Phonons in Si_(24) at simultaneously elevated temperature and pressure

Raman spectroscopy was used to measure the frequencies of phonons in Si_(24) with an open clathrate structure at temperatures from 80 to 400 K with simultaneous pressures of 0 to 8 GPa. The frequency shifts of the different phonons were substantially different under either temperature or pressure. The quasiharmonic behavior was isolated by varying pressure at low temperatures, and the anharmonic behavior was isolated by varying temperature at low pressures. Phonon modes dominated by bond bending were anomalous, showing stiffening with temperature and softening with pressure. Both the quasiharmonic behavior and the anharmonic behavior changed markedly with simultaneous changes in temperature ΔT and pressure ΔP. With ΔT = 320 K and ΔP = 8 GPa, some frequency shifts that scaled with the product ΔT ΔP were as large as the shifts from ΔT and ΔP alone. The thermodynamic entropy of this material likely has a dependence on ΔT and ΔP that cannot be obtained by adding effects from quasiharmonicity and phonon-phonon anharmonicity

Diversity Outbred Mice at 21: Maintaining Allelic Variation in the Face of Selection

Multi-parent populations (MPPs) capture and maintain the genetic diversity from multiple inbred founder strains to provide a resource for high-resolution genetic mapping through the accumulation of recombination events over many generations. Breeding designs that maintain a large effective population size with randomized assignment of breeders at each generation can minimize the impact of selection, inbreeding, and genetic drift on allele frequencies. Small deviations from expected allele frequencies will have little effect on the power and precision of genetic analysis, but a major distortion could result in reduced power and loss of important functional alleles. We detected strong transmission ratio distortion in the Diversity Outbred (DO) mouse population on chromosome 2, caused by meiotic drive favoring transmission of the WSB/EiJ allele at the R2d2 locus. The distorted region harbors thousands of polymorphisms derived from the seven non-WSB founder strains and many of these would be lost if the sweep was allowed to continue. To ensure the utility of the DO population to study genetic variation on chromosome 2, we performed an artificial selection against WSB/EiJ alleles at the R2d2 locus. Here, we report that we have purged the WSB/EiJ allele from the drive locus while preserving WSB/EiJ alleles in the flanking regions. We observed minimal disruption to allele frequencies across the rest of the autosomal genome. However, there was a shift in haplotype frequencies of the mitochondrial genome and an increase in the rate of an unusual sex chromosome aneuploidy. The DO population has been restored to genome-wide utility for genetic analysis, but our experience underscores that vigilant monitoring of similar genetic resource populations is needed to ensure their long-term utility

Compressed glassy carbon: An ultrastrong and elastic interpenetrating graphene network

Carbon’s unique ability to have both sp2 and sp3 bonding states gives rise to a range of physical attributes, including excellent mechanical and electrical properties. We show that a series of lightweight, ultrastrong, hard, elastic, and conductive carbons are recovered after compressing sp2-hybridized glassy carbon at various temperatures. Compression induces the local buckling of graphene sheets through sp3 nodes to form interpenetrating graphene networks with long-range disorder and short-range order on the nanometer scale. The compressed glassy carbons have extraordinary specific compressive strengths—more than two times that of commonly used ceramics—and simultaneously exhibit robust elastic recovery in response to local deformations. This type of carbon is an optimal ultralight, ultrastrong material for a wide range of multifunctional applications, and the synthesis methodology demonstrates potential to access entirely new metastable materials with exceptional properties

Zintl Ions within Framework Channels: The Complex Structure and Low-Temperature Transport Properties of Na_4Ge_(13)

Single crystals of a complex Zintl compound with the composition Na_4Ge_(13) were synthesized for the first time using a high-pressure/high-temperature approach. Single-crystal diffraction of synchrotron radiation revealed a hexagonal crystal structure with P6/m space group symmetry that is composed of a three-dimensional sp^3 Ge framework punctuated by small and large channels along the crystallographic c axis. Na atoms are inside hexagonal prism-based Ge cages along the small channels, while the larger channels are occupied by layers of disordered sixfold Na rings, which are in turn filled by disordered [Ge_4]^(4–) tetrahedra. This compound is the same as “Na_(1–x)Ge_(3+z)” reported previously, but the availability of single crystals allowed for more complete structural determination with a formula unit best described as Na_4Ge_(12)(Ge_4)_(0.25). The compound is the first known example of a guest–host structure where discrete Zintl polyanions are confined inside the channels of a three-dimensional covalent framework. These features give rise to temperature-dependent disorder, as confirmed by first-principles calculations and physical properties measurements. The availability of single-crystal specimens allowed for measurement of the intrinsic low-temperature transport properties of this material and revealed its semiconductor behavior, which was corroborated by theoretical calculations

Diurnal variations of temperature and winds inferred from TIMED and UARS measurements

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95001/1/jgra18181.pd