Mass selection in laser-plasma ion accelerator on nanostructured surfaces

When an intense laser pulse interacts with a solid surface, ions get accelerated in the laser-plasma due to the formation of transient longitudinal electric field along the target normal direction. However, the acceleration is not mass-selective. The possibility of manipulating such ion acceleration scheme to enhance the energy of one ionic species (either proton or carbon) selectively over the other species is investigated experimentally using nanopore targets. For an incident laser intensity of approximately 5×1017 W/cm2, we show that the acceleration is optimal for protons when the pore diameter is about 15-20 nm, while carbon ions are optimally accelerated when the pore diameter is close to 40-50 nm. The observed effect is due to tailoring targetry by the pulse pedestal of the laser prior to the arrival of the main pulse

Granular superconductivity and charge/orbital order in YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 /manganite trilayers

We studied how the electronic, superconducting, and magnetic properties of YBa2Cu3O7/Nd1−x(Ca1−ySry )xMnO3 multilayers depend on the tolerance factor and the hole doping of the manganite. In particular, we investigated the granular superconducting state and the related magnetic-field-driven insulator-to- superconductor transition that was previously discovered in corresponding multilayers with Pr0.5La0.2Ca0.3MnO3 [B. P. P. Mallett et al., Phys. Rev. B 94, 180503(R) (2016)]. We found that this granular uperconducting state occurs only when the manganite layer is in a charge/orbital ordered and CE-type antiferromagnetic state (Mn-CO/OO). The coupling mechanism underlying this intriguing proximity effect seems to involve the domain boundaries of the Mn-CO/OO and/or the charge disordered regions of the manganite layer that become more numerous as the hole doping is reduced below x = 0.5

LncRNA HOTAIR regulates glucose transporter Glut1 expression and glucose uptake in macrophages during inflammation

Abstract Inflammation plays central roles in the immune response. Inflammatory response normally requires higher energy and therefore is associated with glucose metabolism. Our recent study demonstrates that lncRNA HOTAIR plays key roles in NF-kB activation, cytokine expression, and inflammation. Here, we investigated if HOTAIR plays any role in the regulation of glucose metabolism in immune cells during inflammation. Our results demonstrate that LPS-induced inflammation induces the expression of glucose transporter isoform 1 (Glut1) which controls the glucose uptake in macrophages. LPS-induced Glut1 expression is regulated via NF-kB activation. Importantly, siRNA-mediated knockdown of HOTAIR suppressed the LPS-induced expression of Glut1 suggesting key roles of HOTAIR in LPS-induced Glut1 expression in macrophage. HOTAIR induces NF-kB activation, which in turn increases Glut1 expression in response to LPS. We also found that HOTAIR regulates glucose uptake in macrophages during LPS-induced inflammation and its knockdown decreases LPS-induced increased glucose uptake. HOTAIR also regulates other upstream regulators of glucose metabolism such as PTEN and HIF1α, suggesting its multimodal functions in glucose metabolism. Overall, our study demonstrated that lncRNA HOTAIR plays key roles in LPS-induced Glut1 expression and glucose uptake by activating NF-kB and hence HOTAIR regulates metabolic programming in immune cells potentially to meet the energy needs during the immune response

Sub-picosecond charge-transfer at near-zero driving force in polymer:non-fullerene acceptor blends and bilayers

Organic photovoltaics based on non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) show record efficiency of 16 to 17% and increased photovoltage owing to the low driving force for interfacial charge- transfer. However, the low driving force potentially slows down charge generation, leading to a tradeoff between voltage and current. Here, we disentangle the intrinsic charge-transfer rates from morphology-dependent exciton diffusion for a series of polymer:NFA systems. Moreover, we establish the influence of the interfacial energetics on the electron and hole transfer rates separately. We demonstrate that charge-transfer timescales remain at a few hundred femtoseconds even at near-zero driving force, which is consistent with the rates predicted by Marcus theory in the normal region, at moderate electronic coupling and at low re-organization energy. Thus, in the design of highly efficient devices, the energy offset at the donor:acceptor interface can be minimized without jeopardizing the charge-transfer rate and without concerns about a current-voltage tradeoff

Morphology changes upon scaling a high-efficiency, solution-processed solar cell

Solution processing via roll-to-roll (R2R) coating promises a low cost, low thermal budget, sustainable revolution for the production of solar cells. Poly[(5,6-difluoro-2,1,3-benzothiadiazol-4,7-diyl)-alt-(3,3′′′-di(2-octyldodecyl)-2,2′;5′,2′′;5′′,2′′′-quaterthiophen-5,5-diyl)], PffBT4T-2OD, has recently been shown to achieve high power conversion efficiency (&gt;10%) paired with multiple acceptors when thick films are spun-coat from hot solutions. We present detailed morphology studies of PffBT4T-2OD based bulk heterojunction films deposited by the volume manufacturing compatible techniques of blade-coating and slot-die coating. Significant aspects of the film morphology, the average crystal domain orientation and the distribution of the characteristic phase separation length scales, are remarkably different when deposited by the scalable techniques vs. spun-coat. Yet, we find that optimized blade-coated devices achieve PCE &gt; 9.5%, nearly the same as spun-coat. These results challenge some widely accepted propositions regarding what is an optimal BHJ morphology and suggest the hypothesis that diversity in the morphology that supports high performance may be a characteristic of manufacturable systems, those that maintain performance when coated thicker than ≈200 nm. In situ measurements reveal the key differences in the solidification routes for spin- and blade-coating leading to the distinct film structures.</p