BINA

Identifying orbital textures and their effects on the electronic properties of quantum materials is a critical element in developing orbitronic devices. However, orbital effects are often entangled with the spin degree of freedom, making it difficult to uniquely identify them in charge transport phenomena. Here, we present a combination of scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) current imaging, global transport measurements, and theoretical analysis, that reveals a direct contribution of orbital textures to the linear charge transport of 2D systems. Specifically, we show that in the LaAlO/SrTiO interface, which lacks both rotation and inversion symmetries, an anisotropic orbital Rashba coupling leads to conductivity anisotropy in zero magnetic field. We experimentally demonstrate this result by locally measuring the conductivity anisotropy, and correlating its appearance to the non-linear Hall effect, showing that the two phenomena have a common origin. Our results lay the foundations for an all--electrical probing of orbital currents in two-dimensional systems.

Enzymes play crucial roles in all biological systems by catalyzing a myriad of chemical reactions. These reactions range from simple one-step processes to intricate multistep cascades. Predicting mechanistically appropriate binding modes along a reaction pathway for substrate, product, and all reaction intermediates and transition states is a daunting task. To address this challenge, special docking programs like EnzyDock have been developed. Yet, running such docking simulations is complicated due to the nature of multistep enzyme processes. This work presents CHARMM-GUI EnzyDocker, a web-based cyberinfrastructure designed to streamline the preparation and running of EnzyDock docking simulations. The development of EnzyDocker has been achieved through integration of existing CHARMM-GUI modules, such as PDB Reader and Manipulator, Ligand Designer, and QM/MM Interfacer. In addition …

The design of cathode/electrolyte interfaces in high‐energy density Li‐ion batteries is critical to protect the surface against undesirable oxygen release from the cathodes when batteries are charged to high voltage. However, the involvement of the engineered interface in the cationic and anionic redox reactions associated with (de‐)lithiation is often ignored, mostly due to the difficulty to separate these processes from chemical/catalytic reactions at the cathode/electrolyte interface. Here, a new electron energy band diagrams concept is developed that includes the examination of the electrochemical‐ and ionization‐ potentials evolution upon batteries cycling. The approach enables to forecast the intrinsic stability of the cathodes and discriminate the reaction pathways associated with interfacial electronic charge‐transfer mechanisms. Specifically, light is shed on the evolution of cationic and anionic redox in high …

Thin films of cuprate superconductors are easier to control in terms of doping as compared to bulk samples. However, they require specific substrates to facilitate epitaxial growth. These substrates are often incompatible with materials used in electronic applications. Furthermore, it is challenging to separate the substrate's properties from the material of interest. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of an electron-doped cuprate membrane. We show that the membrane has a coherent crystal structure. Furthermore, the superconducting properties of the membrane postliftoff closely resemble those of the thin films preliftoff, as revealed by a scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) microscope. Such membranes pave the way for designing new material properties and incorporating complex superconducting materials into typically incompatible electronic devices.

Nitrogen-doped carbon dots (NCDs) with an average diameter of 3.25 nm were prepared by a hydrothermal process from betel leaves as a single source of carbon and nitrogen. FTIR analysis attested to the presence of amine, carbonyl, and hydroxyl groups in the NCD surface. The obtained aqueous solutions were applied to enhance the growth of pepper and lettuce plants in a greenhouse and a growing room, respectively. The growth of these two plants was observed and analyzed at different stages, indicating significantly higher fresh and dry weights of roots and peppers, compared to the control. The healthy growth results from hydrophilic groups on the surface of the CDs, and the hydroxyl and carbonyl groups provide abundant binding sites for water molecules, which penetrate the plant along with NCDs. It promotes the absorption and utilization of water and nutrients via ROS, which leads to improved …

This study explored the controlled formation of chiral copper(II) oxide (CuO) crystals using chiral amino acids as chirality-inducing agents. Utilizing chemical bath deposition (CBD) as the fabrication method, we achieved simple, reproducible synthesis suitable for industrial-scale applications. Our characterization of the induced chirality through high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), circular dichroism (CD), and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) revealed distinctive chiral features. These findings not only advance our understanding of chirality control in inorganic nanostructures but also establish CBD as a viable technique for the large-scale production of chiral materials.

