a catalogue PPM-Extended (PPMX) on the ICRS system which is
complete down to a well-defined limiting magnitude and contains the best
presently available proper motions to be suited for kinematical studies in the
Galaxy.
Methods: We perform a rigorous weighted least-squares adjustment of
individual observations, spread over more than a century, to determine mean
positions and proper motions. The stellar content of PPMX is taken from GSC 1.2
supplemented by catalogues like ARIHIP, PPM and Tycho-2 at the bright end. All
observations have been weighted according to their individual accuracy. The
catalogue has been screened towards rejecting false entries in the various
source catalogues.
Results: PPM-Extended (PPMX) is a catalogue of 18,088,920 stars containing
astrometric and photometric information. Its limiting magnitude is about 15.2
in the GSC photometric system. PPMX consists of three parts: a) a survey
complete down to R_U = 12.8 in the magnitude system of UCAC2; b) additional
stars of high-precision proper motions, and c) all other stars from GSC 1.2
identified in 2MASS. The typical accuracy of the proper motions is 2mas/y for
66 percent of the survey stars (a) and the high-precision stars (b), and about
10 mas/y for all other stars. PPMX contains photometric information from
ASCC-2.5 and 2MASS.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Electrical properties of breast cancer cells from impedance measurement of cell suspensions
Impedance spectroscopy of biological cells has been used to monitor cell status, e.g. cell proliferation, viability, etc. It is also a fundamental method for the study of the electrical properties of cells which has been utilised for cell identification in investigations of cell behaviour in the presence of an applied electric field, e.g. electroporation. There are two standard methods for impedance measurement on cells. The use of microelectrodes for single cell impedance measurement is one method to realise the measurement, but the variations between individual cells introduce significant measurement errors. Another method to measure electrical properties is by the measurement of cell suspensions, i.e. a group of cells within a culture medium or buffer. This paper presents an investigation of the impedance of normal and cancerous breast cells in suspension using the Maxwell-Wagner mixture theory to analyse the results and extract the electrical parameters of a single cell. The results show that normal and different stages of cancer breast cells can be distinguished by the conductivity presented by each cell. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd
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