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Soft x-ray spectroscopic study of methanol and glycine peptides in different physical environments
(2017)
Ion-specific effects occur in a huge variety of aqueous solutions of electrolytes and larger molecules like peptides, altering properties such as viscosity, enzyme activity, protein stability, and salting-in and salting-out behavior of proteins. Typically, these type of effects are rationalized in terms of the Hofmeister series, which originally orders cations and anions according to their ability to enhance or suppress the solubility of proteins in water. This empirical order, however, is still not understood yet. Quite some effort was made to gain a molecular level understanding of this phenomenon, yet no consensus has been found about the underlying mechanisms and the determination and localization of the interaction sites.
Resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS) combines x-ray emission (XES) and absorption spectroscopies (XAS), probing the partial local density of states of both occupied and unoccupied electronic states and is thus a promising candidate to shed more light onto the issue. The studies presented in this work are directed towards an improved understanding of the interaction between salts and peptides. In order to address this topic, the impact of different physical environments on the electronic structure of small molecules (i.e., methanol and glycine derived peptides) is investigated systematically using soft x-ray spectroscopic methods, corroborated with density functional theory (DFT) calculations.
In a first step, molecules without any interactions to the surrounding are investigated, using gas-phase methanol as a model system. Thereby, the local and element specific character of RIXS is demonstrated and used to separately probe the local electronic structure of methanol’s hydroxyl and methyl group, respectively. The attribution of the observed emission features to distinct molecular orbitals is confirmed by DFT calculations, which also quantitatively explain the different relative intensities of the emission features. For resonant excitation of the O K pre-edge absorption resonance, strong isotope effects are found that are explained by dynamical processes at the hydroxyl group. This serves as an excellent example for possible consequences of a local change in the geometric structure or symmetry of a molecule on its electronic structure.
In the following, the sample system is expanded to the amino acid glycine and its smallest derived peptides diglycine and triglycine. As a first step, they are studied in their crystalline form in solid state. Again, a comprehensive picture of the electronic structure is developed by measuring RIXS maps at the oxygen and nitrogen K absorption edge, corroborated by DFT calculations. Similar to the case of methanol, dynamic processes at the protonated amino group of the molecules after exciting the nitrogen atom have a strong influence on the emission spectra. Furthermore, it is shown that RIXS can be used to selectively excite the peptide nitrogen to probe the electronic structure around it. A simple building block approach for XES spectra is applied to separate the contribution of the emission attributed to transitions into core holes at the peptide and the amino nitrogen, respectively.
In the aqueous solution, the surrounding water molecules slightly change the electronic structure, probably via interactions with the charged functional groups. The effects on the x-ray emission spectra, however, are rather small. Much bigger changes are observed when manipulating the protonation state of the functional groups by adjusting the pH value of the solution. A protonation of the carboxyl group at low pH values, as well as a deprotonation of the amino group at high pH values lead to striking changes in the shape of the RIXS maps. In a comprehensive study of glycine’s XES spectra at varying pH values, changes in the local electronic structure are not only observed in the immediate surrounding of the manipulated functional groups but also in more distant moieties of the molecule.
Finally, the study is extended to mixed aqueous solutions of diglycine and a variety of different salts as examples for systems where Hofmeister effects are observed. To investigate the influence of different cations and anions on the electronic structure of diglycine, two series of chlorine and potassium salts are used. Ion-specific effects are identified for both cases. Some of the changes in the x-ray emission spectra of diglycine in the mixed solutions qualitatively follow the Hofmeister series as a function of the used salt. The observed trends thereby indicate an increased interaction between the electron density around the peptide oxygen with the cations, whereas anions seem to interact with the amino group of the peptide.
This publication presents the combination of the one-loop matrix-element generator Recola with the multipurpose Monte Carlo program Sherpa. Since both programs are highly automated, the resulting Sherpa +Recola framework allows for the computation of – in principle – any Standard Model process at both NLO QCD and EW accuracy. To illustrate this, three representative LHC processes have been computed at NLO QCD and EW: vector-boson production in association with jets, off-shell Z-boson pair production, and the production of a top-quark pair in association with a Higgs boson. In addition to fixed-order computations, when considering QCD corrections, all functionalities of Sherpa, i.e. particle decays, QCD parton showers, hadronisation, underlying events, etc. can be used in combination with Recola. This is demonstrated by the merging and matching of one-loop QCD matrix elements for Drell–Yan production in association with jets to the parton shower. The implementation is fully automatised, thus making it a perfect tool for both experimentalists and theorists who want to use state-of-the-art predictions at NLO accuracy.
