Strong Local Effects Research Articles

Broadband full-color monolithic InGaN light-emitting diodes by self-assembled InGaN quantum dots

We have presented broadband full-color monolithic InGaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by self-assembled InGaN quantum dots (QDs) using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The electroluminescence spectra of the InGaN QDs LEDs are extremely broad span from 410 nm to 720 nm with a line-width of 164 nm, covering entire visible wavelength range. A color temperature of 3370 K and a color rendering index of 69.3 have been achieved. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence measurements reveal a strong carriers localization effect of the InGaN QDs layer by obvious blue-shift of emission peak from 50 K to 300 K. The broadband luminescence spectrum is believed to be attributed to the injected carriers captured by the different localized states of InGaN QDs with various sizes, shapes and indium compositions, leading to a full visible color emission. The successful realization of our broadband InGaN QDs LEDs provide a convenient and practical method for the fabrication of GaN-based monolithic full-color LEDs in wafer scale.

Highly Efficient Destruction of Amyloid-β Fibrils by Femtosecond Laser-Induced Nanoexplosion of Gold Nanorods.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with the aggregation of the amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides into toxic aggregates. How to inhibit the aggregation of Aβ peptides has been extensively studied over recent decades. The investigation on eliminating preformed fibrils, however, has rarely been reported. In this paper, near-infrared femtosecond (fs) laser is applied for the destruction of preformed Aβ fibrils in conjunction with gold nanorods (AuNRs). Our results demonstrate that the 800 nm fs-laser irradiation can locally trigger the explosion of AuNRs due to the strong localized surface plasmon resonance effect. As a result, the majority of Aβ fibrils are efficiently destroyed into small fragments by the irradiation of fs-laser with a light dose less than 75 J·cm-2. Meanwhile, significant reduction of β-sheet structures is observed by thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence measurements. In contrast, the destruction effect by continuous wave (cw) laser irradiation is much weaker with equivalent power density and irradiation time. Furthermore, the laser-induced destruction of fibrils by Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) is also investigated, which reveals that most of the Aβ fibrils remain well under the surface explosion of spherical AuNPs. Overall, our results provide a novel design for the fast destruction of amyloid fibrils locally and biocompatibly, which may have remarkable potentials in the therapy of AD.

Anomalous thickness-dependent optical energy gap of ALD-grown ultra-thin CuO films

Usually an inverse square relation between the optical energy gap and the size of crystallites is observed for semiconducting materials due to the strong quantum localization effect. Coulomb attraction that may lead to a proportional dependence is often ignored or considered less important to the optical energy gap when the crystallite size or the thickness of a thin film changes. Here we report a proportional dependence between the optical energy gap and the thickness of ALD-grown CuO thin films due to a strong Coulomb attraction. The ultrathin films deposited in the thickness range of 9–81 nm show a p-type semiconducting behavior when analyzed by Seebeck coefficient and electrical resistivity measurements. The indirect optical energy gap nature of the films is verified from UV–vis spectrophotometric measurements. A progressive increase in the indirect optical energy gap from 1.06 to 1.24 eV is observed with the increase in the thickness of the films. The data are analyzed in the presence of Coulomb attractions using the Brus model. The optical energy gap when plotted against the cubic root of the thickness of the films shows a linear dependence.

Field emission properties and strong localization effect in conduction mechanism of nanostructured perovskite LaNiO3

We report the potential field emission of highly conducting metallic perovskite lanthanum nickelate (LaNiO3) from the nanostructured pyramidal and whisker shaped tips as electron emitters. Nano particles of lanthanum nickelate (LNO) were prepared by sol-gel route. Structural and morphological studies have been carried out. Field emission of LNO exhibited high emission current density, J = 3.37 mA/cm2 at a low threshold electric field, Eth = 16.91 V/μm, obeying Fowler–Nordheim tunneling. The DC electrical resistivity exhibited upturn at 11.6 K indicating localization of electron at low temperature. Magnetoresistance measurement at different temperatures confirmed strong localization in nanostructured LNO obeying Anderson localization effect at low temperature.

Continuous-time quantum walks on multilayer dendrimer networks.

