380 research outputs found
Plasmon losses due to electron-phonon scattering: the case of graphene encapsulated in hexagonal Boron Nitride
Graphene sheets encapsulated between hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) slabs
display superb electronic properties due to very limited scattering from
extrinsic disorder sources such as Coulomb impurities and corrugations. Such
samples are therefore expected to be ideal platforms for highly-tunable
low-loss plasmonics in a wide spectral range. In this Article we present a
theory of collective electron density oscillations in a graphene sheet
encapsulated between two hBN semi-infinite slabs (hBN/G/hBN). Graphene plasmons
hybridize with hBN optical phonons forming hybrid plasmon-phonon (HPP) modes.
We focus on scattering of these modes against graphene's acoustic phonons and
hBN optical phonons, two sources of scattering that are expected to play a key
role in hBN/G/hBN stacks. We find that at room temperature the scattering
against graphene's acoustic phonons is the dominant limiting factor for
hBN/G/hBN stacks, yielding theoretical inverse damping ratios of hybrid
plasmon-phonon modes of the order of -, with a weak dependence on
carrier density and a strong dependence on illumination frequency. We confirm
that the plasmon lifetime is not directly correlated with the mobility: in
fact, it can be anti-correlated.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
Children’s views on postsurgical pain in recovery units in Norway: A qualitative study
Aims and objectives: To explore children’s postsurgical experiences with pain and pain management in the recovery unit.
Background: Children’s pain is underestimated and undertreated. Untreated pain can cause unnecessary suffering, increased complication risks, and may lead to chronic pain. Research exploring children’s experiences with postoperative pain and pain management is limited.
Design: A qualitative, exploratory study. The study complied with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ).
Methods: Children (N=20), 8–16 years old, took part in semi-structured interviews about their experiences with pain and postoperative pain management while they were in a recovery unit. Data were collected at two university hospitals in Norway. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.
Results: Three themes emerged from the interviews; “children’s experiences of what felt unpleasant and painful”, “children’s experiences with pain management” and “children’s recommendations for future pain management”. About half of the children reported moderate to
severe pain while in the recovery unit and they did not always tell their nurses when they had pain. They also reported experiencing pain in places other than their surgical wounds and stated that nausea and vomiting felt unpleasant and painful. The children indicated that pain medications and
the use of non-pharmacological methods helped them cope with their pain and provided several recommendations about how to improve pain management.
Conclusion: Paediatric postoperative pain management remains suboptimal. The children in our study provided useful information about their pain experiences, how to improve pain management and explained why they did not tell their nurses when they were in pain.
Relevance to clinical practice: These findings should direct further improvements in paediatric postoperative pain management, such as increased use of pain assessment tools and preparatory information, as well as more appropriate administration of pain medications.
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Twycross, A.M., Smeland, A., Torgun, N., Nybro, L., Rustøen, T., Lundberg, S., and Reinertsen, H. (2019). Children’s views on postsurgical pain in recovery units in Norway: A qualitative study. Journal of Clinical Nursing, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jocn.14788. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions
Highly confined low-loss plasmons in graphene-boron nitride heterostructures
Graphene plasmons were predicted to possess ultra-strong field confinement
and very low damping at the same time, enabling new classes of devices for deep
subwavelength metamaterials, single-photon nonlinearities, extraordinarily
strong light-matter interactions and nano-optoelectronic switches. While all of
these great prospects require low damping, thus far strong plasmon damping was
observed, with both impurity scattering and many-body effects in graphene
proposed as possible explanations. With the advent of van der Waals
heterostructures, new methods have been developed to integrate graphene with
other atomically flat materials. In this letter we exploit near-field
microscopy to image propagating plasmons in high quality graphene encapsulated
between two films of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). We determine dispersion
and particularly plasmon damping in real space. We find unprecedented low
plasmon damping combined with strong field confinement, and identify the main
damping channels as intrinsic thermal phonons in the graphene and dielectric
losses in the h-BN. The observation and in-depth understanding of low plasmon
damping is the key for the development of graphene nano-photonic and
nano-optoelectronic devices
Tuning quantum non-local effects in graphene plasmonics
The response of an electron system to electromagnetic fields with sharp
spatial variations is strongly dependent on quantum electronic properties, even
in ambient conditions, but difficult to access experimentally. We use
propagating graphene plasmons, together with an engineered dielectric-metallic
environment, to probe the graphene electron liquid and unveil its detailed
electronic response at short wavelengths.The near-field imaging experiments
reveal a parameter-free match with the full theoretical quantum description of
the massless Dirac electron gas, in which we identify three types of quantum
effects as keys to understanding the experimental response of graphene to
short-ranged terahertz electric fields. The first type is of single-particle
nature and is related to shape deformations of the Fermi surface during a
plasmon oscillations. The second and third types are a many-body effect
controlled by the inertia and compressibility of the interacting electron
liquid in graphene. We demonstrate how, in principle, our experimental approach
can determine the full spatiotemporal response of an electron system.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Electrical detection of hyperbolic phonon-polaritons in heterostructures of graphene and boron nitride
Light properties in the mid-infrared can be controlled at a deep
subwavelength scale using hyperbolic phonons-polaritons (HPPs) of hexagonal
boron nitride (h-BN). While propagating as waveguided modes HPPs can
concentrate the electric field in a chosen nano-volume. Such a behavior is at
the heart of many applications including subdiffraction imaging and sensing.
