Anomalous reverse mechanical polarization switching in negative piezoelectric CuInPS.

van der Waals ferroelectric CuInPS (CIPS) has drawn significant attention not only because of its unique properties but also owing to its technological potential for nanoelectronics. Mechanical polarization switching provides a new approach to modulating polarization states through flexoelectricity. This approach is particularly favourable for CIPS to avoid surface damage under an electric field due to the coupling between polarization switching and ionic motion.

Management of Femoral and Tibial Shaft Fractures in Patients With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury.

Objectives: To compare outcomes and complications between nonoperative and operative management of femur and tibia fractures in patients with paraplegia or quadriplegia from chronic spinal cord injury (SCI).

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Three Level-1 Trauma centers.

Broken-gap energy alignment in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures for multifunctional tunnel diodes.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising platforms for future nanoelectronic technologies as they provide the building blocks for atomically thin devices, including switches, amplifiers, and oscillators. When 2D materials are layered on top of each other, forming van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs), they can provide unique properties not possessed by the individual layers. Here we consider the vdWHs HfS/MoTe, HfS/WTe, 1T-HfS/WTe, TiS/WSe, TiS/ZnO, and TiSe/WTe as potential Esaki (or tunnel) diodes that can be incorporated into electronic devices.

Revealing a distortive polar order buried in the Fermi sea.

Polar metals are challenging to identify spectroscopically because the fingerprints of electric polarization are often obscured by the presence of screening charges. Here, we unravel unambiguous signatures of a distortive polar order buried in the Fermi sea by probing the nonlinear optical response of materials driven by tailored terahertz fields. We apply this strategy to investigate the topological crystalline insulator PbSnTe, tracking its soft phonon mode in the time domain and observing the occurrence of inversion symmetry breaking as a function of temperature.

Surface chemistry altering electronic behaviour of liquid metal-derived tin oxide nanosheets.

Possessing excellent electronic properties and high chemical stability, semiconducting n-type two-dimensional (2D) tin dioxide (SnO) nanosheets have been featured in sensing and electrocatalysis applications recently. Derived from non-layered crystal structures, 2D SnO has abundant unsaturated dangling bonds existing at the surface, providing interfacial activity. How the surface chemistry alters the electronic properties of 2D SnO nanomaterials remains unexplored.

Emergence of threefold symmetric helical photocurrents in epitaxial low twinned BiSe.

We present evidence of a strong circular photon drag effect (PDE) in topological insulators (TIs) through the observation of helicity-dependent topological photocurrents with threefold rotational symmetry using THz spectroscopy in epitaxially-grown BiSe with reduced crystallographic twinning. We establish how twinned domains introduce competing nonlinear optical (NLO) responses inherent to the crystal structure that obscure geometry-sensitive optical processes through the introduction of a spurious mirror symmetry. Minimizing the twinning defect reveals strong NLO response currents whose magnitude and direction depend on the alignment of the excitation to the crystal axes and follow the threefold rotational symmetry of the crystal.

Strain-tunable Berry curvature in quasi-two-dimensional chromium telluride.

Magnetic transition metal chalcogenides form an emerging platform for exploring spin-orbit driven Berry phase phenomena owing to the nontrivial interplay between topology and magnetism. Here we show that the anomalous Hall effect in pristine CrTe thin films manifests a unique temperature-dependent sign reversal at nonzero magnetization, resulting from the momentum-space Berry curvature as established by first-principles simulations. The sign change is strain tunable, enabled by the sharp and well-defined substrate/film interface in the quasi-two-dimensional CrTe epitaxial films, revealed by scanning transmission electron microscopy and depth-sensitive polarized neutron reflectometry.

Repairing and Preventing Photooxidation of Few-Layer Black Phosphorus with β-Carotene.