We consider continuous-time quantum walks (CTQWs) on multilayer dendrimer networks (MDs) and their application to quantum transport. A detailed study of properties of CTQWs is presented and transport efficiency is determined in terms of the exact and average return probabilities. The latter depends only on the eigenvalues of the connectivity matrix, which even for very large structures allows a complete analytical solution for this particular choice of network. In the case of MDs we observe an interplay between strong localization effects, due to the dendrimer topology, and good efficiency from the linear segments. We show that quantum transport is enhanced by interconnecting more layers of dendrimers.

Nanoscopic Insights into InGaN/GaN Core-Shell Nanorods: Structure, Composition, and Luminescence.

Nitride-based three-dimensional core-shell nanorods (NRs) are promising candidates for the achievement of highly efficient optoelectronic devices. For a detailed understanding of the complex core-shell layer structure of InGaN/GaN NRs, a systematic determination and correlation of the structural, compositional, and optical properties on a nanometer-scale is essential. In particular, the combination of low-temperature cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy directly performed in a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), and quantitative high-angle annular dark field imaging enables a comprehensive study of the nanoscopic attributes of the individual shell layers. The investigated InGaN/GaN core-shell NRs, which were grown by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy using selective-area growth exhibit an exceptionally low density of extended defects. Using highly spatially resolved CL mapping of single NRs performed in cross-section, we give a direct insight into the optical properties of the individual core-shell layers. Most interesting, we observe a red shift of the InGaN single quantum well from 410 to 471 nm along the nonpolar side wall. Quantitative STEM analysis of the active region reveals an increasing thickness of the single quantum well (SQW) from 6 to 13 nm, accompanied by a slight increase of the indium concentration along the nonpolar side wall from 11% to 13%. Both effects, the increased quantum-well thickness and the higher indium incorporation, are responsible for the observed energetic shift of the InGaN SQW luminescence. Furthermore, compositional mappings of the InGaN quantum well reveal the formation of locally indium rich regions with several nanometers in size, leading to potential fluctuations in the InGaN SQW energy landscape. This is directly evidenced by nanometer-scale resolved CL mappings that show strong localization effects of the excitonic SQW emission.

Optical properties of nearly lattice-matched GaN/(Al,In)N quantum wells

We report a systematic study of the photoluminescence (PL) properties of a series of nearly lattice-matched (LM) GaN/(Al,In)N single quantum well (SQW) samples, with well thickness ranging from 1.5 to 5 nm, grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Temperature dependent PL and time-resolved PL measurements reveal similar trends among the studied SQW samples, which also indicate strong localization effects. The observed PL energy behavior, akin to the S-shape, accompanied first by a narrowing and then a broadening of the PL line width with increasing temperature, closely resemble previous observations made on the more established (In,Ga)N/GaN QW system. The similar trends observed in the PL features of those two QW systems imply that the PL properties of LM GaN/(Al,In)N SQW samples are also governed by localized states. The effects of carrier transfer among these localization sites are clearly observed for the 3 nm thick QW, evidenced by an increasing PL intensity in the lower energy spectral window and a concomitant increase in the corresponding PL decay time. Time-resolved data corroborate the picture of strongly localized carriers and also indicate that above a well thickness dependent delocalization temperature carrier distribution across the localized sites reaches thermal equilibrium, as the PL decay times over different spectral regions converge to the same value. Based on the difference between the calculated QW ground state transition energy, obtained using the envelope wave function formalism, and the measured PL energy, a localization energy of at least a few hundreds of meV has been extracted for all of the studied SQW samples. This rather large value also implies that In-related localization effects are more pronounced in the GaN/(Al,In)N system with respect to those in the (In,Ga)N/GaN one for a similar In content.

Plasmonic engineering of metal-oxide nanowire heterojunctions in integrated nanowire rectification units

We show that irradiation with femtosecond laser pulses can produce robust nanowire heterojunctions in coupled non-wetting metal-oxide Ag-TiO2 structures. Simulations indicate that joining arises from the effect of strong plasmonic localization in the region of the junction. Strong electric field effects occur in both Ag and TiO2 resulting in the modification of both surfaces and an increase in wettability of TiO2, facilitating the interconnection of Ag and TiO2 nanowires. Irradiation leads to the creation of a thin layer of highly defected TiO2 in the contact region between the Ag and TiO2 nanowires. The presence of this layer allows the formation of a heterojunction and offers the possibility of engineering the electronic characteristics of interfacial structures. Rectifying junctions with single and bipolar properties have been generated in Ag-TiO2 nanowire circuits incorporating asymmetrical and symmetrical interfacial structures, respectively. This fabrication technique should be applicable for the interconnection of other heterogeneous metal-oxide nanowire components and demonstrates that femtosecond laser irradiation enables interfacial engineering for electronic applications of integrated nanowire structures.