The focus of the work concerned the development of a series of MRI techniques that were specifically designed and optimized to obtain quantitative and spatially resolved information about characteristic parameters of the lung. Three image acquisition techniques were developed. Each of them allows to quantify a different parameter of relevant diagnostic interest for the lung, as further described below:
1) The blood volume fraction, which represents the amount of lung water in the intravascular compartment expressed as a fraction of the total lung water. This parameter is related to lung perfusion.
2) The magnetization relaxation time T\(_2\) und T*\(_2\)
, which represents the component of T\(_2\) associated with the diffusion of water molecules through the internal magnetic field gradients of the lung. Because the amplitude of these internal gradients is related to the alveolar size, T\(_2\) und T*\(_2\) can be used to obtain information about the microstructure of the lung.
3) The broadening of the NMR spectral line of the lung. This parameter depends on lung inflation and on the concentration of oxygen in the alveoli. For this reason, the spectral line broadening can be regarded as a fingerprint for lung inflation; furthermore, in combination with oxygen enhancement, it provides a measure for lung ventilation.
Frequency analysis of the rf emission of oscillating Josephson supercurrent is a powerful passive way of probing properties of topological Josephson junctions. In particular, measurements of the Josephson emission enable the detection of topological gapless Andreev bound states that give rise to emission at half the Josephson frequency f\(_{J}\) rather than conventional emission at f\(_{J}\). Here, we report direct measurement of rf emission spectra on Josephson junctions made of HgTe-based gate-tunable topological weak links. The emission spectra exhibit a clear signal at half the Josephson frequency f\(_{J}\)/2. The linewidths of emission lines indicate a coherence time of 0.3–4 ns for the f\(_{J}\)/2 line, much shorter than for the f\(_{J}\) line (3–4 ns). These observations strongly point towards the presence of topological gapless Andreev bound states and pave the way for a future HgTe-based platform for topological quantum computation.
The electrodynamics of topological insulators (TIs) is described by modified Maxwell’s equations, which contain additional terms that couple an electric field to a magnetization and a magnetic field to a polarization of the medium, such that the coupling coefficient is quantized in odd multiples of α/4π per surface. Here we report on the observation of this so-called topological magnetoelectric effect. We use monochromatic terahertz (THz) spectroscopy of TI structures equipped with a semitransparent gate to selectively address surface states. In high external magnetic fields, we observe a universal Faraday rotation angle equal to the fine structure constant α=e\(^{2}\)/2E\(_{0}\)hc (in SI units) when a linearly polarized THz radiation of a certain frequency passes through the two surfaces of a strained HgTe 3D TI. These experiments give insight into axion electrodynamics of TIs and may potentially be used for a metrological definition of the three basic physical constants.
The orthorhombic rare-earth manganite compounds \(R\)MnO\(_3\) show a global magnetic order for \(T\) < \(T\)\(_N\), and several representatives are multiferroic with a cycloidal spin ground state order for \(T\) < \(T\)\(_c\)\(_y\)\(_c\)\(_l\) < \(T\)\(_N\) \(\approx\) 40 K. We deduce from the temperature dependence of spin–phonon coupling in Raman spectroscopy for a series of \(R\)MnO\(_3\) compounds that their spin order locally persists up to about twice \(T\)\(_N\). Along the same line, our observation of the persistence of the electromagnon in GdMnO\(_3\) up to \(T\) \(\approx\) 100 K is attributed to a local cycloidal spin order for \(T\) > \(T\)\(_c\)\(_y\)\(_c\)\(_l\), in contrast to the hitherto assumed incommensurate sinusoidal phase in the intermediate temperature range. The development of the magnetization pattern can be described in terms of an order–disorder transition at \(T\)\(_c\)\(_y\)\(_c\)\(_l\) within a pseudospin model of localized spin cycloids with opposite chirality.
Optical antennas work similar to antennas for the radio-frequency regime and convert electromagnetic radiation into oscillating electrical currents. Charge density accumulations form at the antenna surface leading to strong and localized near-fields. Since most optical antennas have dimensions of a few hundred nanometers, their near-fields allow the focusing of electromagnetic fields to volumes much smaller than the diffraction limit, with intensities several orders of magnitude larger than achievable with classical diffractive and refractive optical elements. The task to maximize the emission of a quantum emitter, a point-like entity capable of reception and emission of single photons, is identical to the task to maximize the field intensity at the position of the quantum emitter. Therefore it is desirable to optimize the capabilities of focusing optical antennas.