Few-layer black phosphorus (FLBP), a technologically important 2D material, faces a major hurdle to consumer applications: spontaneous degradation under ambient conditions. Blocking the direct exposure of FLBP to the environment has remained the key strategy to enhance its stability, but this can also limit its utility. In this paper, a more ambitious approach to handling FLBP is reported where not only is FLBP oxidation blocked, but it is also repaired postoxidation.

Orbital period change of Dimorphos due to the DART kinetic impact.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully performed the first test of a kinetic impactor for asteroid deflection by impacting Dimorphos, the secondary of near-Earth binary asteroid (65803) Didymos, and changing the orbital period of Dimorphos. A change in orbital period of approximately 7 min was expected if the incident momentum from the DART spacecraft was directly transferred to the asteroid target in a perfectly inelastic collision, but studies of the probable impact conditions and asteroid properties indicated that a considerable momentum enhancement (β) was possible. In the years before impact, we used lightcurve observations to accurately determine the pre-impact orbit parameters of Dimorphos with respect to Didymos.

Database of daily Lagrangian Arctic sea ice parcel drift tracks with coincident ice and atmospheric conditions.

Since the early 2000s, sea ice has experienced an increased rate of decline in thickness, extent and age. This new regime, coined the 'New Arctic', is accompanied by a reshuffling of energy flows at the surface. Understanding of the magnitude and nature of this reshuffling and the feedbacks therein remains limited.

Pathogen-associated gene discovery workflows for novel antivirulence therapeutic development.

Novel therapeutics to manage bacterial infections are urgently needed as the impact and prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) grows. Antivirulence therapeutics are an alternative approach to antibiotics that aim to attenuate virulence rather than target bacterial essential functions, while minimizing microbiota perturbation and the risk of AMR development. Beyond known virulence factors, pathogen-associated genes (PAGs; genes found only in pathogens to date) may play an important role in virulence or host association.

Ferroelectric van der Waals heterostructures of CuInPSfor non-volatile memory device applications.

Two-dimensional (2D) ferroelectric materials are providing promising platforms for creating future nano- and opto-electronics. Here we propose new hybrid van der Waals heterostructures, in which the 2D ferroelectric material CuInPS(CIPS) is layered on a 2D semiconductor for near-infrared (NIR) memory device applications. Using density functional theory, we show that the band gap of the hybrid bilayers formed with CIPS can be tuned and that the optical and electronic properties can be successfully modulated via ferroelectric switching.

Magnetotransport in Graphene/PbSnTe Heterostructures: Finding a Way to Avoid Catastrophe.

While heterostructures are ubiquitous tools enabling new physics and device functionalities, the palette of available materials has never been richer. Combinations of two emerging material classes, two-dimensional materials and topological materials, are particularly promising because of the wide range of possible permutations that are easily accessible. Individually, both graphene and PbSnTe (PST) are widely investigated for spintronic applications because graphene's high carrier mobility and PST's topologically protected surface states are attractive platforms for spin transport.

Salt and surfactant coated filters with antiviral properties and low pressure drop for prospective SARS-CoV2 applications.

The COVID-19 pandemic motivated research on antiviral filtration used in personal protective equipment and HVAC systems. In this research, three coating compositions of NaCl, Tween 20 surfactant, and NaCl-Tween 20 were examined on polypropylene spun-bond filters. The pressure drop, coverage, and crystal size of the coating methods and compositions were measured.

Tuning the Schottky barrier height in a multiferroic InSe/FeGeTe van der Waals heterojunction.

The ferroelectric material InSe is currently of significant interest due to its built-in polarisation characteristics that can significantly modulate its electronic properties. Here we employ density functional theory to determine the transport characteristics at the metal-semiconductor interface of the two-dimensional multiferroic InSe/FeGeTe heterojunction. We show a significant tuning of the Schottky barrier height as a result of the change in the intrinsic polarisation state of InSe: the switching in the electric polarisation of InSe results in the switching of the nature of the Schottky barrier, from being n-type to p-type, and is accompanied by a change in the spin polarisation of the electrons.

