Stabilizing Schottky-to-Ohmic Switching in HfO-Based Ferroelectric Films via Electrode Design.

The discovery of ferroelectric phases in HfO-based films has reignited interest in ferroelectrics and their application in resistive switching (RS) devices. This study investigates the pivotal role of electrodes in facilitating the Schottky-to-Ohmic transition (SOT) observed in devices consisting of ultrathin epitaxial ferroelectric HfYO (YHO) films deposited on LaSrMnO-buffered Nb-doped SrTiO (NbSTO|LSMO) with Ti|Au top electrodes. These findings indicate combined filamentary RS and ferroelectric switching occurs in devices with designed electrodes, having an ON/OFF ratio of over 100 during about 10 cycles.

Forecasting the relative abundance of Aedes vector populations to enhance situational awareness for mosquito control operations.

Aedes-borne diseases represent a major public health threat and mosquito control operations represent a key line of defense. Improving the real-time awareness of mosquito control authorities by providing reliable forecasts of the relative abundance of mosquito vectors could greatly enhance control efforts. To this aim, we developed an analytical tool that forecasts Aedes aegypti relative abundance 1 to 4 weeks ahead.

In vivo manipulation of human gut Bacteroides fitness by abiotic oligosaccharides.

Synthetic glycans (SGs) containing glycosidic linkages and structures not identified in nature offer a means for deliberately altering microbial community properties. Here pools of SG oligosaccharides were generated via polymerization of monosaccharides and screened for their ability to increase saccharolytic Bacteroides in ex vivo cultures of human fecal samples. A lead SG preparation was orally administered to gnotobiotic mice harboring a consortium of 56 cultured, phylogenetically diverse human gut bacteria and fed a Western diet.

Ferroelectricity in Ultrathin HfO-Based Films by Nanosecond Laser Annealing.

Nonvolatile memory devices based on ferroelectric HfZrO (HZO) show great promise for back-end integrable storage and for neuromorphic accelerators, but their adoption is held back by the inability to scale down the HZO thickness without violating the strict thermal restrictions of the Si CMOS back end of line. In this work, we overcome this challenge and demonstrate the use of nanosecond pulsed laser annealing (NLA) to locally crystallize areas of an ultrathin (3.6 nm) HZO film into the ferroelectric orthorhombic phase.

Depth-Resolved X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Evidence of Intrinsic Polar States in HfO-Based Ferroelectrics.

The discovery of ferroelectricity in nanoscale hafnia-based oxide films has spurred interest in understanding their emergent properties. Investigation focuses on the size-dependent polarization behavior, which is sensitive to content and movement of oxygen vacancies. Though polarization switching and electrochemical reactions is shown to co-occur, their relationship remains unclear.

Single Entity Electrocatalysis.

Making a measurement over millions of nanoparticles or exposed crystal facets seldom reports on reactivity of a single nanoparticle or facet, which may depart drastically from ensemble measurements. Within the past 30 years, science has moved toward studying the reactivity of single atoms, molecules, and nanoparticles, one at a time. This shift has been fueled by the realization that everything changes at the nanoscale, especially important industrially relevant properties like those important to electrocatalysis.

Biocontrol in built environments to reduce pathogen exposure and infection risk.

The microbiome of the built environment comprises bacterial, archaeal, fungal, and viral communities associated with human-made structures. Even though most of these microbes are benign, antibiotic-resistant pathogens can colonize and emerge indoors, creating infection risk through surface transmission or inhalation. Several studies have catalogued the microbial composition and ecology in different built environment types.

Microbiology of the built environment: harnessing human-associated built environment research to inform the study and design of animal nests and enclosures.

SUMMARYOver the past decade, hundreds of studies have characterized the microbial communities found in human-associated built environments (BEs). These have focused primarily on how the design and use of our built spaces have shaped human-microbe interactions and how the differential selection of certain taxa or genetic traits has influenced health outcomes. It is now known that the more removed humans are from the natural environment, the greater the risk for the development of autoimmune and allergic diseases, and that indoor spaces can be harsh, selective environments that can increase the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant and virulent phenotypes in surface-bound communities.

