Moiré patterns are quasi‐periodic geometric patterns generated by the incommensurate stacking between two monolayers; they have rapidly attracted enormous attention due to their profound ability to ...modulate the electronic properties of 2D materials. For instance, the Bloch band of the Moiré superlattice, which is known as the Moiré band, can become flat at a specific series of discrete angles, and these flat bands are capable of exhibiting strong correlation behaviors such as the high‐temperature superconductivity reported recently. Moiré patterns can alter electronic properties, while surface reconstruction can modify Moiré patterns. In this review, the fundamental geometry is discussed and the basic electronic structure modification is summarized. Surface reconstruction is a method of tuning the electronic properties of a Moiré superlattice. Strong correlation phenomena, such as superconductivity, superfluidity, and magnetism induced by the flat bands, have been confirmed experimentally in recent years, which will be discussed in detail. Some possible application opportunities based on the fascinating characteristics of the Moiré pattern will also be presented. Because of the growing interest in Moiré patterns and related physical phenomena, it is anticipated that a deeper understanding of the fundamental physics of Moiré systems and further progress in the investigation of strong correlation phenomena are forthcoming.
This review summarizes recent advances in the rapidly developing fields related to the Moiré‐pattern‐tuned electronic structures of van der Waals heterostructures, including Moiré bands, Dirac cones, surface reconstruction, Moiré excitons, Moiré valleytronics, stoner magnetism, superconductivity, and superfluidity. Some potential applications based on the fascinating characteristics of the Moiré pattern are also presented.
Nanoscopic Thermodynamics Qi, Weihong
Accounts of chemical research,
09/2016, Volume:
49, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Conventional thermodynamics for bulk substances encounters challenges when one considers materials on the nanometer scale. Quantities such as entropy, enthalpy, free energy, melting temperature, ...ordering temperature, Debye temperature, and specific heat no longer remain constant but change with the crystal dimension, size, and morphology. Often, one phenomenon is associated with a variety of theories from different perspectives. Still, a model that can reconcile the size and shape dependence of the thermal properties of the nanoscaled substances remains one of the goals of nanoscience and nanotechnology. This Account highlights the nanoscopic thermodynamics for nanoparticles, nanowires, and nanofilms, with particular emphasis on the bond energy model. The central idea is that the atomic cohesive energy determines the thermodynamic performance of a substance and the cohesive energy varies with the atomic coordination environment. It is the cohesive energy difference between the core and the shell that dictates the nanoscopic thermodynamics. This bond energy model rationalizes the following: (i) how the surface dangling bonds depress the melting temperature, entropy, and enthalpy; (ii) how the order–disorder transition of the nanoparticles depends on particle size and how their stability may vary when they are embedded in an appropriate matrix; (iii) predictions of the existence of face-centered cubic structures of Ti, Zr, and Hf at small size; (iv) how two elements that are immiscible in the bulk can form an alloy on the nanoscale, where the critical size can be predicted. The model has enabled us to reproduce the size and shape dependence of a number of physical properties, such as melting temperature, melting entropy, melting enthalpy, ordering temperature, Gibbs free energy, and formation heat, among others, for materials such as Pd, Au, Ag, Cu, Ni, Sn, Pb, In, Bi, Al, Ti, Zr, Hf, In–Al, Ag–Ni, Co–Pt, Cu–Ag, Cu–Ni, Au–Ni, Ag–Pt, and Au–Pt on the nanometer scale. Furthermore, this model predicts the phenomena of the thermal stability of metal particles on graphene, the superheating of embedded nanoparticles, the order–disorder transition of nanoalloys, the size–temperature phase diagram for low-dimensional solids and the alloying ability on the nanoscale. Extensions of this model may lead to the design of new functional nanomaterials.
Most known pathogenic point mutations in humans are C•G to T•A substitutions, which can be directly repaired by adenine base editors (ABEs). In this study, we investigated the efficacy and safety of ...ABEs in the livers of mice and cynomolgus macaques for the reduction of blood low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. Lipid nanoparticle-based delivery of mRNA encoding an ABE and a single-guide RNA targeting PCSK9, a negative regulator of LDL, induced up to 67% editing (on average, 61%) in mice and up to 34% editing (on average, 26%) in macaques. Plasma PCSK9 and LDL levels were stably reduced by 95% and 58% in mice and by 32% and 14% in macaques, respectively. ABE mRNA was cleared rapidly, and no off-target mutations in genomic DNA were found. Re-dosing in macaques did not increase editing, possibly owing to the detected humoral immune response to ABE upon treatment. These findings support further investigation of ABEs to treat patients with monogenic liver diseases.
On the basis of the Gibbs free energy (GFE) model of Janus, core–shell, and alloyed structures of Ag–Cu and Ag–Au nanoparticles, the structural stability and size-composition phase diagram are ...obtained. For phase segregated structure, small size and low temperature are more beneficial at fixed composition. If the temperature is fixed, the segregated phase is favored at small size and low composition. The lowest critical size to phase segregation is 6 nm for Ag–Cu NPs and 4.5 nm for Ag–Au NPs at 400 K and Ag atom fraction of approximately 50%, and raising the temperature reduces the critical size. For Ag–Cu phase diagram, it is found that the core size is dominated by the transformation between Janus and core–shell structure. When the core is sufficient large, the Ag–Cu NPs will keep the core–shell structure. As the core size gets smaller, the core location will be moved from center to off-center until it forms quasi-Janus or Janus NPs. However, for the Ag–Au phase diagram, there is no Janus structure at large scale of composition.
