261 research outputs found
Gas Sensing Properties of Single Conducting Polymer Nanowires and the Effect of Temperature
We measured the electronic properties and gas sensing responses of
template-grown poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(styrenesulfonate)
(PEDOT/PSS)-based nanowires. The nanowires have a "striped" structure
(gold-PEDOT/PSS-gold), typically 8um long (1um-6um-1um for each section,
respectively) and 220 nm in diameter. Single-nanowire devices were contacted by
pre-fabricated gold electrodes using dielectrophoretic assembly. A polymer
conductivity of 11.5 +/- 0.7 S/cm and a contact resistance of 27.6 +/- 4 kOhm
were inferred from measurements of nanowires of varying length and diameter.
The nanowire sensors detect a variety of odors, with rapid response and
recovery (seconds). The response (R-R0)/R0 varies as a power law with analyte
concentration.Comment: 4 figures 8 pages, add 2 reference
Proximity-induced superconductivity in nanowires: Mini-gap state and differential magnetoresistance oscillations
We study proximity-induced superconductivity in gold nanowires as a function
of the length of the nanowire, magnetic field, and excitation current. Short
nanowires exhibit a sharp superconducting transition, whereas long nanowires
show nonzero resistance. At intermediate lengths, however, we observe two sharp
transitions; the normal and superconducting regions are separated by what we
call the mini-gap phase. Additionally, we detect periodic oscillations in the
differential magnetoresistance. We provide a theoretical model for the mini-gap
phase as well as the periodic oscillations in terms of the coexistence of
proximity-induced superconductivity with a normal region near the center of the
wire, created either by temperature or application of a magnetic field.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Dissipation in Quasi One-Dimensional Superconducting Single-Crystal Sn Nanowires
Electrical transport measurements were made on single-crystal Sn nanowires to
understand the intrinsic dissipation mechanisms of a one-dimensional
superconductor. While the resistance of wires of diameter larger than 70 nm
drops precipitately to zero at Tc near 3.7 K, a residual resistive tail
extending down to low temperature is found for wires with diameters of 20 and
40 nm. As a function of temperature, the logarithm of the residual resistance
appears as two linear sections, one within a few tenths of a degree below Tc
and the other extending down to at least 0.47 K, the minimum temperature of the
measurements. The residual resistance is found to be ohmic at all temperatures
below Tc of Sn. These findings are suggestive of a thermally activated phase
slip process near Tc and quantum fluctuation-induced phase slip process in the
low temperature regime. When the excitation current exceeds a critical value,
the voltage-current (V-I) curves show a series of discrete steps in approaching
the normal state. These steps cannot be fully understood with the classical
Skocpol-Beasley-Tinkham phase slip center model (PSC), but can be qualitatively
accounted for partly by the PSC model modified by Michotte et al.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. To be appeared on Physical Review B 71, 200
Teacher Training Workshop for Educators of Students Who Are Blind or Low Vision
The Independent Laboratory Access for the Blind (ILAB) project has developed a suite of speech accessible tools for students who are blind or low vision to use in secondary and postsecondary science laboratory classes. The following are illustrations of experiments designed to be used by educators to introduce them to the ILAB tools, and to demonstrate how these tools can be incorporated into standard laboratory experiments. Information about the Lawrence Hall of Science’s SAVI/SELPH curriculum is also discussed
Talking Tools to Assist Students Who are Blind in Laboratory Courses
A number of tools and techniques have been developed to assist students with blindness and visual impairment who are studying in secondary and post-secondary science laboratories. Commercial electronic probes and their associated software packages allow real-time viewing and collection of data using a personal computer; however, until now, these data have been inaccessible to students with blindness or visual impairment because of the incompatibility of the data acquisition software with screen-reading software. Recent programming modifications now allow a new level of compatibility, which promotes a greater degree of independence and accessibility to laboratory science for people with visual impairments
Enhanced diffusion due to active swimmers at a solid surface
We consider two systems of active swimmers moving close to a solid surface,