Machine learning (ML) has shown great potential in the adaptive immune receptor repertoire (AIRR) field. However, there is a lack of large-scale ground-truth experimental AIRR data suitable for AIRR-ML-based disease diagnostics and therapeutics discovery. Simulated ground-truth AIRR data are required to complement the development and benchmarking of robust and interpretable AIRR-ML methods where experimental data is currently inaccessible or insufficient. The challenge for simulated data to be useful is incorporating key features observed in experimental repertoires. These features, such as antigen or disease-associated immune information, cause AIRR-ML problems to be challenging. Here, we introduce LIgO, a software suite, which simulates AIRR data for the development and benchmarking of AIRR-ML methods. LIgO incorporates different types of immune information both on the receptor and …

The immunoglobulin heavy chain constant (IGHC) domain of antibodies (Ab) is responsible for effector functions critical to Ab mediated immunity. In humans, this domain is encoded by genes within the IGHC locus, where descriptions of genomic diversity remain incomplete. To address this, we utilized long-read genomic datasets to build a high-quality IGHC haplotype/variant catalog from 105 individuals of diverse ancestry, and developed a high-throughput approach for targeted long-read IGHC locus sequencing and assembly. From locally phased assemblies, we discovered previously uncharacterized single nucleotide variants (SNV) and complex structural variants (SVs, n=7), as well as novel genes and alleles. Of the 262 identified IGHC coding alleles, 235 (89.6%) were undocumented. SNV, SV, and gene allele/genotype frequencies revealed significant population differentiation, including; (i) hundreds of …

Accumulated evidence of transgenerational inheritance of epigenetic and symbiotic changes begs the question of under which conditions inheritance of acquired changes can confer long-term advantage to the population. To address this question, we introduce a population epigenetics model of individuals undergoing stochastic and/or induced changes that are transmitted to the offspring. Potentially adaptive and maladaptive responses are represented, respectively, by environmentally driven changes that reduce and increase the individuals’ rate of death (i.e. reduction and increase of selective pressure). Analytic solution in a simplified case of exposure to two types of dynamic environments shows that inheritance of changes that transiently alleviate the selective pressure confers long-term advantage even when the transmitted state is maladaptive to the offspring. The benefits of inheriting environmentally driven changes that reduce the death rate within a lifetime include escape from extinction under a wide range of conditions. These advantages are even more pronounced in populations with imperfect inheritance and/or age-dependent decline in fertility. These findings show that inheritance of non-genetic changes can have tremendous benefits for the population on timescales that are much longer than the lifetime of an individual.

Photoluminescence of non-aromatic supramolecular chemical assemblies has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to its potential for use in molecular sensing and imaging technologies. The underlying structural origins, the mechanisms of light emission in these systems, and the generality of this phenomenon remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that crystals of L-Cysteine (Cys) formed in heavy water () exhibit distinct packing and hydrogen-bond networks, resulting in significantly enhanced photoluminescence compared to those prepared in . Using advanced excited-state simulations, we elucidate the nature of electronic transitions that activate vibrational modes of Cys in , particularly those involving thiol (S-H) and amine (C-N) groups, which lead to non-radiative decay. For the crystal formed in , these modes appear to be more constrained, and we also observe intersystem crossing from the singlet to the triplet state, indicating a potentially more complex light emission mechanism. Our findings provide new insights into this intriguing phenomenon and introduce innovative design principles for generating emergent fluorophores.

The mechanism and consequently the magnitude of vibrational relaxation of molecules on surfaces differ significantly between insulators and metals, making the vibrational energy transfer at the NO/metal versus the NO/insulator interface a canonical example in the field. We report the influence of the surface temperature, the initial vibrational state, and the incident translational energy on the vibrational relaxation probability of vibrationally excited NO(vI = 3 and vI = 11) undergoing a direct scattering from thin films of vanadium dioxide (VO2) across the Mott transition at 68 °C. At that temperature, thin-film VO2 transforms from the insulating to the metallic phase, exhibiting ∼4 orders of magnitude drop in resistivity. As VO2 undergoes the Mott transition, at T > 68 °C, we observe a surprisingly small, yet measurable enhancement in the relaxation probability of NO(vI = 3 and vI = 11) due to the metallic phase of VO2. The …

