Temperature dependence of the energy dissipation in dynamic force microscopy

The dissipation of energy in dynamic force microscopy is usually described in terms of an adhesion hysteresis mechanism. This mechanism should become less efficient with increasing temperature. To verify this prediction we have measured topography and dissipation data with dynamic force microscopy in the temperature range from 100 K up to 300 K. We used 3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic-dianhydride (PTCDA) grown on KBr(001), both materials exhibiting a strong dissipation signal at large frequency shifts. At room temperature, the energy dissipated into the sample (or tip) is 1.9 eV/cycle for PTCDA and 2.7 eV/cycle for KBr, respectively, and is in good agreement with an adhesion hysteresis mechanism. The energy dissipation over the PTCDA surface decreases with increasing temperature yielding a negative temperature coefficient. For the KBr substrate, we find the opposite behaviour: an increase of dissipated energy with increasing temperature. While the negative temperature coefficient in case of PTCDA agrees rather well with the adhesion hysteresis model, the positive slope found for KBr points to a hitherto unknown dissipation mechanism

Structure and diffusion of intrinsic defects, adsorbed hydrogen, and water molecules at the surface of alkali-earth fluorides calculated using density functional theory

Using periodic density functional theory, we calculate the structure and migration energies of fluorine vacancies and interstitials in the bulk and at the stoichiometric bulk-truncated surface of three alkali-earth fluorides: CaF2, SrF2, and BaF2. We then study the adsorption of water and hydrogen, in both molecular and dissociated form, at the ideal surface, and at neutral and charged vacancies in the surface and subsurface layers. The results demonstrate that in nearly all cases molecular adsorption is strongly favored. For the most probable configurations on the surfaces, we also studied the migration paths and barriers, and found that water is highly mobile on the surface, even when adsorbed at defects. In general, CaF2 and SrF2 show similar behavior with respect to water, while adsorption energies and migration barriers for BaF2 are smaller. Finally, we discuss our results in the context of recent experimental Atomic Force Microscopy studies on CaF2 and compare to calculations on other insulating surfaces.Peer reviewe

Gender Differences in Science Interest, Self-concept and Career Aspirations

Gender issues in science education have been widely reported in the literature and linked to the underrepresentation of women in science careers, particularly in physics. Drawing on survey data from the European Commission funded project “MultiCO – Promoting youth scientific career awareness and its attractiveness through multi-stakeholder cooperation”, we analyse the English baseline findings of science interest, self-concept regarding science and career aspirations, prior to introducing scenario-based interventions aimed at raising interest in science and future science-related aspirations. The scenarios illustrate careers that use science skills. By examining the responses of 210 English students, it was found that girls are more interested in biology and less interested in physics than boys; and that their self-concept regarding science subjects is significantly lower. The findings also suggest that self-concept is an influencing factor for girls’ interest in science, but not for boys. Regarding career aspirations, helping other people is more important for girls, and making money, inventing new things, and becoming a leader is more important for boys. This paper also presents the preliminary findings of a questionnaire that collected the responses of 31 students after a scenario-based intervention in physics presenting a female scientist, suggesting that girls were more likely to consider pursuing the career covered in the scenario

Seeing without Seeing? Degraded Conscious Vision in a Blindsight Patient

Blindsight patients, whose primary visual cortex is lesioned, exhibit preserved ability to discriminate visual stimuli presented in their “blind” field, yet report no visual awareness hereof. Blindsight is generally studied in experimental investigations of single patients, as very few patients have been given this “diagnosis”. In our single case study of patient GR, we ask whether blindsight is best described as unconscious vision, or rather as conscious, yet severely degraded vision. In experiment 1 and 2, we successfully replicate the typical findings of previous studies on blindsight. The third experiment, however, suggests that GR's ability to discriminate amongst visual stimuli does not reflect unconscious vision, but rather degraded, yet conscious vision. As our finding results from using a method for obtaining subjective reports that has not previously used in blindsight studies (but validated in studies of healthy subjects and other patients with brain injury), our results call for a reconsideration of blindsight, and, arguably also of many previous studies of unconscious perception in healthy subjects

