Dip-coated La2Ti2O7 as a buffer layer for growth of Bi3.25La0.75Ti3O12 films with enhanced (0 1 1) orientation

Thin-films of La2Ti2O7 were obtained by dip-coating process using a precursor salt in nitric acid solution. The effects of solution concentration, withdrawal speed, post-annealing duration and temperature were investigated both on grain size and orientation of the La2Ti2O7 thin layers. In addition, a target with the required stoichiometry for PVD deposition of La-substituted Bi4Ti3O12 (BLT) was successfully sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 750 ◦C. Finally (0 1 1)-oriented BLT ferroelectric films have been grown by RF sputtering on (1 1 0)-oriented La2Ti2O7 polycrystalline thin-film. A preferential orientation of BLT thin films has been obtained after annealing at a temperature lower than 650 ◦C

Perlite for permanent confinement of cesium

We present the potential use of expanded perlite, a metastable amorphous hydrated aluminium silicate, as a permanent medium for the long-term confinement of cesium. The method requires simply a loading by mixing an aqueous cesium nitrate solution and expanded perlite at 300 K followed by densification by sintering. The formation of pollucite, CsAlSi2O6, a naturally occurring mineral phase, upon careful heat treatment is demonstrated by X-ray diffraction. Leaching tests on the resulting glass-ceramics reveal a very low Cs departure of 0.5 mg m−2 d−1

Quantum reservoir neural network implementation on a Josephson mixer

Quantum reservoir computing is a promising approach to quantum neural networks capable of solving hard learning tasks on both classical and quantum input data. However, current approaches with qubits are limited by low connectivity. We propose an implementation for quantum reservoir that obtains a large number of densely connected neurons by using parametrically coupled quantum oscillators instead of physically coupled qubits. We analyse a specific hardware implementation based on superconducting circuits. Our results give the coupling and dissipation requirements in the system and show how they affect the performance of the quantum reservoir. Beyond quantum reservoir computation, the use of parametrically coupled bosonic modes holds promise for realizing large quantum neural network architectures

Human melanoma cells inhibit the earliest differentiation steps of human Langerhans cell precursors but failed to affect the functional maturation of epidermal Langerhans cells

Tumour-derived factors suppress differentiation and function of in vitro generated DC. Here, we investigate the effect of two melanoma clones differing in their invasive and metastatic properties on the generation and/or functional maturation of human epidermal LC. LC were generated from CD34+ cord blood progenitors under GM-CSF/TNF-α/TGF-β1. CD34+ cells were co-cultured with or without melanoma cells using Transwell dishes. After 11 days of co-culture, CD34+-derived cells display a non-adherent undifferentiated morphology, a high level of monocytic CD14 marker, a down-regulated expression of LC markers (CD1a, E-cadherin) and DC markers (CD40, CD80, CD54, CD58, CD83, CD86, HLA-DR, HLA-class I). These cells were less potent than control LC in inducing allogeneic T cell proliferation. The generation of the CD14+ population was correlated with a decrease in the CD1a+ population, without any statistical differences between the two clones. Melanoma cells diverted the differentiation of CD34+ cells towards a dominant CD14+ population only if the progenitors were in an early growth phase. IL-10, TGF-β1 and VEGF were not responsible for these effects, as assessed by using blocking antibodies. By contrast, co-culture of fresh epidermal LC with melanoma cells did not affect their phenotype and function. Our data demonstrate that melanoma cells inhibit the earliest steps of LC differentiation, but failed to affect the functional maturation of epidermal LC. This suggests that melanoma cells participate in their own escape from immunosurveillance by preventing LC generation in the local cutaneous microenvironment. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co

Mastering disorder in a first-order transition by ion irradiation

The effect of ion bombardment on MnAs single crystalline thin films is studied. The role of elastic collisions between ions and atoms of the material is singled-out as the main process responsible for modifying the properties of the material. Thermal hysteresis suppression, and the loss of sharpness of the magneto-structural phase transition are studied as a function of different irradiation conditions. While the latter is shown to be associated with the ion induced disorder at the scale of the transition correlation length, the former is related to the coupling between disorder and the large-scale elastic field associated with the phase coexistence pattern