Broad-Spectrum Solvent-free Layered Black Phosphorus as a Rapid Action Antimicrobial.

Antimicrobial resistance has rendered many conventional therapeutic measures, such as antibiotics, ineffective. This makes the treatment of infections from pathogenic micro-organisms a major growing health, social, and economic challenge. Recently, nanomaterials, including two-dimensional (2D) materials, have attracted scientific interest as potential antimicrobial agents.

Unique scales preserve self-similar integrate-and-fire functionality of neuronal clusters.

Brains demonstrate varying spatial scales of nested hierarchical clustering. Identifying the brain's neuronal cluster size to be presented as nodes in a network computation is critical to both neuroscience and artificial intelligence, as these define the cognitive blocks capable of building intelligent computation. Experiments support various forms and sizes of neural clustering, from handfuls of dendrites to thousands of neurons, and hint at their behavior.

Synthesis of naked vanadium pentoxide nanoparticles.

Vanadium pentoxide is the most important vanadium compound by being the precursor to most vanadium alloys. It also plays an essential role in the production of sulfuric acid as well as in metal-ion batteries and supercapacitors. In this paper, pulsed laser ablation in liquids is used to synthesize "naked" vanadium pentoxide nanostructures.

The Small RNAs PA2952.1 and PrrH as Regulators of Virulence, Motility, and Iron Metabolism in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen that undergoes swarming motility in response to semisolid conditions with amino acids as a nitrogen source. With a genome encoding hundreds of potential intergenic small RNAs (sRNAs), can easily adapt to different conditions and stresses. We previously identified 20 sRNAs that were differentially expressed (DE) under swarming conditions.

A less cloudy picture of the inter-model spread in future global warming projections.

Model warming projections, forced by increasing greenhouse gases, have a large inter-model spread in both their geographical warming patterns and global mean values. The inter-model warming pattern spread (WPS) limits our ability to foresee the severity of regional impacts on nature and society. This paper focuses on uncovering the feedbacks responsible for the WPS.

Tricyclic antipsychotics promote adipogenic gene expression to potentiate preadipocyte differentiation in vitro.

Antipsychotic-induced weight gain is a well-established but poorly understood clinical phenomenon. New mechanistic insights into how antipsychotics modulate adipose physiology are sorely needed, in hopes of either devising a therapeutic intervention to ameliorate weight gain or contributing to improved design of future agents. In this study, we have hypothesized that the weight gain-associated tricyclic antipsychotics clozapine and chlorpromazine directly impact adipose tissue by potentiating adipogenic differentiation of preadipocytes.

Weak Antilocalization and Anisotropic Magnetoresistance as a Probe of Surface States in Topological BiTeSe Thin Films.

Topological materials, such as the quintessential topological insulators in the BiX family (X = O, S, Se, Te), are extremely promising for beyond Moore's Law computing applications where alternative state variables and energy efficiency are prized. It is essential to understand how the topological nature of these materials changes with growth conditions and, more specifically, chalcogen content. In this study, we investigate the evolution of the magnetoresistance of BiTeSe for varying chalcogen ratios and constant growth conditions as a function of both temperature and angle of applied field.

Naked Selenium Nanoparticles for Antibacterial and Anticancer Treatments.

Currently, antibiotic resistance and cancer are two of the most important public health problems killing more than ∼1.5 million people annually, showing that antibiotics and current chemotherapeutics are not as effective as they were in the past. Nanotechnology is presented here as a potential solution.

Fate of the Morbidly Obese Patient Who Is Denied Total Joint Arthroplasty.

Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate outcomes of patients denied total hip (THA) or knee arthroplasty (TKA) due to morbid obesity.

Methods: We performed an observational study of patients denied arthroplasty due to morbid obesity. A survey including the Harris Hip Score or pain and function components of the original Knee Society Score (KSS) was conducted with minimum 2-year follow-up.