Publications by authors named "Ast C"

The field of nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging (NanoMRI) was started 30 years ago. It was motivated by the desire to image single molecules and molecular assemblies, such as proteins and virus particles, with near-atomic spatial resolution and on a length scale of 100 nm. Over the years, the NanoMRI field has also expanded to include the goal of useful high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy of molecules under ambient conditions, including samples up to the micron-scale.

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The magnetic exchange coupling between magnetic impurities and a superconductor induce so-called Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states which undergo a quantum phase transition (QPT) upon increasing the exchange interaction beyond a critical value. While the evolution through the QPT is readily observable, in particular if the YSR state features an electron-hole asymmetry, the concomitant change in the ground state is more difficult to identify. We use ultralow temperature scanning tunneling microscopy to demonstrate how the change in the YSR ground state across the QPT can be directly observed for a spin-1/2 impurity in a magnetic field.

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Magnetic impurities on superconductors lead to bound states within the superconducting gap, so called Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states. They are parity protected, which enhances their lifetime, but makes it more difficult to excite them. Here, we realize the excitation of YSR states by microwaves facilitated by the tunnel coupling to another superconducting electrode in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).

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Electric control of spins has been a longstanding goal in the field of solid state physics due to the potential for increased efficiency in information processing. This efficiency can be optimized by transferring spintronics to the atomic scale. We present electric control of spin resonance transitions in single TiH molecules by employing electron spin resonance scanning tunneling microscopy (ESR-STM).

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The continuous increase in storage densities and the desire for quantum memories and computers push the limits of magnetic characterization techniques. Ultimately, a tool that is capable of coherently manipulating and detecting individual quantum spins is needed. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is the only technique that unites the prerequisites of high spatial and energy resolution, low temperature, and high magnetic fields to achieve this goal.

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New developments in the field of topological matter are often driven by materials discovery, including novel topological insulators, Dirac semimetals, and Weyl semimetals. In the last few years, large efforts have been made to classify all known inorganic materials with respect to their topology. Unfortunately, a large number of topological materials suffer from non-ideal band structures.

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Quantum fluctuations are imprinted with valuable information about transport processes. Experimental access to this information is possible, but challenging. We introduce the dynamical Coulomb blockade (DCB) as a local probe for fluctuations in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and show that it provides information about the conduction channels.

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Van der Waals (vdW) materials with magnetic order have been heavily pursued for fundamental physics as well as for device design. Despite the rapid advances, so far, they are mainly insulating or semiconducting, and none of them has a high electronic mobility-a property that is rare in layered vdW materials in general. The realization of a high-mobility vdW material that also exhibits magnetic order would open the possibility for novel magnetic twistronic or spintronic devices.

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Transition-metal chalcogenides are a promising family of materials for applications as photocathodes in photoelectrochemical (PEC) H generation. A long-standing challenge for chalcopyrite semiconductors is characterizing their electronic structure, both experimentally and theoretically, because of their relatively high-energy band gaps and spin-orbit coupling (SOC), respectively. In this work, we present single crystals of CuInTe, whose relatively small optically measured band gap of 0.

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Recent interest in topological semimetals has led to the proposal of many new topological phases that can be realized in real materials. Next to Dirac and Weyl systems, these include more exotic phases based on manifold band degeneracies in the bulk electronic structure. The exotic states in topological semimetals are usually protected by some sort of crystal symmetry, and the introduction of magnetic order can influence these states by breaking time-reversal symmetry.

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We present the design and calibration measurements of a scanning tunneling microscope setup in a He ultrahigh-vacuum cryostat operating at 400 mK with a hold time of 10 days. With 2.70 m in height and 4.

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We have investigated the phase dynamics of a superconducting tunnel junction at ultralow temperatures in the presence of high damping, where the interaction with environmental degrees of freedom represents the leading energy scale. In this regime, theory predicts the dynamics to follow a generalization of the classical Smoluchowski description, the quantum Smoluchowski equation, thus, exhibiting overdamped quantum Brownian motion characteristics. For this purpose, we have performed current-biased measurements on the small-capacitance Josephson junction of a scanning tunneling microscope placed in a low impedance environment at milli-Kelvin temperatures.

