Search results for "OEL"

Out-of-plane orientation of luminescent excitons in two-dimensional indium selenide.

2019

Van der Waals materials offer a wide range of atomic layers with unique properties that can be easily combined to engineer novel electronic and photonic devices. A missing ingredient of the van der Waals platform is a two-dimensional crystal with naturally occurring out-of-plane luminescent dipole orientation. Here we measure the far-field photoluminescence intensity distribution of bulk InSe and two-dimensional InSe, WSe2 and MoSe2. We demonstrate, with the support of ab-initio calculations, that layered InSe flakes sustain luminescent excitons with an intrinsic out-of-plane orientation, in contrast with the in-plane orientation of dipoles we find in two-dimensional WSe2 and MoSe2 at room-…

Matching the Directions of Electric Fields from Triboelectric and Ferroelectric Charges in Nanogenerator Devices for Boosted Performance

2020

Summary Embedding additional ferroelectric dipoles in contacting polymer layers is known to enhance the performance of triboelectricnanogenerator (TENG) devices. However, the influence of dipoles formed between the triboelectric surface charges on two contacting ferroelectric films has been ignored in all relevant studies. We demonstrate that proper attention to the alignment of the distinct dipoles present between two contacting surfaces and in composite polymer/BaTiO3 ferroelectric films can lead to up to four times higher energy and power density output compared with cases when dipole arrangement is mismatched. For example, TENG device based on PVAc/BaTiO3 shows energy density increase f…

2017

Significant progress in nonlinear and ultrafast optics has recently opened new and exciting opportunities for terahertz (THz) science and technology, which require the development of reliable THz sources, detectors, and supporting devices. In this work, we demonstrate the first solid-state technique for the coherent detection of ultra-broadband THz pulses (0.1–10 THz), relying on the electric-field-induced second-harmonic generation in a thin layer of ultraviolet fused silica. The proposed CMOS-compatible devices, which can be realized with standard microfabrication techniques, allow us to perform ultra-broadband detection with a high dynamic range by employing probe laser powers and bias v…

Ranolazine-Mediated Attenuation of Mechanoelectric Feedback in Atrial Myocyte Monolayers.

2020

[EN] Background Mechanical stretch increases Na(+)inflow into myocytes, related to mechanisms including stretch-activated channels or Na+/H(+)exchanger activation, involving Ca(2+)increase that leads to changes in electrophysiological properties favoring arrhythmia induction. Ranolazine is an antianginal drug with confirmed beneficial effects against cardiac arrhythmias associated with the augmentation ofI(NaL)current and Ca(2+)overload. Objective This study investigates the effects of mechanical stretch on activation patterns in atrial cell monolayers and its pharmacological response to ranolazine. Methods Confluent HL-1 cells were cultured in silicone membrane plates and were stretched to…

Gastrointestinal parasite burden in 4th-5th c. CE Florence highlighted by microscopy and paleogenetics

2021

The study of ancient parasites, named paleoparasitology, traditionally focused on microscopic eggs disseminated in past environments and archaeological structures by humans and other animals infested by gastrointestinal parasites. Since the development of paleogenetics in the early 1980s, few paleoparasitological studies have been based on the ancient DNA (aDNA) of parasites, although such studies have clearly proven their utility and reliability. In this paper, we describe our integrative approach for the paleoparasitological study of an ancient population from Florence in Italy, dated to the 4th-5th c. CE. The first stage consisted in the study of sediment samples from the pelvic area of …

Age reduces resistance and tolerance in malaria-infected mice.

2021

7 pages; International audience; Once infected, hosts can rely on two strategies to cope with parasites: fight them (resist the infection) or minimize the damage they induce (tolerate the infection). While there is evidence that aging reduces resistance, how tolerance varies as hosts become old has been barely studied. Here, we used a rodent malaria parasite (Plasmodium yoelii) to investigate whether 2- and 12-month old house mice differ in their capacity to resist and tolerate the infection. We found that 12-month old mice harbored higher parasitemia, showing that age reduces resistance to malaria. Infection-induced deterioration of host health was assessed using red blood cell and body ma…

Structure of AP205 Coat Protein Reveals Circular Permutation in ssRNA Bacteriophages.

2016

We are thankful to the MAX-lab staff for their support during our visit at the synchrotron.; International audience; AP205 is a single-stranded RNA bacteriophage that has a coat protein sequence not similar to any other known single-stranded RNA phage. Here, we report an atomic-resolution model of the AP205 virus-like particle based on a crystal structure of an unassembled coat protein dimer and a cryo-electron microscopy reconstruction of the assembled particle, together with secondary structure information from site-specific solid-state NMR data. The AP205 coat protein dimer adopts the conserved Leviviridae coat protein fold except for the N-terminal region, which forms a beta-hairpin in …

Large area conductive nanoaperture arrays with strong optical resonances and spectrally flat terahertz transmission

2017

Using simple and inexpensive nanosphere lithography, we produce large, centimeter-squared sized thin golden films patterned with a hexagonal array of nanoapertures with controllable dimensions on the order of 100–300 nm, spaced by a 350–375 nm pitch distance. The optical transmission spectra of our samples are dominated by the resonant plasmonic features in the spectral range 500–700 nm, caused by the nanostructure in the film. At the same time, the transmission at terahertz (THz) radiation is as high as ∼10% and is spectrally flat. Our measurements are in agreement with finite difference time domain simulations. Such thin metal hole array films allow for very efficient injection of optical…

Septin/anillin filaments scaffold central nervous system myelin to accelerate nerve conduction

2016

Myelination of axons facilitates rapid impulse propagation in the nervous system. The axon/myelin-unit becomes impaired in myelin-related disorders and upon normal aging. However, the molecular cause of many pathological features, including the frequently observed myelin outfoldings, remained unknown. Using label-free quantitative proteomics, we find that the presence of myelin outfoldings correlates with a loss of cytoskeletal septins in myelin. Regulated by phosphatidylinositol-(4,5)-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2)-levels, myelin septins (SEPT2/SEPT4/SEPT7/SEPT8) and the PI(4,5)P2-adaptor anillin form previously unrecognized filaments that extend longitudinally along myelinated axons. By confoca…

On the presence and immunoregulatory functions of extracellular microRNAs in the trematode Fasciola hepatica.

2017

Summary Liver flukes represent a paraphyletic group of endoparasitic flatworms that significantly affect man either indirectly due to economic damage on livestock or directly as pathogens. A range of studies have focussed on how these macroscopic organisms can evade the immune-system and live inside a hostile environment such as the mammalian liver and bile-ducts. Recently, microRNAs, a class of short non-coding gene-regulators, have been proposed as likely candidates to play roles in this scenario. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key players in development and pathogenicity and are highly conserved between metazoans: identical miRNAs can be found in flatworms and mammalians. Interestingly, miRNAs a…