Here, we employ HPPs in heterostructures of h-BN and graphene as new
nano-optoelectronic platform by uniting the benefits of efficient hot-carrier
photoconversion in graphene and the hyperbolic nature of h-BN. We demonstrate
electrical detection of HPPs by guiding them towards a graphene pn-junction. We
shine a laser beam onto a gap in metal gates underneath the heterostructure,
where the light is converted into HPPs. The HPPs then propagate as confined
rays heating up the graphene leading to a strong photocurrent. This concept is
exploited to boost the external responsivity of mid-infrared photodetectors,
overcoming the limitation of graphene pn-junction detectors due to their small
active area and weak absorption. Moreover this type of detector exhibits
tunable frequency selectivity due to the HPPs, which combined with its high
responsivity paves the way for efficient high-resolution mid-infrared imaging
Itch and skin rash from chocolate during fluoxetine and sertraline treatment: Case report
BACKGROUND: The skin contains a system for producing serotonin as well as serotonin receptors. Serotonin can also cause pruritus when injected into the skin. SSRI-drugs increase serotonin concentrations and are known to have pruritus and other dermal side effects. CASE PRESENTATION: A 46-year-old man consulted his doctor due to symptoms of depression. He did not suffer from any allergy but drinking red wine caused vasomotor rhinitis. Antidepressive treatment with fluoxetine 20 mg daily was initiated which was successful. After three weeks of treatment an itching rash appeared. An adverse drug reaction (ADR) induced by fluoxetine was suspected and fluoxetine treatment was discontinued. The symptoms disappeared with clemastine and betametasone treatment. Since the depressive symptoms returned sertraline medication was initiated. After approximately two weeks of sertraline treatment he noted an intense itching sensation in his scalp after eating a piece of chocolate cake. The itch spread to the arms, abdomen and legs and the patient treated himself with clemastine and the itch disappeared. He now realised that he had eaten a chocolate cake before this episode and remembered that before the first episode he had had a chocolate mousse dessert. He had never had any reaction from eating chocolate before and therefore reported this observation to his doctor. CONCLUSIONS: This case report suggests that there may be individuals that are very sensitive to increases in serotonin concentrations. Dermal side reactions to SSRI-drugs in these patients may be due to high activity in the serotonergic system at the dermal and epidermo-dermal junctional area rather than a hypersensitivity to the drug molecule itself
Near-field photocurrent nanoscopy on bare and encapsulated graphene
Opto-electronic devices utilizing graphene have already demonstrated unique
capabilities, which are much more difficult to realize with conventional
technologies. However, the requirements in terms of material quality and
uniformity are very demanding. A major roadblock towards high-performance
devices are the nanoscale variations of graphene properties, which strongly
impact the macroscopic device behaviour. Here, we present and apply
opto-electronic nanoscopy to measure locally both the optical and electronic
properties of graphene devices. This is achieved by combining scanning
near-field infrared nanoscopy with electrical device read-out, allowing
infrared photocurrent mapping at length scales of tens of nanometers. We apply
this technique to study the impact of edges and grain boundaries on spatial
carrier density profiles and local thermoelectric properties. Moreover, we show
that the technique can also be applied to encapsulated graphene/hexagonal boron
nitride (h-BN) devices, where we observe strong charge build-up near the edges,
and also address a device solution to this problem. The technique enables
nanoscale characterization for a broad range of common graphene devices without
the need of special device architectures or invasive graphene treatment
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