one being a living population of wild-type \textit{E. coli} and the other being
an assembly of self-propelled Au-Pt rods. In both situations, we have
identified two different types of motion at the surface and evaluated the
fraction of the population that displayed ballistic trajectories (active
swimmers) with respect to those showing random-like behavior. We studied the
effect of this complex swimming activity on the diffusivity of passive tracers
also present at the surface. We found that the tracer diffusivity is enhanced
with respect to standard Brownian motion and increases linearly with the
activity of the fluid, defined as the product of the fraction of active
swimmers and their mean velocity. This result can be understood in terms of
series of elementary encounters between the active swimmers and the tracers.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures in color, Physical Review Letters (in production
Effect of micropore topology on the structure and properties of zeolite polymer replicas
Zeolites were used as templates to prepare microporous polymer replicas. Phenolformaldehyde polymers were synthesized and cured within the channel networks of zeolites Y, , and L. Dissolution of the aluminosilicate framework in aqueous HF yields an organic replica that contains <2% aluminosilicate. The zeolite template exerts important topological effects on the structure and physical properties of the replica. Using zeolites Y and , which have three-dimensionally interconnected channel structures, the microporosity of the template is reflected in the replica polymer. Pore size distributions are consistent with the predominance of 5-6 Å walls in the parent zeolite. In contrast, complete collapse of the replica, to a give nonporous material, occurs upon removal of the zeolite L template, since the latter has a one-dimensional channel structure. TEM and SEM micrographs also show evidence of collapse in the latter case. Pyrolysis of the zeolite-resin composites at 900°C, and subsequent etching, produces very high surface area, electronically conducting replicas. Under these conditions the zeolite Y replica has markedly lower conductivity than those obtained from and L, which have straight channels
Photocatalytic Water Oxidation in a Buffered Tris(2,2‘-bipyridyl)ruthenium Complex-Colloidal IrO 2
Chemical Power for Microscopic Robots in Capillaries
The power available to microscopic robots (nanorobots) that oxidize
bloodstream glucose while aggregated in circumferential rings on capillary
walls is evaluated with a numerical model using axial symmetry and
time-averaged release of oxygen from passing red blood cells. Robots about one
micron in size can produce up to several tens of picowatts, in steady-state, if
they fully use oxygen reaching their surface from the blood plasma. Robots with
pumps and tanks for onboard oxygen storage could collect oxygen to support
burst power demands two to three orders of magnitude larger. We evaluate
effects of oxygen depletion and local heating on surrounding tissue. These
results give the power constraints when robots rely entirely on ambient
available oxygen and identify aspects of the robot design significantly
affecting available power. More generally, our numerical model provides an
approach to evaluating robot design choices for nanomedicine treatments in and
near capillaries.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure
New first order Raman-active modes in few layered transition metal dichalcogenides
Although the main Raman features of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides are well known for the monolayer and bulk, there are important differences exhibited by few layered systems which have not been fully addressed. WSe 2 samples were synthesized and ab-initio calculations carried out. We calculated phonon dispersions and Raman-active modes in layered systems: WSe 2 , MoSe 2 , WS 2 and MoS 2 ranging from monolayers to five-layers and the bulk. First, we confirmed that as the number of layers increase, the E9, E0 and E 2g modes shift to lower frequencies, and the A9 1 and A 1g modes shift to higher frequencies. Second, new high frequency first order A9 1 and A 1g modes appear, explaining recently reported experimental data for WSe 2 , MoSe 2 and MoS 2 . Third, splitting of modes around A9 1 and A 1g is found which explains those observed in MoSe 2 . Finally, exterior and interior layers possess different vibrational frequencies. Therefore, it is now possible to precisely identify few-layered STMD. T he field of 2-Dimensional semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (STMDs) is growing very fast mainly due to: a) their moderate band gap which can be used for fabricating electronic devices such as field effect transistors (FETs
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