Thin-film design of amorphous hafnium oxide nanocomposites enabling strong interfacial resistive switching uniformity.

A design concept of phase-separated amorphous nanocomposite thin films is presented that realizes interfacial resistive switching (RS) in hafnium oxide-based devices. The films are formed by incorporating an average of 7% Ba into hafnium oxide during pulsed laser deposition at temperatures ≤400°C. The added Ba prevents the films from crystallizing and leads to ∼20-nm-thin films consisting of an amorphous HfO host matrix interspersed with ∼2-nm-wide, ∼5-to-10-nm-pitch Ba-rich amorphous nanocolumns penetrating approximately two-thirds through the films.

Ferroelectric Orthorhombic ZrO Thin Films Achieved Through Nanosecond Laser Annealing.

A new approach for the stabilization of the ferroelectric orthorhombic ZrO films is demonstrated through nanosecond laser annealing (NLA) of as-deposited Si/SiO /W(14 nm)/ZrO (8 nm)/W(22 nm), grown by ion beam sputtering at low temperatures. The NLA process optimization is guided by COMSOL multiphysics simulations. The films annealed under the optimized conditions reveal the presence of the orthorhombic phase, as confirmed by X-ray diffraction, electron backscatter diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy.

Converting Commodity Polyolefins to Electronic Materials through Borane-Catalyzed Alkene Isomerization.

Novel approaches to the functionalization of commodity polymers could provide avenues for the synthesis of materials for next-generation electronic devices. Herein, we present a catalytic method for the conversion of common unsaturated polymers such as polybutadiene, polyisoprene, and styrene-butadiene copolymers [e.g.

3D Bragg Coherent Diffraction Imaging of Extended Nanowires: Defect Formation in Highly Strained InGaAs Quantum Wells.

InGaAs quantum wells embedded in GaAs nanowires can serve as compact near-infrared emitters for direct integration onto Si complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. While the core-shell geometry in principle allows for a greater tuning of composition and emission, especially farther into the infrared, the practical limits of elastic strain accommodation in quantum wells on multifaceted nanowires have not been established. One barrier to progress is the difficulty of directly comparing the emission characteristics and the precise microstructure of a single nanowire.

Migrating Type 2 Dendritic Cells Prime Mucosal Th17 Cells Specific to Small Intestinal Commensal Bacteria.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional APCs equipped with MHC-restricted Ags, costimulations, and cytokines that effectively prime and differentiate naive T cells into distinct functional subsets. The immune signals that DCs carry reflect the route of Ag uptake and the innate stimuli they received. In the mucosal tissues, owing to the great variety of foreign Ags and inflammatory cues, DCs are predominantly activated and migratory.

Comparative analysis of fetal pig decomposition processes in burials of variable depths and wrapping.

This research examined the effects that the variables of burial depth and presence of plastic wrapping had on the decomposition rate of fetal pig (Sus scrofa) remains in a New England environment. The decomposition of 56 fetal pigs was observed in four independent variable groups: 20 cm depth unwrapped, 20 cm wrapped, 60 cm unwrapped, and 60 cm wrapped, with exhumation at months 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 18. The authors hypothesized that the rate of decay would be slower for wrapped remains and/or for remains at a greater burial depth.

Accelerating amorphous polymer electrolyte screening by learning to reduce errors in molecular dynamics simulated properties.

Polymer electrolytes are promising candidates for the next generation lithium-ion battery technology. Large scale screening of polymer electrolytes is hindered by the significant cost of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation in amorphous systems: the amorphous structure of polymers requires multiple, repeated sampling to reduce noise and the slow relaxation requires long simulation time for convergence. Here, we accelerate the screening with a multi-task graph neural network that learns from a large amount of noisy, unconverged, short MD data and a small number of converged, long MD data.