Radio-frequency-antenna designs scaled to optical dimensions of several hundred nanometers show already a decent performance. However, optical frequencies lie near the plasma frequency of the metals used for optical antennas and the mass of electrons cannot be neglected anymore. This leads to new physical phenomena. Light can couple to charge density oscillations, yielding a so-called Plasmon. Effects emerge which have no equivalent in the very advanced field of radio-frequency-technology, e.g.~volume currents and shortened effective wavelengths. Additionally the conductivity is not infinite anymore, leading to thermal losses. Therefore, the question for the optimal geometry of a focusing optical antenna is not easy to answer. However, up to now there was no evidence that there exist better alternatives for optical antennas than down-scaled radio-frequency designs.
In this work the optimization of focusing optical antennas is based on an approach, which often proved successful for radio-frequency-antennas in complex applications (e.g.~broadband and isotropic reception): evolutionary algorithms. The first implementation introduced here allows a large freedom regarding particle shape and count, as it arranges cubic voxels on a planar, square grid. The geometries are encoded in a binary matrix, which works as a genome and enables the methods of mutation and crossing as mechanism of improvement. Antenna geometries optimized in this way surpass a comparable dipolar geometry by a factor of 2. Moreover, a new working principle can be deduced from the optimized antennas: a magnetic split-ring resonance can be coupled conductively to dipolar antennas, to form novel and more effective split-ring-antennas, as their currents add up constructively near the focal point.
In a next step, the evolutionary algorithm is adapted so that the binary matrices describe geometries with realistic fabrication constraints. In addition a 'printer driver' is developed which converts the binary matrices into commands for focused ion-beam milling in mono-crystalline gold flakes. It is shown by means of confocal two-photon photo-luminescence microscopy that antennas with differing efficiency can be fabricated reliably directly from the evolutionary algorithm. Besides, the concept of the split-ring antenna is further improved by adding this time two split-rings to the dipole-like resonance.
The best geometry from the second evolutionary algorithm inspires a fundamentally new formalism to determine the power transfer between an antenna and a point dipole, best termed 'three-dimensional mode-matching'. Therewith, for the first time intuitive design rules for the geometry of an focusing optical antenna can be deduced. The validity of the theory is proven analytically at the case of a point dipole in from of a metallic nano sphere.
The full problem of focusing light by means of an optical antenna can, thus, be reduced to two simultaneous mode-matching conditions -- on the one hand with the fields of a point dipole, on the other hand with a plane wave. Therefore, two types of ideal focusing optical antenna mode patterns are identified, being fundamentally different from the established dipolar antenna mode. This allows not only to explain the functionality of the evolutionary antennas and the split-ring antenna, but also helps to design novel plamonic cavity antennas, which lead to an enhanced focusing of light. This is proven numerically in direct comparison to a classical dipole antenna design.
Increased aortic stiffness is known to be associated with atherosclerosis and has a predictive value for cardiovascular events. This study aims to investigate the local distribution of early arterial stiffening due to initial atherosclerotic lesions. Therefore, global and local pulse wave velocity (PWV) were measured in ApoE\(^{-/-}\) and wild type (WT) mice using ultrahigh field MRI. For quantification of global aortic stiffness, a new multi-point transit-time (TT) method was implemented and validated to determine the global PWV in the murine aorta. Local aortic stiffness was measured by assessing the local PWV in the upper abdominal aorta, using the flow/area (QA) method. Significant differences between age matched ApoE\(^{-/-}\) and WT mice were determined for global and local PWV measurements (global PWV: ApoE\(^{-/-}\): 2.7 ±0.2m/s vs WT: 2.1±0.2m/s, P<0.03; local PWV: ApoE\(^{-/-}\): 2.9±0.2m/s vs WT: 2.2±0.2m/s, P<0.03). Within the WT mouse group, the global PWV correlated well with the local PWV in the upper abdominal aorta (R\(^2\) = 0.75, P<0.01), implying a widely uniform arterial elasticity.
In ApoE\(^{-/-}\) animals, however, no significant correlation between individual local and global PWV was present (R\(^2\) = 0.07, P = 0.53), implying a heterogeneous distribution of vascular stiffening in early atherosclerosis. The assessment of global PWV using the new multi-point TT measurement technique was validated against a pressure wire measurement in a vessel
phantom and showed excellent agreement. The experimental results demonstrate that vascular stiffening caused by early atherosclerosis is unequally distributed over the length of large vessels. This finding implies that assessing heterogeneity of arterial stiffness by multiple local measurements of PWV might be more sensitive than global PWV to identify early atherosclerotic lesions.