Surface Analysis Insight Note: Observations relating to photoemission peak shapes, oxidation state, and chemistry of titanium oxide films

It is common practice to describe the coordination of metal atoms in a binding configuration with their nearest neighbors in terms of oxidation state, a measure by which the number of electrons redistributed between atoms forming chemical bonds. In XPS terms, change to an oxidation state is commonly inferred by correlating photoemission signal with binding energy. The assumption, when classifying photoemission signals into distinct spectral shapes, is that a distribution of intensities shifted to lower binding energy is evidence of a reduction in oxidation state. In this Insight note, we raise the prospect that changes in photoemission peak shape may occur without obvious changes, determined by XPS in stoichiometry for a material. It is well known that TiO2 measured by XPS yields reproducible Ti 2p photoemission peaks. However, on exposing TiO2 to ion beams, Ti 2p photoemission evolves to complex distributions in intensity, which are particularly difficult to analyze by traditional fitting of bell‐shaped curves to these data. For these reasons, in this Insight note, a thin film of TiO2 deposited on a silicon substrate is chosen for analysis by XPS and linear algebraic techniques. Alterations in spectral shapes created from modified TiO2, which might be interpreted as the change in oxidation state, are assessed in terms of relative proportions of titanium to oxygen. It is found through detailed analysis of spectra that quantification by XPS, using procedures routinely used in practice, is not in accord with the typical interpretations of photoemission shapes. The data processing methods used and results presented in this work are of particular relevance to elucidating fundamental phenomena governing the surface evolution of materials‐enabled energy processes where cyclic/non‐steady usage changes the nature of bonding, especially in the presence of contaminants

Synthesis of titanium dioxide precursor by the hydrolysis of titanium oxychloride solution

[EN] This communication focuses on the development of an approach to improve the synthesis of [Ti8O12(H2O)24]Cl8.HCl.7H2O crystals which is one of the precursor for titanium dioxide TiO2 particles. This study provides a significant improvement in crystallization kinetics with a production rate increased by a factor nineteen by intensifying heat and mass transfers compared to the process in a close vessel. This enhancement was made possible by the development of a new reactor to control the heat and mass transfers involved. In parallel with the experimental set-up, a numerical model representative of the transfer phenomena was initiated. The first numerical results are encouraging and present a good agreement with the measurements.The authors acknowledge financial support from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) under reference ANR-12-EMMA-0023 (Nano-OxTi project).Le Bideau, P.; Richard-Plouet, M.; Glouannec, P.; Magueresse, A.; Iya-Sou, D.; Brohan, L. (2018). Synthesis of titanium dioxide precursor by the hydrolysis of titanium oxychloride solution. En IDS 2018. 21st International Drying Symposium Proceedings. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1333-1340. https://doi.org/10.4995/IDS2018.2018.75811333134

On the nature of metallic nanoparticles obtained from molecular Co3Ru–carbonyl clusters in mesoporous silica matrices

We report on the impregnation of THF solutions of the low-valent heterometallic cluster NEt4[Co3Ru(CO)12] into two mesoporous silica matrices, amorphous xerogels and ordered MCM-41, and a study of its thermal decomposition into metallic nanoparticles by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and in situ magnetic measurements under controlled atmospheres. The decomposition of the cluster was monitored as a function of temperature by examining the chemical composition of the particles, their size distributions and their structures as well as their magnetic properties. Treatment under inert atmosphere (i.e. argon) at temperatures below 200 °C resulted in the formation of segregated spherical particles of hcp-ruthenium (2.3 ± 1.0 nm) and hcp-cobalt (3.1 ± 0.9 nm). The latter is transformed to fcc-cobalt (3.2 ± 1.0 nm) above 270 °C. At higher temperatures, Co–Ru alloying takes place and the Ru content of the particles increases with increasing temperature to reach the nominal composition of the molecular precursor, Co3Ru. The particles are more evenly distributed in the MCM-41 framework compared to the disordered xerogel and also show a narrower size distribution. Owing to the different magnetic anisotropy of hcp- and fcc-cobalt, which results in different blocking temperatures, we were able to clearly identify the products formed at the early stages of the thermal decomposition procedure