The scattering-type Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope (s-SNOM) is acknowledged as an excellent tool to investigate the optical properties of different materials and biological samples at the nanoscale. In this study we show that s-SNOM data are susceptible to being affected by specific artefacts related to the light diffraction phenomena and to stray contributions from shallow buried, contrast-active, structures. We focus on discussing the diffraction contributions from sample edges, next to those corresponding to one- or two-dimensional periodic structures, and undesired contributions from shallow buried periodic features. Each scenario was examined individually through both experimental methods and simulations. Our experimental findings reveal that such artefacts affect not only s-SNOM images demodulated at the direct-current (DC) component and the fundamental frequency, but also images demodulated at higher harmonic frequencies. We show that image artefacts caused by diffraction resemble the undesirable effects caused by illumination with a laser beam of unstable intensity, and that buried features can yield s-SNOM signals that cannot be distinguished from those originating from the sample surface, in absence of prior knowledge of the sample structure. Performed simulations confirm these experimental findings. This work enhances the understanding of s-SNOM data and paves the way for new data acquisition and postprocessing methods that can enable next-generation s-SNOM imaging and spectroscopy with significantly enhanced signal-to-noise ratio and resolution.

Arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2), a key indicator of respiratory health, reflects the proportion of oxygenated hemoglobin in the blood and is essential for monitoring conditions such as hypoxia. Traditional pulse oximetry methods use multiple wavelengths to calculate SpO2, which cause errors due to differences in optical pathlengths, affected by different scattering coefficients. This study presents an optical biosensor for non-invasive measurement of SpO2, utilizing the iso-pathlength (IPL) point concept. Our biosensor overcomes the inherent limitations of the classic method by using a single light source and detecting reemitted light at the IPL point, where light intensity is invariant to scattering. This enables accurate SpO2 measurements without the need for external calibration. The biosensor operates with a red LED at 655nm and five photodetectors, one positioned at the IPL point, which allows the extraction of …

Surfactant-stabilized oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions, encompassing a wide range of chemical compositions, exhibit remarkable temperature-controlled sphere-to-icosahedron droplet shape transformations. These transformations are controlled by the elasticity and closed-surface topology of a self-assembled interfacial crystalline monolayer. Since many practical emulsions are synergistically costabilized by both surfactants and colloidal particles, we explore the influence of surface-adsorbed hydrophobic and hydrophilic colloidal particles on these shape transformations. We find that these shape transformations persist even at high interfacial colloidal densities, despite the colloids disrupting the molecular interfacial crystal’s topology. We employ computer simulations to elucidate the role of colloidal particles in droplet shape control of these widely employed emulsions. Surprisingly, we observe that the …

In this work, we elucidate the crucial role of borate anions ([B(OH)4]-) for the electrocatalytic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) using a nanoporous metallic nickel (NP-Ni) catalyst grown on Si substrates. The UOR activity of the NP-Ni catalyst has been studied at various boric acid (H3BO3) concentrations, demonstrating superior activity at a specific electrolytic composition of 0.5 M KOH, 0.33 M urea, and 50 mM of H3BO3. Based on a wide range of electrochemical techniques, such as, cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), Pb-anodic deposition, and chronoamperometry (CA), we develop a potential mechanism for the [B(OH)4]--mediated UOR. The high double layer capacitance, surface density of Ni redox sites, and urea oxidation currents, clearly demonstrate the significant impact of [B(OH)4]- during electrolysis. Furthermore, we find that UOR catalyzed by the NP-Ni is controlled by diffusion both in …