Um die Natur der Transportdynamik von Ladungsträgern auch auf mikroskopischen Längenskalen nicht-invasiv untersuchen zu können, wurde im ersten Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit das PL- (Photolumineszenz-) Quenching (engl.: to quench: löschen; hier: strahlungslose Rekombination von Exzitonen) in einer organischen Dünnschicht durch die injizierten und akkumulierten Löcher in einer Transistorgeometrie analysiert. Diese Zusammenführung zweier Methoden - der elektrischen Charakterisierung von Dünnschichttransistoren und der Photolumineszenzspektroskopie - erfasst die Änderung des strahlenden Zerfalls von Exzitonen infolge der Wechselwirkung mit Ladungsträgern. Dadurch werden räumlich aufgelöste Informationen über die Ladungsverteilung und deren Spannungsabhängigkeit im Transistorkanal zugänglich. Durch den Vergleich mit den makroskopischen elektrischen Kenngrößen wie der Schwell- oder der Turn-On-Spannung kann die Funktionsweise der Transistoren damit detaillierter beschrieben werden, als es die Kenngrößen alleine ermöglichen. Außerdem wird die Quantifizierung dieser mikroskopischen Interaktionen möglich, welche beispielsweise als Verlustkanal in organischen Photovoltaikzellen und organicshen Leuchtdioden auftreten können. Die Abgrenzung zu anderen dissipativen Prozessen, wie beispielsweise der Exziton-Exziton Annihilation, Ladungsträgerrekombination, Triplett-Übergänge oder Rekombination an Störstellen oder metallischen Grenzflächen, erlaubt die detaillierte Analyse der Wechselwirkung von optisch angeregten Zuständen mit Elektronen und Löchern.
Im zweiten Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit werden die Transporteigenschaften des Naphthalindiimids Cl2-NDI betrachtet, bei dem der molekulare Überlapp sowie die Reorganisationsenergie in derselben Größenordnung von etwa 0,1 eV liegen. Um experimentell auf den mikroskopischen Transport zu schließen, werden nach der Optimierung des Kristallwachstums Einkristalltransistoren hergestellt, mit Hilfe derer die Beweglichkeit entlang verschiedener kristallographischer Richtungen als Funktion der Temperatur gemessen werden kann. Die einkristalline Natur der Proben und die spezielle Transistorgeometrie ermöglichen die Analyse der räumlichen Anisotropie des Stromflusses. Der gemessene Beweglichkeitstensor wird daraufhin mit simulierten Tensoren auf der Basis von Levich-Jortner Raten verglichen, um auf den zentralen Ladungstransfermechanismus zu schließen.
Background:
Local aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a measure for vascular stiffness and has a predictive value for cardiovascular events. Ultra high field CMR scanners allow the quantification of local PWV in mice, however these systems are yet unable to monitor the distribution of local elasticities.
Methods:
In the present study we provide a new accelerated method to quantify local aortic PWV in mice with phase-contrast cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (PC-CMR) at 17.6 T. Based on a k-t BLAST (Broad-use Linear Acquisition Speed-up Technique) undersampling scheme, total measurement time could be reduced by a factor of 6. The fast data acquisition enables to quantify the local PWV at several locations along the aortic blood vessel based on the evaluation of local temporal changes in blood flow and vessel cross sectional area. To speed up post processing and to eliminate operator bias, we introduce a new semi-automatic segmentation algorithm to quantify cross-sectional areas of the aortic vessel. The new methods were applied in 10 eight-month-old mice (4 C57BL/6J-mice and 6 ApoE\(^{(-/-)}\)-mice) at 12 adjacent locations along the abdominal aorta.
Results:
Accelerated data acquisition and semi-automatic post-processing delivered reliable measures for the local PWV, similiar to those obtained with full data sampling and manual segmentation. No statistically significant differences of the mean values could be detected for the different measurement approaches. Mean PWV values were elevated for the ApoE\(^{(-/-)}\)-group compared to the C57BL/6J-group (3.5 ± 0.7 m/s vs. 2.2 ± 0.4 m/s, p < 0.01). A more heterogeneous PWV-distribution in the ApoE \(^{(-/-)}\)-animals could be observed compared to the C57BL/6J-mice, representing the local character of lesion development in atherosclerosis.
Conclusion:
In the present work, we showed that k-t BLAST PC-MRI enables the measurement of the local PWV distribution in the mouse aorta. The semi-automatic segmentation method based on PC-CMR data allowed rapid determination of local PWV. The findings of this study demonstrate the ability of the proposed methods to non-invasively quantify the spatial variations in local PWV along the aorta of ApoE\(^{(-/-)}\)-mice as a relevant model of atherosclerosis.