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Sensitivity, dynamic and detection range as well as exclusion of expression and instrumental artifacts are critical for the quantitation of data obtained with fluorescent protein (FP)-based biosensors in vivo. Current biosensors designs are, in general, unable to simultaneously meet all these criteria. Here, we describe a generalizable platform to create dual-FP biosensors with large dynamic ranges by employing a single FP-cassette, named GO-(Green-Orange) Matryoshka.

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As the U.S. electorate has become increasingly polarized, these divisions are poised to shape legislative and regulatory work in the years ahead.

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The health care system of the United States has been in a period of dramatic transformation since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the rate of change is accelerating. Historically, health care delivery was focused on the efforts of independent individual providers related to single patients, but the future will require interprofessional teamwork to achieve successful transformation. Academic health centers must identify nimble leaders who can harness the expertise of every team member to succeed in yielding the triple aim-better care for individuals, better health for populations, and lower overall cost.

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The tunnelling current in scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STS) is typically and often implicitly modelled by a continuous and homogeneous charge flow. If the charging energy of a single-charge quantum sufficiently exceeds the thermal energy, however, the granularity of the current becomes non-negligible. In this quantum limit, the capacitance of the tunnel junction mediates an interaction of the tunnelling electrons with the surrounding electromagnetic environment and becomes a source of noise itself, which cannot be neglected in STS.

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Materials harbouring exotic quasiparticles, such as massless Dirac and Weyl fermions, have garnered much attention from physics and material science communities due to their exceptional physical properties such as ultra-high mobility and extremely large magnetoresistances. Here, we show that the highly stable, non-toxic and earth-abundant material, ZrSiS, has an electronic band structure that hosts several Dirac cones that form a Fermi surface with a diamond-shaped line of Dirac nodes. We also show that the square Si lattice in ZrSiS is an excellent template for realizing new types of two-dimensional Dirac cones recently predicted by Young and Kane.

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Monolayer graphene exhibits many spectacular electronic properties, with superconductivity being arguably the most notable exception. It was theoretically proposed that superconductivity might be induced by enhancing the electron-phonon coupling through the decoration of graphene with an alkali adatom superlattice [Profeta G, Calandra M, Mauri F (2012) Nat Phys 8(2):131-134]. Although experiments have shown an adatom-induced enhancement of the electron-phonon coupling, superconductivity has never been observed.

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Direct and inverse Auger scattering are amongst the primary processes that mediate the thermalization of hot carriers in semiconductors. These two processes involve the annihilation or generation of an electron-hole pair by exchanging energy with a third carrier, which is either accelerated or decelerated. Inverse Auger scattering is generally suppressed, as the decelerated carriers must have excess energies higher than the band gap itself.

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Nearly half a century ago, Lowell T. Coggeshall recommended, through what has come to be known as the Coggeshall Report, that physician education-medical school (or undergraduate medical education [UME]), residency training (or graduate medical education [GME]), and continuing medical education (CME)-be "planned and provided as a continuum." While the dream of a true continuum remains unfulfilled, recent innovations focused on defining and assessing meaningful outcomes at last offer the anchor for the creation of a seamless, flexible, and ongoing pathway for the preparation of physicians.

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Article Synopsis
  • Recent work has developed improved ratiometric sensors called deAmTracs, derived from existing sensors AmTrac and MepTrac, to better monitor membrane transporter activity.
  • These new sensors feature dual-emission capabilities, showing increased emission ratios upon ammonium addition, which correlates with transporter activity in mutant studies.
  • The researchers found that altering specific amino acids in the sensors is crucial for enhancing their photophysical properties and increasing their effectiveness for quantitative analysis of transporter activity.
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Tuning the electronic properties of graphene by adatom deposition unavoidably introduces disorder into the system, which directly affects the single-particle excitations and electrodynamics. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) we trace the evolution of disorder in graphene by thallium adatom deposition and probe its effect on the electronic structure. We show that the signatures of quasiparticle scattering in the photoemission spectral function can be used to identify thallium adatoms, although charged, as efficient short-range scattering centers.

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Probing absolute values of spin polarization at the nanoscale offers insight into the fundamental mechanisms of spin-dependent transport. Employing the Zeeman splitting in superconducting tips (Meservey-Tedrow-Fulde effect), we introduce a novel spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy that combines the probing capability of the absolute values of spin polarization with precise control at the atomic scale. We utilize our novel approach to measure the locally resolved spin polarization of magnetic Co nanoislands on Cu(111).

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