Electron Self-Energy of High Temperature Superconductors as Revealed by Angle Resolved Photoemission

In this paper, we review some of the work our group has done in the past few years to obtain the electron self-energy of high temperature superconductors by analysis of angle-resolved photoemission data. We focus on three examples which have revealed: (1) a d-wave superconducting gap, (2) a collective mode in the superconducting state, and (3) pairing correlations in the pseudogap phase. In each case, although a novel result is obtained which captures the essense of the data, the conventional physics used leads to an incomplete picture. This indicates that new physics needs to be developed to obtain a proper understanding of these materials.Comment: 5 pages, revtex, 3 encapsulated postscript figures, SNS97 proceeding

Preparation of atomically clean and flat Si(100) surfaces by low-energy ion sputtering and low-temperature annealing

Si(100) surfaces were prepared by wet-chemical etching followed by 0.3-1.5keV Ar ion sputtering, either at elevated or room temperature. After a brief anneal under ultrahigh vacuum conditions, the resulting surfaces were examined by scanning tunneling microscopy. We find that wet-chemical etching alone cannot produce a clean and flat Si(100) surface. However, subsequent 300eV Ar ion sputtering at room temperature followed by a 973K anneal yields atomically clean and flat Si(100) surfaces suitable for nanoscale device fabrication.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Applied Surface Scienc

Noise-robust method for image segmentation

Segmentation of noisy images is one of the most challenging problems in image analysis and any improvement of segmentation methods can highly influence the performance of many image processing applications. In automated image segmentation, the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering has been widely used because of its ability to model uncertainty within the data, applicability to multi-modal data and fairly robust behaviour. However, the standard FCM algorithm does not consider any information about the spatial linage context and is highly sensitive to noise and other imaging artefacts. Considering above mentioned problems, we developed a new FCM-based approach for the noise-robust fuzzy clustering and we present it in this paper. In this new iterative algorithm we incorporated both spatial and feature space information into the similarity measure and the membership function. We considered that spatial information depends on the relative location and features of the neighbouring pixels. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested on synthetic image with different noise levels and real images. Experimental quantitative and qualitative segmentation results show that our method efficiently preserves the homogeneity of the regions and is more robust to noise than other FCM-based methods

The role of antiphase boundaries during ion sputtering and solid phase epitaxy of Si(001)

The Si(001) surface morphology during ion sputtering at elevated temperatures and solid phase epitaxy following ion sputtering at room temperature has been investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy. Two types of antiphase boundaries form on Si(001) surfaces during ion sputtering and solid phase epitaxy. One type of antiphase boundary, the AP2 antiphase boundary, contributes to the surface roughening. AP2 antiphase boundaries are stable up to 973K, and ion sputtering and solid phase epitaxy performed at 973K result in atomically flat Si(001) surfaces.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Surface Scienc

PARP1 gene variation and microglial activity on [11C]PBR28 PET in older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease

Increasing evidence suggests that inflammation is one pathophysio-logical mechanism in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recent studies have identified an association between the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) gene and AD. This gene encodes a protein that is involved in many biological functions, including DNA repair and chromatin remodeling, and is a mediator of inflammation. Therefore, we performed a targeted genetic association analysis to investigate the relationship between the PARP1 polymorphisms and brain micro-glial activity as indexed by [11C]PBR28 positron emission tomography (PET). Participants were 26 non-Hispanic Caucasians in the Indiana Memory and Aging Study (IMAS). PET data were intensity-normalized by injected dose/total body weight. Average PBR standardized uptake values (SUV) from 6 bilateral regions of interest (thalamus, frontal, parietal, temporal, and cingulate cortices, and whole brain gray matter) were used as endophenotypes. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with 20% minor allele frequency that were within +/− 20 kb of the PARP1 gene were included in the analyses. Gene-level association analyses were performed using a dominant genetic model with translocator protein (18-kDa) (TSPO) genotype, age at PET scan, and gender as covariates. Analyses were performed with and without APOE ε4 status as a covariate. Associations with PBR SUVs from thalamus and cingulate were significant at corrected p<0.014 and <0.065, respectively. Subsequent multi-marker analysis with cingulate PBR SUV showed that individuals with the “C” allele at rs6677172 and “A” allele at rs61835377 had higher PBR SUV than individuals without these alleles (corrected P<0.03), and individuals with the “G” allele at rs6677172 and “G” allele at rs61835377 displayed the opposite trend (corrected P<0.065). A previous study with the same cohort showed an inverse relationship between PBR SUV and brain atrophy at a follow-up visit, suggesting possible protective effect of microglial activity against cortical atrophy. Interestingly, all 6 AD and 2 of 3 LMCI participants in the current analysis had one or more copies of the “GG” allele combination, associated with lower cingulate PBR SUV, suggesting that this gene variant warrants further investigation