APPE693Q transgenic mice develop aging-related learning deficits and accumulate endogenously generated nonfibrillar aggregates of Aβ (NFA-Aβ) and APP α-carboxy terminal fragments. The APPE693Q mutation disrupts amyloid fibril formation, and no plaques develop in these mice. In the current study, the aging-related accumulation of NFA-Aβ in APPE693Q mice was revealed by A11 immunohistochemistry and NFA-Ab-detecting cyclic D,L-α-peptide-FITC microscopy. The presynaptic termini of APPE693Qmice developed aging-related physiological abnormalities in post-tetanic potentiation, synaptic fatigue, and synaptic vesicle replenishment. Single-cell RNA sequencing showed that excitatory neurons exhibited the most altered transcriptomic profile, especially involving “protein translation” and “oxidative phosphorylation”. Direct measurements of electron transport chain catalysis revealed reduction in mitochondrial complex I activity in Dutch mice. Microglial transcript analysis revealed no evidence of inflammation. The incomplete clinical response to fibrillar Aβ immunodepletion in human patients may be attributable to residual NFA-Aβ that are undetectable by currently available biofluid or neuroimaging biomarkers. The depletion or neutralization of both fibrillar and NFA-Aβ may be needed for complete elimination of Aβ toxicity. Teaser APPE693Q “NFA-Aβ only” mice reveal clinically relevant mechanisms despite the absence of detectable inflammation

Over the past few decades, the prevalence of chronic inflammatory and metabolic diseases has risen sharply, coinciding with significant environmental and lifestyle changes. While genetics play a role, the rapid increase suggests that non-genetic factors are key contributors. Among these, the gut microbiota—a vast community of microorganisms residing in the intestines—has emerged as a central regulator of health. A growing body of evidence links microbial imbalances, or dysbiosis, to various diseases, with reduced microbial richness and diversity observed in industrialised populations compared with those in non-industrialised settings. Many beneficial microbial species, once prevalent in the human gut, are now disappearing, likely due to changes in diet, hygiene and antibiotic use. One of the most influential factors shaping the gut microbiota is diet. The Westernised diet, characterised by high consumption of …

High-performance water-based inkjet inks are critical for advancing inkjet printing technology. The performance of water-based inkjet inks depends largely on the dispersion stability of organic pigments. This imposes higher demands on the performance of polymeric dispersants. However, the relatively weak interaction between polymeric dispersants and organic pigments limits their performance in water-based inkjet inks. Consequently, it is crucial to seek dispersants that exhibit stronger interactions with pigments, alongside high performance, and universality. In this work, five types of polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) with anion-π groups were synthesized via a simple emulsion polymerization method. Compared to traditional polymeric dispersants, anion-π type PNPs exhibited significant advantages including low viscosity, solvent resistance, and high temperature resistance. Stronger interactions, including salt-bridge hydrogen bondings (H-bonds) and π–π interactions, between these PNPs and different types of organic pigments were demonstrated by FTIR, UV-Vis, and XPS spectral tests. In particular, PNPs-5, bearing -PhSO3− groups, exhibited the strongest interaction with the organic pigments. The water-based inkjet inks, formulated with PNPs-5 serving as a dispersant, exhibited remarkable dispersion stability and outstanding weatherability. This work rationally constructs a strategy for preparing universally applicable polymeric dispersants to enhance the dispersion of pigments in water-based inkjet inks, thereby presenting a broader perspective for applications in the field of inkjet printing.

This paper presents an extension of time multiplexing super-resolution imaging concept to allow imaging through scattering medium. The presented concept includes laser illuminating an object through a diffuser. The technique performs time multiplexing super-resolved imaging through this diffuser while using the unknown speckle pattern the diffuser projects on the imaged object to enhance the resolution at which the object is imaged. Thus, unlike in conventional case where imaging through a diffuser or other scattering medium destroys the imaging resolution, here the speckle pattern the diffuser generates assists in performing super-resolved imaging. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the approach, showing significant improvement in image quality and resolution.

Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses that infect and replicate within the bacterial cell using the host cellular machinery. After replication and assembly of multiple viruses, the host cell lyses and releases the newly formed viruses into the environment. There are many telltale signs of infection, one of which is changes in the bacterial membrane potential (MP). Monitoring MP dynamics during the course of a bacteriophage infection event can therefore shed light on the mechanism of phage entry and replication into bacterial cells. In the present work, we study MP dynamics during individual infection events. Our approach combines:(1) a unique VoltageFluor (VF) optical transducer, whose fluorescence lifetime varies as a function of MP via photoinduced electron transfer (PeT) and (2) a quantitative phasor-fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) analysis for high-throughput readout. This approach enables MP …