Exchange biasing of single-domain Ni nanoparticles spontaneously grown in an antiferromagnetic MnO matrix

Exchange biased composites of ferromagnetic single-domain Ni nanoparticles embedded within large grains of MnO have been prepared by reduction of Ni$_x$Mn$_{1-x}$O$_4$ phases in flowing hydrogen. The Ni precipitates are 15-30 nm in extent, and the majority are completely encased within the MnO matrix. The manner in which the Ni nanoparticles are spontaneously formed imparts a high ferromagnetic- antiferromagnetic interface/volume ratio, which results in substantial exchange bias effects. Exchange bias fields of up to 100 Oe are observed, in cases where the starting Ni content $x$ in the precursor Ni$_x$Mn$_{1-x}$O$_4$ phase is small. For particles of approximately the same size, the exchange bias leads to significant hardening of the magnetization, with the coercive field scaling nearly linearly with the exchange bias field.Comment: 6 pages PDFLaTeX with 9 figure

Canvass: a crowd-sourced, natural-product screening library for exploring biological space

NCATS thanks Dingyin Tao for assistance with compound characterization. This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH). R.B.A. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1665145) and NIH (GM126221). M.K.B. acknowledges support from NIH (5R01GM110131). N.Z.B. thanks support from NIGMS, NIH (R01GM114061). J.K.C. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1665331). J.C. acknowledges support from the Fogarty International Center, NIH (TW009872). P.A.C. acknowledges support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH (R01 CA158275), and the NIH/National Institute of Aging (P01 AG012411). N.K.G. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1464898). B.C.G. thanks the support of NSF (RUI: 213569), the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. C.C.H. thanks the start-up funds from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for support. J.N.J. acknowledges support from NIH (GM 063557, GM 084333). A.D.K. thanks the support from NCI, NIH (P01CA125066). D.G.I.K. acknowledges support from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (1 R01 AT008088) and the Fogarty International Center, NIH (U01 TW00313), and gratefully acknowledges courtesies extended by the Government of Madagascar (Ministere des Eaux et Forets). O.K. thanks NIH (R01GM071779) for financial support. T.J.M. acknowledges support from NIH (GM116952). S.M. acknowledges support from NIH (DA045884-01, DA046487-01, AA026949-01), the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (W81XWH-17-1-0256), and NCI, NIH, through a Cancer Center Support Grant (P30 CA008748). K.N.M. thanks the California Department of Food and Agriculture Pierce's Disease and Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Board for support. B.T.M. thanks Michael Mullowney for his contribution in the isolation, elucidation, and submission of the compounds in this work. P.N. acknowledges support from NIH (R01 GM111476). L.E.O. acknowledges support from NIH (R01-HL25854, R01-GM30859, R0-1-NS-12389). L.E.B., J.K.S., and J.A.P. thank the NIH (R35 GM-118173, R24 GM-111625) for research support. F.R. thanks the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) for financial support. I.S. thanks the University of Oklahoma Startup funds for support. J.T.S. acknowledges support from ACS PRF (53767-ND1) and NSF (CHE-1414298), and thanks Drs. Kellan N. Lamb and Michael J. Di Maso for their synthetic contribution. B.S. acknowledges support from NIH (CA78747, CA106150, GM114353, GM115575). W.S. acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (R15GM116032, P30 GM103450), and thanks the University of Arkansas for startup funds and the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) for seed money. C.R.J.S. acknowledges support from NIH (R01GM121656). D.S.T. thanks the support of NIH (T32 CA062948-Gudas) and PhRMA Foundation to A.L.V., NIH (P41 GM076267) to D.S.T., and CCSG NIH (P30 CA008748) to C.B. Thompson. R.E.T. acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (GM129465). R.J.T. thanks the American Cancer Society (RSG-12-253-01-CDD) and NSF (CHE1361173) for support. D.A.V. thanks the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the National Science Foundation (CHE-0353662, CHE-1005253, and CHE-1725142), the Beckman Foundation, the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the John Stauffer Charitable Trust, and the Christian Scholars Foundation for support. J.W. acknowledges support from the American Cancer Society through the Research Scholar Grant (RSG-13-011-01-CDD). W.M.W.acknowledges support from NIGMS, NIH (GM119426), and NSF (CHE1755698). A.Z. acknowledges support from NSF (CHE-1463819). (Intramural Research Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH); CHE-1665145 - NSF; CHE-1665331 - NSF; CHE-1464898 - NSF; RUI: 213569 - NSF; CHE-1414298 - NSF; CHE1361173 - NSF; CHE1755698 - NSF; CHE-1463819 - NSF; GM126221 - NIH; 5R01GM110131 - NIH; GM 063557 - NIH; GM 084333 - NIH; R01GM071779 - NIH; GM116952 - NIH; DA045884-01 - NIH; DA046487-01 - NIH; AA026949-01 - NIH; R01 GM111476 - NIH; R01-HL25854 - NIH; R01-GM30859 - NIH; R0-1-NS-12389 - NIH; R35 GM-118173 - NIH; R24 GM-111625 - NIH; CA78747 - NIH; CA106150 - NIH; GM114353 - NIH; GM115575 - NIH; R01GM121656 - NIH; T32 CA062948-Gudas - NIH; P41 GM076267 - NIH; R01GM114061 - NIGMS, NIH; R15GM116032 - NIGMS, NIH; P30 GM103450 - NIGMS, NIH; GM129465 - NIGMS, NIH; GM119426 - NIGMS, NIH; TW009872 - Fogarty International Center, NIH; U01 TW00313 - Fogarty International Center, NIH; R01 CA158275 - National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH; P01 AG012411 - NIH/National Institute of Aging; Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation; Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; P01CA125066 - NCI, NIH; 1 R01 AT008088 - National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health; W81XWH-17-1-0256 - Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program; P30 CA008748 - NCI, NIH, through a Cancer Center Support Grant; California Department of Food and Agriculture Pierce's Disease and Glassy Winged Sharpshooter Board; American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC); University of Oklahoma Startup funds; 53767-ND1 - ACS PRF; PhRMA Foundation; P30 CA008748 - CCSG NIH; RSG-12-253-01-CDD - American Cancer Society; RSG-13-011-01-CDD - American Cancer Society; CHE-0353662 - National Science Foundation; CHE-1005253 - National Science Foundation; CHE-1725142 - National Science Foundation; Beckman Foundation; Sherman Fairchild Foundation; John Stauffer Charitable Trust; Christian Scholars Foundation)Published versionSupporting documentatio