The pieces fit: Constituent structure and global coherence of visual narrative in RSVP

Recent research has shown that comprehension of visual narrative relies on the ordering and timing of sequential images. Here we tested if rapidly presented 6-image long visual sequences could be understood as coherent narratives. Half of the sequences were correctly ordered and half had two of the four internal panels switched. Participants reported whether the sequence was correctly ordered and rated its coherence. Accuracy in detecting a switch increased when panels were presented for 1s rather than 0.5s. Doubling the duration of the first panel did not affect results. When two switched panels were further apart, order was discriminated more accurately and coherence ratings were low, revealing that a strong local adjacency effect influenced order and coherence judgments. Switched panels at constituent boundaries or within constituents were most disruptive to order discrimination, indicating that the preservation of constituent structure is critical to visual narrative grammar.

Thermally triggered phononic gaps in liquids at THz scale

In this paper we present inelastic X-ray scattering experiments in a diamond anvil cell and molecular dynamic simulations to investigate the behavior of phononic excitations in liquid Ar. The spectra calculated using molecular dynamics were found to be in a good agreement with the experimental data. Furthermore, we observe that, upon temperature increases, a low-frequency transverse phononic gap emerges while high-frequency propagating modes become evanescent at the THz scale. The effect of strong localization of a longitudinal phononic mode in the supercritical phase is observed for the first time. The evidence for the high-frequency transverse phononic gap due to the transition from an oscillatory to a ballistic dynamic regimes of motion is presented and supported by molecular dynamics simulations. This transition takes place across the Frenkel line thermodynamic limit which demarcates compressed liquid and non-compressed fluid domains on the phase diagram and is supported by calculations within the Green-Kubo phenomenological formalism. These results are crucial to advance the development of novel terahertz thermal devices, phononic lenses, mirrors, and other THz metamaterials.

Activated-platelet targeting of CD39 as a potential way forward. The quest for efficient antithrombotic therapy without associated bleeding complications.

Antiplatelet therapy is given to millions of patients and has saved numerous lives. However, it is also associated with complications including fatal bleedings. Clinically used antiplatelet drugs seem to follow the rule of an inherent link of improved anti-thrombotic potency with increased risk of bleeding complications. Therefore, there is an ongoing quest to develop drugs that are able to break this link that has prevented many patients from receiving antiplatelet protection and has resulted in substantial mortality and morbidity. We describe a new antiplatelet approach that is based on an recombinant antibody protein, a drug format that has recently attracted major interest. Two unique components are genetically combined in this molecule: 1) The ecto-nucleoside triphosphate diphosphohydrolase NTPDase CD39, which enzymatically degrades ATP and ADP to AMP, which is then further degraded to adenosine by the endothelially expressed CD73. Thereby, the platelet activating ADP is reduced and replaced by the platelet inhibiting adenosine resulting in a strong antiplatelet effect. 2) A single-chain antibody (scFv) that specifically binds to the activated GPIIb/IIIa receptor and thus allows targeting to activated platelets. The described fusion protein results in strong enrichment of CD39's antiplatelet effect, resulting in potent inhibition of platelet adhesion and aggregation and thrombosis in mice. The activated platelet targeting allows using a low systemic concentration that does not interfere with normal haemostasis and thus does not cause bleeding time prolongation in mice. We describe a new antiplatelet approach that promises to deliver strong localized antithrombotic effects without associated bleeding problems.

Resilience of SAR11 bacteria to rapid acidification in the high-latitude open ocean.

Ubiquitous SAR11 Alphaproteobacteria numerically dominate marine planktonic communities. Because they are excruciatingly difficult to cultivate, there is comparatively little known about their physiology and metabolic responses to long- and short-term environmental changes. As surface oceans take up anthropogenic, atmospheric CO2, the consequential process of ocean acidification could affect the global biogeochemical significance of SAR11. Shipping accidents or inadvertent release of chemicals from industrial plants can have strong short-term local effects on oceanic SAR11. This study investigated the effect of 2.5-fold acidification of seawater on the metabolism of SAR11 and other heterotrophic bacterioplankton along a natural temperature gradient crossing the North Atlantic Ocean, Norwegian and Greenland Seas. Uptake rates of the amino acid leucine by SAR11 cells as well as other bacterioplankton remained similar to controls despite an instant ∼50% increase in leucine bioavailability upon acidification. This high physiological resilience to acidification even without acclimation, suggests that open ocean dominant bacterioplankton are able to cope even with sudden and therefore more likely with long-term acidification effects.

