High efficiency dark-to-bright exciton conversion in carbon nanotubes

We report that dark excitons can have a large contribution to the emission intensity in carbon nanotubes due to an efficient exciton conversion from a dark state to a bright state. Time-resolved photoluminescence measurements are used to investigate decay dynamics and diffusion properties of excitons, and we obtain intrinsic lifetimes and diffusion lengths of bright excitons as well as diffusion coefficients for both bright and dark excitons. We find that the dark-to-bright transition rates can be considerably high, and that more than half of the dark excitons can be transformed into the bright excitons. The state transition rates have a large chirality dependence with a family pattern, and the conversion efficiency is found to be significantly enhanced by adsorbed air molecules on the surface of the nanotubes. Our findings show the nontrivial significance of the dark excitons on the emission kinetics in low dimensional materials, and demonstrate the potential for engineering the dark-to-bright conversion process by using surface interactions.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Plastidial Starch Phosphorylase in Sweet Potato Roots Is Proteolytically Modified by Protein-Protein Interaction with the 20S Proteasome

Post-translational regulation plays an important role in cellular metabolism. Earlier studies showed that the activity of plastidial starch phosphorylase (Pho1) may be regulated by proteolytic modification. During the purification of Pho1 from sweet potato roots, we observed an unknown high molecular weight complex (HX) showing Pho1 activity. The two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, and reverse immunoprecipitation analyses showed that HX is composed of Pho1 and the 20S proteasome. Incubating sweet potato roots at 45°C triggers a stepwise degradation of Pho1; however, the degradation process can be partially inhibited by specific proteasome inhibitor MG132. The proteolytically modified Pho1 displays a lower binding affinity toward glucose 1-phosphate and a reduced starch-synthesizing activity. This study suggests that the 20S proteasome interacts with Pho1 and is involved in the regulation of the catalytic activity of Pho1 in sweet potato roots under heat stress conditions

Improvement of Reversible Strain Limit for Critical Current of DI-BSCCO Due to Lamination Technique

The DI (dynamically innovative)-BSCCO-Bi2223 tapes achieved high critical current as well as high modulus of elasticity. Further the reversible strain limit and the corresponding stress for critical current have been remarkably increased by means of lamination technique. During the course of development, their optimized architecture has been designed based on the principle of the rule of mixture for maximizing the force free strain exerted on the superconducting component. The reversible strain/stress limit (A rev/R rev) was defined as a strain, at which the critical current recovers to the level of 99% I co. Selecting several kinds of laminating materials and changing condition of the fabrication, the excellent Cu alloy-3ply tape with I co of 311 A/cm was realized of which A rev and R rev reached 0.42% and 300 MPa, respectively. Further during the theoretical analysis, the increase of reversible strain limit were made clear to be attributed to the increase of thermally induced residual strain as well as the compensation effect of laminated layers against a local fracture mode