Epitaxial Manganese Oxide Thin Films with Connected Porosity: Topotactic Induction of Crystallographic Pore Alignment

Epitaxial thin films of ZnMn_2O_4, grown from an aqueous solution on (100) and (111) spinel MgAl_2O_4 substrates, have been topotactically reduced and leached to produce epitaxial rock salt MnO on the same substrates. The volume change accompanying the conversion of ZnMn_2O_4 to 2MnO associated with a loss of Zn and O_2 manifests as a network of interconnected, 50−100 nm pores. The topotactic nature of the transformation ensures that the pores are crystallographically aligned with the substrate:  on the (100) MgAl_2O_4 substrate, pores with rectangular cross-sections are aligned parallel to the surface normal. On the (111) MgAl_2O_4 substrate, the pores are aligned at constant, fixed angles with respect to the substrate normal

Hierarchical Toughening of Nacre-Like Composites

Reinforced polymer‐based composites are attractive lightweight materials for aircrafts, automobiles, and turbine blades, but still show strength and fracture toughness lower than traditional metals. An interesting approach to address this issue is to fabricate composites with structural features that absorb part of the elastic energy stored in the material during fracture through extrinsic and intrinsic toughening mechanisms behind and ahead of the crack tip, respectively. Inspired by the nacreous layer of mollusk shells, the fracture behavior of multiscale composites that combine intrinsic toughness from a brick‐and‐mortar structure connected through nanoscale mineral bridges and extrinsic toughness arising from a brittle–ductile laminate architecture at the millimeter scale are fabricated and investigated. Such a hierarchical toughening approach increases the dissipated energy by more than 30‐fold during fracture with minimal loss in stiffness and strength. Using simple energy balance arguments and fracture mechanics concepts, guidelines are established for the design of nacre‐like composites with a remarkable combination of stiffness, strength, and toughness. This demonstrates the possibility to controllably introduce toughening mechanisms at different length scales and to thus fabricate hierarchical composites with high fracture resistance in spite of the brittle nature of their main inorganic constituents.ISSN:1616-3028ISSN:1616-301

