Effects of silicon addition on the electrical and magnetic properties of copper-doped (La,Ca)MnO3 compounds

In this paper we report about the electrical properties of La 0.7Ca0.3MnO3 compounds substituted by copper on the manganese site and/or deliberately contaminated by SiO2 in the reactant mixture. Several phenomena have been observed and discussed. SiO2 addition leads to the formation of an apatite-like secondary phase that affects the electrical conduction through the percolation of the charge carriers. On the other hand, depending on the relative amounts of copper and silicon, the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity can be noticeably modified: our results enable us to compare the effects of crystallographic vacancies on the A and B sites of the perovskite with the influence of the copper ions substituted on the manganese site. The most original result occurs for the compounds with a small ratio Si/Cu, which display double-peaked resistivity vs. temperature curves. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Copper homeostasis in Salmonella is atypical and copper-CueP is a major periplasmic metal complex.

Salmonella enterica sv. typhimurium (S. enterica sv. Typhimurium) has two metal-transporting P(1)-type ATPases whose actions largely overlap with respect to growth in elevated copper. Mutants lacking both ATPases over-accumulate copper relative to wild-type or either single mutant. Such duplication of ATPases is unusual in bacterial copper tolerance. Both ATPases are under the control of MerR family metal-responsive transcriptional activators. Analyses of periplasmic copper complexes identified copper-CueP as one of the predominant metal pools. Expression of cueP was recently shown to be controlled by the same metal-responsive activator as one of the P(1)-type ATPase genes (copA), and copper-CueP is a further atypical feature of copper homeostasis in S. enterica sv. Typhimurium. Elevated copper is detected by a reporter construct driven by the promoter of copA in wild-type S. enterica sv. Typhimurium during infection of macrophages. Double mutants missing both ATPases also show reduced survival inside cultured macrophages. It is hypothesized that elevated copper within macrophages may have selected for specialized copper-resistance systems in pathogenic microorganism such as S. enterica sv. Typhimurium.

Graphite intercalation compounds under pressure

Motivated by recent experimental work, we use first-principles density functional theory methods to conduct an extensive search for low enthalpy structures of C$_6$Ca under pressure. As well as a range of buckled structures, which are energetically competitive over an intermediate range of pressures, we show that the high pressure system ($\gtrsim 18$ GPa) is unstable towards the formation of a novel class of layered structures, with the most stable compound involving carbon sheets containing five- and eight-membered rings. As well as discussing the energetics of the different classes of low enthalpy structures, we comment on the electronic structure of the high pressure compound and its implications for superconductivity.

GROOVE FORMATION AND INTERACTION DURING ABRASION OF COPPER.

A pin on cylinder wear rig has been built with precision stepping motor drives to both rotary and axial motions which enable accurate positional control to be achieved. Initial experiments using sapphire indenters running against copper substrates have investigated the build up of a single wear groove by repeated sliding along the same track. An approximate three dimensional ploughing analysis is also presented and the results of theory and experiment compared.