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Development of Key Technologies for White Lighting Based on Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
This program was organized to focus on materials development issues critical to the acceleration of solid-state lighting, and was split into three major thrust areas: (1) study of dislocation density reduction for GaN grown on sapphire using 'cantilever epitaxy', and the impact of dislocation density on the performance of state-of-the-art high-power LEDs; (2) the evaluation of in situ techniques for monitoring gas phase chemistry and the properties of GaN-based layers during metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOCVD), and (3) feasibility for using semiconductor nanoparticles ('quantum dots') for the down-conversion of blue or ultraviolet light to generate white light. The program included a partnership between Lumileds Lighting (epitaxy and device fabrication for high power LEDs) and Sandia National Laboratories (cantilever epitaxy, gas phase chemistry, and quantum dot synthesis). Key findings included: (1) cantilever epitaxy can provide dislocation density reduction comparable to that of more complicated approaches, but all in one epitaxial growth step; however, further improvements are required to realize significant gains in LED performance at high drive currents, (2) in situ tools can provide detailed knowledge about gas phase chemistry, and can be used to monitor and control epitaxial layer composition and temperature to provide improved yields (e.g., a fivefold increase in color targeting is demonstrated for 540nm LEDs), and (3) quantum efficiency for quantum dots is improved and maintained up to 70% in epoxy thin films, but further work is necessary to increase densification (absorption) and robustness before practical application to LEDs
Cross-species comparative analysis of Dicer proteins during Sindbis virus infection
In plants and invertebrates RNA silencing is a major defense mechanism against virus infections. The first event in RNA silencing is dicing of long double stranded RNAs into small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). The Dicer proteins involved in this process are phylogenetically conserved and have the same domain organization. Accordingly, the production of viral derived siRNAs has also been observed in the mouse, but only in restricted cell types. To gain insight on this restriction, we compare the dicing activity of human Dicer and fly Dicer-2 in the context of Sindbis virus (SINV) infection. Expression of human Dicer in flies inefficiently rescues the production of viral siRNAs but confers some protection against SINV. Conversely, expression of Dicer-2 in human cells allows the production of viral 21 nt small RNAs. However, this does not confer resistance to viral infection, but on the contrary results in stronger accumulation of viral RNA. We further show that Dicer-2 expression in human cells perturbs interferon (IFN) signaling pathways and antagonizes protein kinase R (PKR)-mediated antiviral immunity. Overall, our data suggest that a functional incompatibility between the Dicer and IFN pathways explains the predominance of the IFN response in mammalian somatic cells