Atomistic analysis of the electronic structure of m‐plane InGaN/GaN quantum wells: Carrier localization effects in ground and excited states due to random alloy fluctuations

AbstractWe present a detailed atomistic analysis of the electronic properties of m‐plane InGaN/GaN quantum wells. The tight‐binding model used treats realistically sized systems atomistically and accounts for compositional and structural inhomogeneities. Local variation in strain and built‐in potential arising from random alloy fluctuations are explicitly included in the model. Many energy states of the supercells considered are calculated in order to determine the impact of the alloy fluctuations on the electronic structure of the system under investigation. We find that while the electrons are relatively insensitive to the local indium environment, the hole states are highly sensitive to it and are subject to very strong localization effects. These effects persist several states into the valence band. This strong localization of the hole states leads to a very broad distribution of ground state energies in different random configurations. Furthermore, we see that the localization leads to poor overlap between different hole states resulting in a reduced probability of transfer of carriers between different states. This feature should play an important role for transport properties in m‐plane InGaN/GaN QWs.

Structural, electronic, and optical properties ofm-plane InGaN/GaN quantum wells: Insights from experiment and atomistic theory

In this paper we present a detailed analysis of the structural, electronic, and optical properties of an $m$-plane (In,Ga)N/GaN quantum well structure grown by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy. The sample has been structurally characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning transmission electron microscopy, and 3D atom probe tomography. The optical properties of the sample have been studied by photoluminescence (PL), time-resolved PL spectroscopy, and polarized PL excitation spectroscopy. The PL spectrum consisted of a very broad PL line with a high degree of optical linear polarization. To understand the optical properties we have performed atomistic tight-binding calculations, and based on our initial atom probe tomography data, the model includes the effects of strain and built-in field variations arising from random alloy fluctuations. Furthermore, we included Coulomb effects in the calculations. Our microscopic theoretical description reveals strong hole wave function localization effects due to random alloy fluctuations, resulting in strong variations in ground state energies and consequently the corresponding transition energies. This is consistent with the experimentally observed broad PL peak. Furthermore, when including Coulomb contributions in the calculations we find strong exciton localization effects which explain the form of the PL decay transients. Additionally, the theoretical results confirm the experimentally observed high degree of optical linear polarization. Overall, the theoretical data are in very good agreement with the experimental findings, highlighting the strong impact of the microscopic alloy structure on the optoelectronic properties of these systems.

Spatially-explicit water balance implications of carbon capture and sequestration

Implementation of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) will increase water demand due to the cooling water requirements of CO2 capture equipment. If the captured CO2 is injected into saline aquifers for sequestration, brine may be extracted to manage the aquifer pressure, and can be desalinated to provide additional freshwater supply. We conduct a geospatial analysis to determine how CCS may affect local water supply and demand across the contiguous United States. We calculate baseline indices for each county in the year 2005, and project future water supply and demand with and without CCS through 2030. We conduct sensitivity analyses to identify the system parameters that most significantly affect water balance. Water supply changes due to inter-annual variability and projected climate change are overwhelmingly the most significant sources of variation. CCS can have strong local effects on water supply and demand, but overall it has a modest effect on water balances.

Direct and indirect effects of climate change on projected future fire regimes in the western United States

We asked two research questions: (1) What are the relative effects of climate change and climate-driven vegetation shifts on different components of future fire regimes? (2) How does incorporating climate-driven vegetation change into future fire regime projections alter the results compared to projections based only on direct climate effects? We used the western United States (US) as study area to answer these questions. Future (2071–2100) fire regimes were projected using statistical models to predict spatial patterns of occurrence, size and spread for large fires (>400ha) and a simulation experiment was conducted to compare the direct climatic effects and the indirect effects of climate-driven vegetation change on fire regimes. Results showed that vegetation change amplified climate-driven increases in fire frequency and size and had a larger overall effect on future total burned area in the western US than direct climate effects. Vegetation shifts, which were highly sensitive to precipitation pattern changes, were also a strong determinant of the future spatial pattern of burn rates and had different effects on fire in currently forested and grass/shrub areas. Our results showed that climate-driven vegetation change can exert strong localized effects on fire occurrence and size, which in turn drive regional changes in fire regimes. The effects of vegetation change for projections of the geographic patterns of future fire regimes may be at least as important as the direct effects of climate change, emphasizing that accounting for changing vegetation patterns in models of future climate–fire relationships is necessary to provide accurate projections at continental to global scales.