Type 2 dendritic cells mediate control of cytotoxic T cell resistant tumors.

Type 2 DCs (DC2s) comprise the majority of conventional DCs within most tumors; however, little is known about their ability to initiate and sustain antitumor immunity, as most studies have focused on antigen cross-presenting DC1s. Here, we report that DC2 infiltration identified by analysis of multiple human cancer data sets showed a significant correlation with survival across multiple human cancers, with the benefit being seen in tumors resistant to cytotoxic T cell control. Characterization of DC subtype infiltration into an immunotherapy-resistant model of breast cancer revealed that impairment of DC1s through 2 unique models resulted in enhanced DC2 functionality and improved tumor control.

Molecular Chaperone GRP94/GP96 in Cancers: Oncogenesis and Therapeutic Target.

During tumor development and progression, intrinsic and extrinsic factors trigger endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and the unfolded protein response, resulting in the increased expression of molecular chaperones to cope with the stress and maintain tumor cell survival. Heat shock protein (HSP) GRP94, also known as GP96, is an ER paralog of HSP90 and has been shown to promote survival signaling during tumor-induced stress and modulate the immune response through its multiple clients, including TLRs, integrins, LRP6, GARP, IGF, and HER2. Clinically, elevated expression of GRP94 correlates with an aggressive phenotype and poor clinical outcome in a variety of cancers.

Clip Chemistry: Diverse (Bio)(macro)molecular and Material Function through Breaking Covalent Bonds.

In the two decades since the introduction of the "click chemistry" concept, the toolbox of "click reactions" has continually expanded, enabling chemists, materials scientists, and biologists to rapidly and selectively build complexity for their applications of interest. Similarly, selective and efficient covalent bond reactions have provided and will continue to provide transformative advances. Here, we review key examples and applications of efficient, selective covalent bond cleavage reactions, which we refer to herein as "clip reactions.

The psychology of bio-banding: a Vygotskian perspective.

Context: Bio-banding is the process of grouping players by their maturational status rather than chronological age. It is designed to limit the impact of maturational timing on talent identification and development and expose early and late maturing players to new learning experiences and challenges. A common criticism of bio-banding is that it does not consider age related differences in psychosocial and behaviour development.

Remote Doping of Scalable Nanowire Branches.

Selective-area epitaxy provides a path toward high crystal quality, scalable, complex nanowire networks. These high-quality networks could be used in topological quantum computing as well as in ultrafast photodetection schemes. Control of the carrier density and mean free path in these devices is key for all of these applications.

Relative age and maturation selection biases in academy football.

This study examined the simultaneous effects of relative age and biological maturity status upon player selection in an English professional soccer academy. A total of 202 players from the U9 to U16 age groups, over an eight-year period (total of 566 observations), had their relative age (birth quarter) and biological maturity (categorised as late, on-time or early maturing based upon the Khamis-Roche method of percentage of predicted adult height at time of observation) recorded. Players born in the first birth quarter of the year (54.

Bio-banding in academy football: player's perceptions of a maturity matched tournament.

Individual differences in biological maturation impact player selection and development in youth football. To evaluate players perceptions of competing in a football tournament where they were matched by maturity rather than chronological age. Participants included male junior footballers from three professional academies ( 115).

Correlated Nanoscale Analysis of the Emission from Wurtzite versus Zincblende (In,Ga)As/GaAs Nanowire Core-Shell Quantum Wells.

While the properties of wurtzite GaAs have been extensively studied during the past decade, little is known about the influence of the crystal polytype on ternary (In,Ga)As quantum well structures. We address this question with a unique combination of correlated, spatially resolved measurement techniques on core-shell nanowires that contain extended segments of both the zincblende and wurtzite polytypes. Cathodoluminescence hyperspectral imaging reveals a blue-shift of the quantum well emission energy by 75 ± 15 meV in the wurtzite polytype segment.