Proposal for an optical laser producing light at half the Josephson frequency.

We describe a superconducting device capable of producing laser light in the visible range at half of the Josephson generation frequency with the optical phase of the light locked to the superconducting phase difference. It consists of two single-level quantum dots embedded in a p-n semiconducting heterostructure and surrounded by a cavity supporting a resonant optical mode. We study decoherence and spontaneous switching in the device.

Spin-label EPR on alpha-synuclein reveals differences in the membrane binding affinity of the two antiparallel helices.

The putative function of the Parkinson's disease-related protein alpha-Synuclein (alphaS) is thought to involve membrane binding. Therefore, the interaction of alphaS with membranes composed of zwitterionic (POPC) and anionic (POPG) lipids was investigated through the mobility of spin labels attached to the protein. Differently labelled variants of alphaS were produced, containing a spin label at positions 9, 18 (both helix 1), 69, 90 (both helix 2), and 140 (C terminus).