722 research outputs found
Superdiffusive heat conduction in semiconductor alloys -- II. Truncated L\'evy formalism for experimental analysis
Nearly all experimental observations of quasi-ballistic heat flow are
interpreted using Fourier theory with modified thermal conductivity. Detailed
Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) analysis, however, reveals that the
quasi-ballistic motion of thermal energy in semiconductor alloys is no longer
Brownian but instead exhibits L\'evy dynamics with fractal dimension . Here, we present a framework that enables full 3D experimental analysis by
retaining all essential physics of the quasi-ballistic BTE dynamics
phenomenologically. A stochastic process with just two fitting parameters
describes the transition from pure L\'evy superdiffusion as short length and
time scales to regular Fourier diffusion. The model provides accurate fits to
time domain thermoreflectance raw experimental data over the full modulation
frequency range without requiring any `effective' thermal parameters and
without any a priori knowledge of microscopic phonon scattering mechanisms.
Identified values for InGaAs and SiGe match ab initio BTE predictions
within a few percent. Our results provide experimental evidence of fractal
L\'evy heat conduction in semiconductor alloys. The formalism additionally
indicates that the transient temperature inside the material differs
significantly from Fourier theory and can lead to improved thermal
characterization of nanoscale devices and material interfaces
Dual chaperone role of the c-terminal propeptide in folding and oligomerization of the pore-forming toxin aerolysin
Throughout evolution, one of the most ancient forms of aggression between cells or organisms has been the production of proteins or peptides affecting the permeability of the target cell membrane. This class of virulence factors includes the largest family of bacterial toxins, the pore-forming toxins (PFTs). PFTs are bistable structures that can exist in a soluble and a transmembrane state. It is unclear what drives biosynthetic folding towards the soluble state, a requirement that is essential to protect the PFT-producing cell. Here we have investigated the folding of aerolysin, produced by the human pathogen Aeromonas hydrophila, and more specifically the role of the C-terminal propeptide (CTP). By combining the predictive power of computational techniques with experimental validation using both structural and functional approaches, we show that the CTP prevents aggregation during biosynthetic folding. We identified specific residues that mediate binding of the CTP to the toxin. We show that the CTP is crucial for the control of the aerolysin activity, since it protects individual subunits from aggregation within the bacterium and later controls assembly of the quaternary pore-forming complex at the surface of the target host cell. The CTP is the first example of a C-terminal chain-linked chaperone with dual function
X-ray white beam topography of self-organized domains in flux-grown BaTiO3 single crystals
The phenomenon of self-organization of domains into a “square-net pattern” in single-crystal, flux-grown BaTiO3 several degrees below the ferroelectric to paraelectric phase transition was investigated using in situ synchrotron x-ray topography. The tetragonal distortion of the crystal was determined by measuring the angular separation between the diffraction images received from 90° a and c domains in the projection topographs, and shows a rapid decrease towards 110 °C, the onset temperature for self-organization. The onset of self-organization is accompanied by bending of the {100} lattice planes parallel to the crystal surface, which produces a strain that persists up to and beyond the Curie temperature, where the crystal becomes cubic and the self-organized domains disappear. At the Curie point, the bending angle α100=8.1(±0.3)mrad is at a maximum and corresponds to the radius of curvature of the surface being 16.3(±0.6) mm
Lorenz function of BiTe/SbTe superlattices
Combining first principles density functional theory and semi-classical
Boltzmann transport, the anisotropic Lorenz function was studied for
thermoelectric BiTe/SbTe superlattices and their bulk
constituents. It was found that already for the bulk materials BiTe
and SbTe, the Lorenz function is not a pellucid function on charge
carrier concentration and temperature. For electron-doped
BiTe/SbTe superlattices large oscillatory deviations
for the Lorenz function from the metallic limit were found even at high charge
carrier concentrations. The latter can be referred to quantum well effects,
which occur at distinct superlattice periods
Absorbing boundary conditions for the Westervelt equation
The focus of this work is on the construction of a family of nonlinear
absorbing boundary conditions for the Westervelt equation in one and two space
dimensions. The principal ingredient used in the design of such conditions is
pseudo-differential calculus. This approach enables to develop high order
boundary conditions in a consistent way which are typically more accurate than
their low order analogs. Under the hypothesis of small initial data, we
establish local well-posedness for the Westervelt equation with the absorbing
boundary conditions. The performed numerical experiments illustrate the
efficiency of the proposed boundary conditions for different regimes of wave
propagation
Precise control of thermal conductivity at the nanoscale through individual phonon-scattering barriers
International audienceThe ability to precisely control the thermal conductivity (κ) of a material is fundamental in the development of on-chip heat management or energy conversion applications. Nanostructuring permits a marked reduction of κ of single-crystalline materials, as recently demonstrated for silicon nanowires. However, silicon-based nanostructured materials with extremely low κ are not limited to nanowires. By engineering a set of individual phonon-scattering nanodot barriers we have accurately tailored the thermal conductivity of a single-crystalline SiGe material in spatially defined regions as short as ∼15 nm. Single-barrier thermal resistances between 2 and 4×10−9 m2 K W−1 were attained, resulting in a room-temperature κ down to about 0.9 W m−1 K−1, in multilayered structures with as little as five barriers. Such low thermal conductivity is compatible with a totally diffuse mismatch model for the barriers, and it is well below the amorphous limit. The results are in agreement with atomistic Green’s function simulations
Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays
The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device
in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken
during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the
number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for
all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The
efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments
reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per
layer is approximately 5 ns
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