Using metallic noncontact atomic force microscope tips for imaging insulators and polar molecules: tip characterization and imaging mechanisms

We demonstrate that using metallic tips for noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) imaging at relatively large (>0.5 nm) tip-surface separations provides a reliable method for studying molecules on insulating surfaces with chemical resolution and greatly reduces the complexity of interpreting experimental data. The experimental NC-AFM imaging and theoretical simulations were carried out for the NiO(001) surface as well as adsorbed CO and Co-Salen molecules using Cr-coated Si tips. The experimental results and density functional theory calculations confirm that metallic tips possess a permanent electric dipole moment with its positive end oriented toward the sample. By analyzing the experimental data, we could directly determine the dipole moment of the Cr-coated tip. A model representing the metallic tip as a point dipole is described and shown to produce NC-AFM images of individual CO molecules adsorbed onto NiO(001) in good quantitative agreement with experimental results. Finally, we discuss methods for characterizing the structure of metal-coated tips and the application of these tips to imaging dipoles of large adsorbed molecules. © 2014 American Chemical Society

Neuro-cognitive mechanisms of conscious and unconscious visual perception: From a plethora of phenomena to general principles

Psychological and neuroscience approaches have promoted much progress in elucidating the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie phenomenal visual awareness during the last decades. In this article, we provide an overview of the latest research investigating important phenomena in conscious and unconscious vision. We identify general principles to characterize conscious and unconscious visual perception, which may serve as important building blocks for a unified model to explain the plethora of findings. We argue that in particular the integration of principles from both conscious and unconscious vision is advantageous and provides critical constraints for developing adequate theoretical models. Based on the principles identified in our review, we outline essential components of a unified model of conscious and unconscious visual perception. We propose that awareness refers to consolidated visual representations, which are accessible to the entire brain and therefore globally available. However, visual awareness not only depends on consolidation within the visual system, but is additionally the result of a post-sensory gating process, which is mediated by higher-level cognitive control mechanisms. We further propose that amplification of visual representations by attentional sensitization is not exclusive to the domain of conscious perception, but also applies to visual stimuli, which remain unconscious. Conscious and unconscious processing modes are highly interdependent with influences in both directions. We therefore argue that exactly this interdependence renders a unified model of conscious and unconscious visual perception valuable. Computational modeling jointly with focused experimental research could lead to a better understanding of the plethora of empirical phenomena in consciousness research

Is atomic-scale dissipation in NC-AFM real? Investigation using virtual atomic force microscopy - art. no. 084017

Using a virtual dynamic atomic force microscope, that explicitly simulates the operation of a non-contact AFM experiment, we have performed calculations to investigate the formation of atomic-scale contrast in dissipation images. A non-conservative tip-surface interaction was implemented using the theory of dynamical response in scanning probe microscopy with energies and barriers derived from realistic atomistic modelling. It is shown how contrast in the damping signal is due to the hysteresis in the tip-surface force and not an artefact of the finite response of the complicated instrumentation. Topography and dissipation images of the CaO(001) surface are produced which show atomic-scale contrast in the dissipation with a corrugation of approximately 0.1 eV, which is typical of that observed in images of similar binary ionic surfaces. The effect of the fast-direction scanning speed on the image formation is also investigated and discussed. © IOP Publishing Ltd

Is atomic-scale dissipation in NC-AFM real? Investigation using virtual atomic force microscopy

Using a virtual dynamic atomic force microscope, that explicitly simulates the operation of a non-contact AFM experiment, we have performed calculations to investigate the formation of atomic-scale contrast in dissipation images. A non-conservative tip-surface interaction was implemented using the theory of dynamical response in scanning probe microscopy with energies and barriers derived from realistic atomistic modelling. It is shown how contrast in the damping signal is due to the hysteresis in the tip-surface force and not an artefact of the finite response of the complicated instrumentation. Topography and dissipation images of the CaO(001) surface are produced which show atomic-scale contrast in the dissipation with a corrugation of approximately 0.1 eV, which is typical of that observed in images of similar binary ionic surfaces. The effect of the fast-direction scanning speed on the image formation is also investigated and discussed. © IOP Publishing Ltd