Hole spin polarization in GaAlAs:Mn structures

A self-consistent calculation of the electronic properties of GaAlAs:Mn magnetic semiconductor quantum well structures is performed including the Hartree term and the sp-d exchange interaction with the Mn magnetic moments. The spin polarization density is obtained for several structure configurations. Available experimental results are compared with theory.Comment: 4 page

Nature of the Electronic Excitations near the Brillouin Zone Boundary of Bi2_2Sr2_2CaCu2_2O8+δ_{8+\delta}

Based on angle resolved photoemission spectra measured on different systems at different dopings, momenta and photon energies, we show that the anomalously large spectral linewidth in the $(\pi,0)$ region of optimal doped and underdoped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$ has significant contributions from the bilayer splitting, and that the scattering rate in this region is considerably smaller than previously estimated. This new picture of the electronic excitation near $(\pi,0)$ puts additional experimental constraints on various microscopic theories and data analysis.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

The Transformation from Translucent into Transparent Rare Earth Ions Doped Oxyfluoride Glass-Ceramics with Enhanced Luminescence

Article reporting a scenario where a translucent Er3+−Yb3+ doped oxyfluoride precursor glass-ceramic (P-GC) becomes transparent with increasing crystal size and crystallinity

On the determination of the Fermi surface in high-Tc superconductors by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

We study the normal state electronic excitations probed by angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) in Bi2201 and Bi2212. Our main goal is to establish explicit criteria for determining the Fermi surface from ARPES data on strongly interacting systems where sharply defined quasiparticles do not exist and the dispersion is very weak in parts of the Brillouin zone. Additional complications arise from strong matrix element variations within the zone. We present detailed results as a function of incident photon energy, and show simple experimental tests to distinguish between an intensity drop due to matrix element effects and spectral weight loss due to a Fermi crossing. We reiterate the use of polarization selection rules in disentangling the effect of umklapps due to the BiO superlattice in Bi2212. We conclude that, despite all the complications, the Fermi surface can be determined unambiguously: it is a single large hole barrel centered about (pi,pi) in both materials.Comment: Expanded discussion of symmetrization method in Section 5, figures remain the sam

Andrographolide Inhibits PI3K/AKT-Dependent NOX2 and iNOS Expression Protecting Mice against Hypoxia/Ischemia-Induced Oxidative Brain Injury

This study aimed to explore the mechanisms by which andrographolide protects against hypoxia-induced oxidative/nitrosative brain injury provoked by cerebral ischemic/reperfusion (CI/R) injury in mice. Hypoxia in vitro was modeled using oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) followed by reoxygenation of BV-2 microglial cells. Our results showed that treatment of mice that have undergone CI/R injury with andrographolide (10-100 mu g/kg, i.v.) at 1 h after hypoxia ameliorated CI/R-induced oxidative/nitrosative stress, brain infarction, and neurological deficits in the mice, and enhanced their survival rate. CI/R induced a remarkable production in the mouse brains of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and a significant increase in protein nitrosylation; this primarily resulted from enhanced expression of NADPH oxidase 2 (NOX2), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and the infiltration of CD11b cells due to activation of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B) and hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha (HIF-1 alpha). All these changes were significantly diminished by andrographolide. In BV-2 cells, OGD induced ROS and nitric oxide production by upregulating NOX2 and iNOS via the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT-dependent NF-kappa B and HIF-1 alpha pathways, and these changes were suppressed by andrographolide and LY294002. Our results indicate that andrographolide reduces NOX2 and iNOS expression possibly by impairing PI3K/AKT-dependent NF-kappa B and HIF-1 alpha activation. This compromises microglial activation, which then, in turn, mediates andrographolide's protective effect in the CI/R mice