Quantum criticality and emergence of the T/B scaling in strongly correlated metals

A new type of scaling observed in heavy-electron metal β-YbAlB4, where the magnetic susceptibility is expressed as a single scaling function of the ratio of temperature T and magnetic field B over four decades, is examined theoretically. We develop the mode-coupling theory for critical Yb-valence fluctuations under a magnetic field, verifying that the T/B scaling behavior appears near the QCP of the valence transition. Emergence of the T/B scaling indicates the presence of the small characteristic temperature of the critical Yb-valence fluctuation due to the strong local correlation effect. It is discussed that the T/B scaling as well as the unconventional criticality is explained from the viewpoint of the quantum valence criticality in a unified way.

Optical properties of GaAsBi/GaAs quantum wells: Photoreflectance, photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence study

Photoreflectance (PR), photoluminescence (PL) and time-resolved PL were applied to study the optical properties, particularly the localized and delocalized states and carrier dynamics, in GaAs1−xBix/GaAs quantum wells. With increasing Bi concentration the ground state transition (i.e., the transition between the first heavy hole and the first electron subband) red shifts due to Bi-related reduction of the GaAs1−xBix energy gap. Additionally, the transition related to the excited states in the quantum wells is clearly observed for the sample with high Bi concentration of 5.6%, confirming these quantum wells are type I. The PL measurements show the S-shape behavior and indicate the strong localization effect below 150 K for all measured samples, while the PL emission above 150 K is related to delocalized states. The localized character of emission at low temperatures is confirmed by time-resolved PL studies. At 10 K the decay time has strong spectral dispersion (i.e. the decay time increases from ∼10 ns to ∼400 ns going from the high to low energy side of the PL peak). This dispersion disappears above 190 K. At room temperature the decay time is in the order of a few ns.

Infrastructure, Multinational Affiliate Production, and the Pattern of Trade

In a two-country general equilibrium model with endogenously determined domestic and multinational firms, it is shown that public infrastructure development can have diverging implications for horizontal multinational affiliate firm production and trade, depending on the type of infrastructure invested in. Infrastructure investments with strong productive or local transport effects (i.e. schools or local roads) lead to greater domestic firm production and exports, fewer imports, and more foreign multinational affiliate firm production in the country making the investment. On the other hand, infrastructure projects that lower international trade and transaction costs (i.e. shipping ports or airports) lead to more domestic firms in both countries, a greater volume of bilateral exports in both directions, and less multinational affiliate production. Further, the effect of different types of infrastructure investment on income and welfare of the open economies is explored.

Intense Raman scattering on hybrid Au/Ag nanoplatforms for the distinction of MMP-9-digested collagen type-I fiber detection.

Well-ordered Au-nanorod arrays were fabricated using the focused ion beam method (denoted as fibAu_NR). Au or Ag nanoclusters (NCs) of various sizes and dimensions were then deposited on the fibAu_NR arrays using electron beam deposition to improve the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect, which was verified using a low concentration of crystal violet (10(-)(5)M) as the probe molecule. An enhancement factor of 6.92 × 10(8) was obtained for NCsfibAu_NR, which is attributed to the combination of intra-NC and NR localized surface plasmon resonance. When 4-aminobenzenethiol (4-ABT)-coated Au or Ag nanoparticles (NPs) were attached to NCsfibAu_NR, the small gaps between 4-ABT-coated NPs and intra-NCs allowed detection at the single-molecule level. Hotspots formed at the interfaces of NCs/NRs and NPs/NCs at a high density, producing a strong local electromagnetic effect. Raman spectra from as-prepared type I collagen (Col-I) and Ag-NP-coated Col-I fibers on NCsfibAu_NR were compared to determine the quantity of amino acids in their triple helix structure. Various concentrations of matrix-metalloproteinase-9-digested Col-I fibers on NCsfibAu_NR were qualitatively examined at a Raman laser wavelength of 785nm to determine the changes of amino acids in the Col-I fiber structure. The results can be used to monitor the growth of healing Col-I fibers in a micro-environment.