557 research outputs found
Sericin Promotes Fibroin Silk I Stabilization Across a Phase-Separation.
Natural silk spinning offers several advantages over the synthetic fiber spinning, although the underlying mechanisms of this process are yet to be fully elucidated. Silkworm silks, specifically B. mori, comprise two main proteins: fibroin, which forms the fiber, and sericin, a coextruded coating that acts as a matrix in the resulting nonwoven composite cocoon. To date, most studies have focused on fibroin's self-assembly and gelation, with the influence of sericin during spinning receiving little to no attention. This study investigates sericin's effects on the self-assembly of fibroin via their natural phase-separation. Through changes in sample opacity, FTIR, and XRD, we report that increasing sericin concentration retards the time to gelation and β-sheet formation of fibroin, causing it to adopt a Silk I conformation. Such findings have important implications for both the natural silk spinning process and any future industrial applications, suggesting that sericin may be able to induce long-range conformational and stability control in silk fibroin, while being in a separate phase, a factor that would facilitate long-term storage or silk feedstocks
Mesoscale magnetism at the grain boundaries in colossal magnetoresistive films
We report the discovery of mesoscale regions with distinctive magnetic
properties in epitaxial LaSrMnO films which exhibit
tunneling-like magnetoresistance across grain boundaries. By using
temperature-dependent magnetic force microscopy we observe that the mesoscale
regions are formed near the grain boundaries and have a different Curie
temperature (up to 20 K {\it higher}) than the grain interiors. Our images
provide direct evidence for previous speculations that the grain boundaries in
thin films are not magnetically and electronically sharp interfaces. The size
of the mesoscale regions varies with temperature and nature of the underlying
defect.Comment: 4 pages of text, 4 figure
A new displacement-based approach to calculate stress intensity factors with the boundary element method
The analysis of cracked brittle mechanical components considering linear elastic fracture mechanics is usually reduced to the evaluation of stress intensity factors (SIFs). The SIF calculation can be carried out experimentally, theoretically or numerically. Each methodology has its own advantages but the use of numerical methods has be-come very popular. Several schemes for numerical SIF calculations have been developed, the J-integral method being one of the most widely used because of its energy-like formulation. Additionally, some variations of the J-integral method, such as displacement-based methods, are also becoming popular due to their simplicity. In this work, a simple displacement-based scheme is proposed to calculate SIFs, and its performance is compared with contour integrals. These schemes are all implemented with the Boundary Element Method (BEM) in order to exploit its advantages in crack growth modelling. Some simple examples are solved with the BEM and the calculated SIF values are compared against available solutions, showing good agreement between the different schemes
Absolute values of the London penetration depth in YBa2Cu3O6+y measured by zero field ESR spectroscopy on Gd doped single crystals
Zero-field electron spin resonance (ESR) of dilute Gd ions substituted for Y
in the cuprate superconductor YBaCuO is used as a novel
technique for measuring the absolute value of the low temperature magnetic
penetration depth . The Gd ESR spectrum of samples with
substitution was obtained with a broadband microwave technique
that measures power absorption bolometrically from 0.5 GHz to 21 GHz. This ESR
spectrum is determined by the crystal field that lifts the level degeneracy of
the spin 7/2 Gd ion and details of this spectrum provide information
concerning oxygen ordering in the samples. The magnetic penetration depth is
obtained by relating the number of Gd ions exposed to the microwave magnetic
field to the frequency-integrated intensity of the observed ESR transitions.
This technique has allowed us to determine precise values of for
screening currents flowing in the three crystallographic orientations (, and ) in samples of GdYBaCuO of three different oxygen contents ( K), ( K) and
( K). The in-plane values are found to depart substantially from the
widely reported relation .Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures; version to appear in PR
Grain boundary effects on magnetotransport in bi-epitaxial films of LaSrMnO
The low field magnetotransport of LaSrMnO (LSMO) films
grown on SrTiO substrates has been investigated. A high qualtity LSMO film
exhibits anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) and a peak in the
magnetoresistance close to the Curie temperature of LSMO. Bi-epitaxial films
prepared using a seed layer of MgO and a buffer layer of CeO display a
resistance dominated by grain boundaries. One film was prepared with seed and
buffer layers intact, while a second sample was prepared as a 2D square array
of grain boundaries. These films exhibit i) a low temperature tail in the low
field magnetoresistance; ii) a magnetoconductance with a constant high field
slope; and iii) a comparably large AMR effect. A model based on a two-step
tunneling process, including spin-flip tunneling, is discussed and shown to be
consistent with the experimental findings of the bi-epitaxial films.Comment: REVTeX style; 14 pages, 9 figures. Figure 1 included in jpeg format
(zdf1.jpg); the eps was huge. Accepted to Phys. Rev.
Work function changes in the double layered manganite La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7
We have investigated the behaviour of the work function of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 as
a function of temperature by means of photoemission. We found a decrease of 55
+/- 10 meV in going from 60 K to just above the Curie temperature (125 K) of
the sample. Above T_C the work function appears to be roughly constant. Our
results are exactly opposite to the work function changes calculated from the
double-exchange model by Furukawa, but are consistent with other measurements.
The disagreement with double-exchange can be explained using a general
thermodynamic relation valid for second order transitions and including the
extra processes involved in the manganites besides double-exchange interaction.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures included in tex
Simulation of dimensionality effects in thermal transport
The discovery of nanostructures and the development of growth and fabrication
techniques of one- and two-dimensional materials provide the possibility to
probe experimentally heat transport in low-dimensional systems. Nevertheless
measuring the thermal conductivity of these systems is extremely challenging
and subject to large uncertainties, thus hindering the chance for a direct
comparison between experiments and statistical physics models. Atomistic
simulations of realistic nanostructures provide the ideal bridge between
abstract models and experiments. After briefly introducing the state of the art
of heat transport measurement in nanostructures, and numerical techniques to
simulate realistic systems at atomistic level, we review the contribution of
lattice dynamics and molecular dynamics simulation to understanding nanoscale
thermal transport in systems with reduced dimensionality. We focus on the
effect of dimensionality in determining the phononic properties of carbon and
semiconducting nanostructures, specifically considering the cases of carbon
nanotubes, graphene and of silicon nanowires and ultra-thin membranes,
underlying analogies and differences with abstract lattice models.Comment: 30 pages, 21 figures. Review paper, to appear in the Springer Lecture
Notes in Physics volume "Thermal transport in low dimensions: from
statistical physics to nanoscale heat transfer" (S. Lepri ed.
Supermassive Black Hole Binaries: The Search Continues
Gravitationally bound supermassive black hole binaries (SBHBs) are thought to
be a natural product of galactic mergers and growth of the large scale
structure in the universe. They however remain observationally elusive, thus
raising a question about characteristic observational signatures associated
with these systems. In this conference proceeding I discuss current theoretical
understanding and latest advances and prospects in observational searches for
SBHBs.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of 2014 Sant Cugat
Forum on Astrophysics. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, ed.
C.Sopuerta (Berlin: Springer-Verlag
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results
Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC
provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of
lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with
a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the
transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the
anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the
nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of
the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp.
Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in
the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies
smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating
nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and
transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of
inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous
measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables,
submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are
available at
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02
- …