The Phototroph

Le silicium (100), nettoyé dans une enceinte ultravide, est caractérisé par spectroscopie Auger et diffraction d'électrons de très faible énergie. A partir d'un échantillon propre (diagramme de diffraction Si(100) 2 x 1, spectre Auger ne contenant que les transitions relatives au silicium en liaison 4-Si), l'oxydation est conduite in situ sous basse pression d'oxygène. L'examen des spectres Auger renseigne sur la nature et sur l'épaisseur des couches d'oxyde, dans la gamme de quelques Å à 30 Å. Une évaporation métallique permet de réaliser des structures MOS sans remise à l'air de l'échantillon. Le carbone, qui apparaît fréquemment comme principal contaminant de surface, n'est pas introduit par contamination à partir de l'atmosphère résiduelle lors de l'oxydation thermique. Sa localisation se situe au voisinage de l'interface Si-SiO2

The Superconducting Transition in Boron Doped Silicon Films

International audienceWe report on a detailed analysis of the superconducting properties of boron-doped silicon films grown along the 001 direction by gas immersion laser doping. This technique is proved to be a powerful technique to dope silicon in the alloying range 2-10 at.% where superconductivity occurs. The superconducting transitions are sharp and well defined both in resistivity and magnetic susceptibility. The variation of Tc on the boron concentration is in contradiction with a classical exponential dependence on superconducting parameters. Electrical measurements were performed in magnetic field on the sample with cB = 8 at.% (400 laser shots) which has the highest Tc (0.6 K). No hysteresis was found for the transitions in magnetic field, which is characteristic of a type-II superconductor. The corresponding upper critical field was on the order of 1000 G at low temperatures, much smaller than the value previously reported. The temperature dependence of Hc2 is very well reproduced by the linearized Gorkov equations neglecting spin effects in the very dirty limit. These measurements in magnetic field allow an estimation of the electronic mean-free path, the coherence length, and the London penetration depth within a simple two-band free electron model

Individual olfactory learning in Camponotus ants.

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Individual olfactory learning in Camponotus ants

International audienceWe studied olfactory learning in two ant species, Camponotus mus from Argentina and Camponotus fellah from Israel. To this end, we established an experimental laboratory protocol in which individual ants were trained to associate odours with gustatory reinforcers. Ants were trained individually to forage in a Y-maze in which two odours had to be discriminated. One odour was positively reinforced with sucrose solution and the other was negatively reinforced with quinine solution. After a training session of 24 trials, ants of both species learned to differentiate the two odour pairs, the structurally dissimilar limonene and octanal, and the structurally similar heptanal and 2-heptanone. In nonreinforced tests, ants consistently chose the odour previously reinforced with sucrose solution and spent more time searching in the arm of the maze presenting this odour. Learning performances were more robust in the case of limonene versus heptanal. These results thus show for the first time that individual ants perceive and learn odours in controlled laboratory conditions

Ancestral exonic organization of FUT8, the gene encoding the alpha-6-fucosyltransferase, reveals successive peptide domains which suggest a particular three-dimensional core structure for the alpha-6-fucosyltransferase family.

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