Stability Of Adhesion Clusters And Cell Reorientation Under Lateral Cyclic Tension

This work is motivated by experimental observations that cells on stretched substrate exhibit different responses to static and dynamic loads. A model of focal adhesion that can consider the mechanics of stress fiber, adhesion bonds, and substrate was developed at the molecular level by treating the focal adhesion as an adhesion cluster. The stability of the cluster under dynamic load was studied by applying cyclic external strain on the substrate. We show that a threshold value of external strain amplitude exists beyond which the adhesion cluster disrupts quickly. In addition, our results show that the adhesion cluster is prone to losing stability under high-frequency loading, because the receptors and ligands cannot get enough contact time to form bonds due to the high-speed deformation of the substrate. At the same time, the viscoelastic stress fiber becomes rigid at high frequency, which leads to significant deformation of the bonds. Furthermore, we find that the stiffness and relaxation time of stress fibers play important roles in the stability of the adhesion cluster. The essence of this work is to connect the dynamics of the adhesion bonds (molecular level) with the cell's behavior during reorientation (cell level) through the mechanics of stress fiber. The predictions of the cluster model are consistent with experimental observations.

Au@Si-n: Growth behavior, stability and electronic structure

The configurations, stability, and electronic structure of AuSin (n = 1-16) clusters have been investigated within the framework of the density functional theory at the B3PW91/LanL2DZ and PW91/DNP levels. The results show that the Au atom begins to occupy the interior site for cages as small as Si-11 and for Si-12 the Au atom completely falls into the interior site forming Au@Si-12 cage. A relatively large embedding energy and small HOMO-LUMO gap are also found for this Au@Si-12 structure indicating enhanced chemical activity and good electronic transfer properties. All these make Au@Si-12 attractive for cluster-assembled materials.

Shape stability of InAs self-assembled islands on vicinal GaAs(001) substrates

We have grown InAs self-assembled islands on vicinal GaAs( 001) substrates. Atomic force microscopy and photoluminescence studies show that the islands have a clear bimodal size distribution. While most of the small islands whose growth is limited by the width of one multi-atomic step have compact symmetric shapes, a large fraction of the large islands limited by the width of one step plus one terrace have asymmetric shapes which are elongated along the multi-atomic step lines. These results can be attributed to the shape-related energy of the islands at different states of their growth. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

High electrical-to-green efficiency high stability intracavity-frequency-doubled Nd:YAG-LBO QCW 532 nm laser with a straight cavity

An electrical-to-green efficiency of more than 10% was demonstrated by intracavity-frequency-doubling a Q-switched diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG laser with a type II lithium triborate (LBO) crystal in a straight plano-concave cavity. An average power of 69.2 W at 532 nm was generated when electrical input power was 666 W. The corresponding electrical-to-green conversion efficiency is 10.4%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest electrical-to-green efficiency of second harmonic generation laser systems with side-pumped laser modules, ever reported. At about 66 W of green output power, the power fluctuation over 4 hours was better than +/-0.86%.

An Ameliorated Phase Generated Carrier Demodulation Algorithm With Low Harmonic Distortion and High Stability

A novel ameliorated phase generated carrier (PGC) demodulation algorithm based on arctangent function and differential-self-multiplying (DSM) is proposed in this paper. The harmonic distortion due to nonlinearity and the stability with light intensity disturbance (LID) are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The nonlinearity of the PGC demodulation algorithm has been analyzed and an analytical expression of the total-harmonic-distortion (THD) has been derived. Experimental results have confirmed the low harmonic distortion of the ameliorated PGC algorithm as expected by the theoretical analysis. Compared with the traditional PGC-arctan and PGC-DCM algorithm, the ameliorated PGC algorithm has a much lower THD as well as a better signal-to-noise-and-distortion (SINAD). A THD of below 0.1% and a SINAD of 60 dB have been achieved with PGC modulation depth (value) ranges from 1.5 to 3.5 rad. The stability performance with LID has also been studied. The ameliorated PGC algorithm has a much higher stability than the PGC-DCM algorithm. It can keep stable operations with LID depth as large as 26.5 dB and LID frequency as high as 1 kHz. The system employing the ameliorated PGC demodulation algorithm has a minimum detectable phase shift of 5 mu rad/root Hz @ 1 kHz, a large dynamic range of 120 dB @ 100 Hz, and a high linearity of better than 99.99%.

The role of molybdenum oxide as anode interfacial modification in the improvement of efficiency and stability in organic light-emitting diodes

It has been experimentally found that molybdenum oxide (MoO3) as the interfacial modification layer on indium-tin-oxide (ITO) in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) significantly improves the efficiency and lifetime. In this paper, the role of MoO3 and MoO3 doped N,N '-di(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N '-diphenyl-benzidine (NPB) as the interface modification layer on ITO in improvement of the efficiency and stability of OLEDs is investigated in detail by atomic force microscopy (AFM), polarized optical microscopy, transmission spectra, ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS) and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS).

MODIFICATION OF POLYTETRAFLUOROETHYLENE BY RADIATION .1. IMPROVEMENT IN HIGH-TEMPERATURE PROPERTIES AND RADIATION STABILITY

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) has never been reported to form a network structure when subjected to high energy radiation. Results obtained in this work indicates that when irradiation is performed under 330-340-degrees-C in vacuo PTFE can be crosslinked

RADIATION STABILITY OF PTFE WITH DIFFERENT CRYSTALLINITY

In this work, the effects of radiation on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) samples with different crystallinity were studied. Using Suwa's equation for calculating the number-average molecular weight of PTFE, the radiation-induced reduction in molecular weight was followed and the G values for scission of PTFE were also obtained on the basis of the changes in molecular weight. The G(scission) for as-polymerized PTFE was 2.15 +/- 0.01, whereas for sintered sample, which has a relative low crystallinity, G(scission) = 6.0 +/- 0.14.