Nacre-like composites with superior specific damping performance

Biological materials such as nacre have evolved microstructural design principles that result in outstanding mechanical properties. While nacre's design concepts have led to bio-inspired materials with enhanced fracture toughness, the microstructural features underlying the remarkable damping properties of this biological material have not yet been fully explored in synthetic composites. Here, we study the damping behavior of nacre-like composites containing mineral bridges and platelet asperities as nanoscale structural features within its brick-and-mortar architecture. Dynamic mechanical analysis was performed to experimentally elucidate the role of these features on the damping response of the nacre-like composites. By enhancing stress transfer between platelets and at the brick/mortar interface, mineral bridges and nano-asperities were found to improve the damping performance of the composite to levels that surpass many biological and man-made materials. Surprisingly, the improved properties are achieved without reaching the perfect organization of the biological counterparts. Our nacre-like composites display a loss modulus 2.4-fold higher than natural nacre and 1.4-fold more than highly dissipative natural fiber composites. These findings shed light on the role of nanoscale structural features on the dynamic mechanical properties of nacre and offer design concepts for the manufacturing of bio-inspired composites for high-performance damping applications.ISSN:0027-8424ISSN:1091-649

Light-triggered chemical amplification to accelerate degradation and release from polymeric particles

We describe a means of chemical amplification to accelerate triggered degradation of a polymer and particles composed thereof. We designed a light-degradable copolymer containing carboxylic acids masked by photolabile groups and ketals. Photolysis allows the unmasked acidic groups in the polymer backbone to accelerate ketal hydrolysis even at neutral pH.ISSN:1359-7345ISSN:1364-548

Heat transfer measurements of a transpiration-cooled stagnation point in transient hypersonic flow

This paper presents a novel experimental technique where infra-red thermography is employed to directly measure the surface heat transfer of a transpiration cooled porous material in transient hypersonic flow. Experiments were conducted in the Oxford High Density Tunnel on a flat faced hemispherical probe at a single Mach 7 free-stream condition ( = 3.84·106 1/m) with Nitrogen, Air, Argon, Krypton and Helium injection gases and mass flow rates ranging from 0.01-0.235 kg s−1m−2 . Surface heat transfer measurements were extracted by imaging directly on the porous material using a FLIR A6751 high-speed long-wave infra-red camera. Porous alumina was chosen due to its favourable thermal properties for infra-red analysis and its very small pore sizes (≈ 2 m) enabling a uniform outflow. It was found that the Stanton number reduction matched to within 10% of both CFD results and correlations

Near-Infrared-Induced Heating of Confined Water in Polymeric Particles for Efficient Payload Release

Near-infrared (NIR) light-triggered release from polymeric capsules could make a major impact on biological research by enabling remote and spatio­temporal control over the release of encapsulated cargo. The few existing mechanisms for NIR-triggered release have not been widely applied because they require custom synthesis of designer polymers, high-powered lasers to drive inefficient two-photon processes, and/or coencapsulation of bulky inorganic particles. In search of a simpler mechanism, we found that exposure to laser light resonant with the vibrational absorption of water (980 nm) in the NIR region can induce release of payloads encapsulated in particles made from inherently non-photo-responsive polymers. We hypothesize that confined water pockets present in hydrated polymer particles absorb electromagnetic energy and transfer it to the polymer matrix, inducing a thermal phase change. In this study, we show that this simple and highly universal strategy enables instantaneous and controlled release of payloads in aqueous environments as well as in living cells using both pulsed and continuous wavelength lasers without significant heating of the surrounding aqueous solution