Many recent disease outbreaks in humans had a zoonotic virus etiology. Bats in particular have been recognized as reservoirs to a large variety of viruses with the potential to cross-species ...transmission. In order to assess the risk of bats in Switzerland for such transmissions, we determined the virome of tissue and fecal samples of 14 native and 4 migrating bat species. In total, sequences belonging to 39 different virus families, 16 of which are known to infect vertebrates, were detected. Contigs of coronaviruses, adenoviruses, hepeviruses, rotaviruses A and H, and parvoviruses with potential zoonotic risk were characterized in more detail. Most interestingly, in a ground stool sample of a Vespertilio murinus colony an almost complete genome of a Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was detected by Next generation sequencing and confirmed by PCR. In conclusion, bats in Switzerland naturally harbour many different viruses. Metagenomic analyses of non-invasive samples like ground stool may support effective surveillance and early detection of viral zoonoses.
Ticks play an important role in transmitting many different emerging zoonotic pathogens that pose a significant threat to human and animal health. In Switzerland and abroad, the number of tick-borne ...diseases, in particular tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), has been increasing over the last few years. Thus, it remains essential to investigate the pathogen spectrum of ticks to rapidly detect emerging pathogens and initiate the necessary measures. To assess the risk of tick-borne diseases in different regions of Switzerland, we collected a total of 10'286 ticks from rural and urban areas in ten cantons in 2021 and 2022. Ticks were pooled according to species, developmental stage, gender, and collection site, and analyzed using next generation sequencing (NGS) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The metagenomic analysis revealed for the first time the presence of Alongshan virus (ALSV) in Swiss ticks. Interestingly, the pool-prevalence of ALSV was higher than that of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV). Furthermore, several TBEV foci have been identified and pool prevalence of selected non-viral pathogens determined.
Next generation sequencing (NGS) produces massive datasets consisting of billions of reads and up to thousands of samples. Subsequent bioinformatic analysis is typically done with the help of open ...source tools, where each application performs a single step towards the final result. This situation leaves the bioinformaticians with the tasks to combine the tools, manage the data files and meta-information, document the analysis, and ensure reproducibility.
We present SUSHI, an agile data analysis framework that relieves bioinformaticians from the administrative challenges of their data analysis. SUSHI lets users build reproducible data analysis workflows from individual applications and manages the input data, the parameters, meta-information with user-driven semantics, and the job scripts. As distinguishing features, SUSHI provides an expert command line interface as well as a convenient web interface to run bioinformatics tools. SUSHI datasets are self-contained and self-documented on the file system. This makes them fully reproducible and ready to be shared. With the associated meta-information being formatted as plain text tables, the datasets can be readily further analyzed and interpreted outside SUSHI.
SUSHI provides an exquisite recipe for analysing NGS data. By following the SUSHI recipe, SUSHI makes data analysis straightforward and takes care of documentation and administration tasks. Thus, the user can fully dedicate his time to the analysis itself. SUSHI is suitable for use by bioinformaticians as well as life science researchers. It is targeted for, but by no means constrained to, NGS data analysis. Our SUSHI instance is in productive use and has served as data analysis interface for more than 1000 data analysis projects. SUSHI source code as well as a demo server are freely available.
Water electrolysis shows great promise for the low-cost mass production of high-purity hydrogen. The relatively high dissociation energy of water, however, often results in rather sluggish kinetics ...of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline conditions, even for the case of state-of-the-art Pt-based electrocatalysts. Here, we show the high efficiency of the hybrids of PtRu nanoclusters (NCs) and black phosphorus (BP) nanosheets in HER. Our PtRu NCs/BP electrocatalysts demonstrate a HER activity of 88.5 mA cm–2 at −70 mV in 1 M KOH, which is higher than that of commercial Pt/C by 1 order of magnitude. The observed extraordinarily high HER activity of the PtRu NCs/BP hybrids is interpreted in the framework of density functional theory. Theoretical modeling indicates that the electronic interaction between BP and PtRu NCs speeds up the dissociation of water and optimizes the adsorption strength for H* species, giving rise to the remarkably high HER activity of the PtRu NCs/BP hybrids.
Irrigation water is a major source of fresh produce contamination with undesired microorganisms including antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), and contaminated fresh produce can transfer ARB to the ...consumer especially when consumed raw. Nevertheless, no legal guidelines exist so far regulating quality of irrigation water with respect to ARB. We therefore examined irrigation water from major vegetable growing areas for occurrence of antibiotic-resistant indicator bacteria Escherichia coli and Enterococcus spp., including extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E. coli and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus spp. Occurrence of ARB strains was compared to total numbers of the respective species. We categorized water samples according to total numbers and found that categories with higher total E. coli or Enterococcus spp. numbers generally had an increased proportion of respective ARB-positive samples. We further detected high prevalence of ESBL-producing E. coli with eight positive samples of thirty-six (22%), while two presumptive vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus spp. were vancomycin-susceptible in confirmatory tests. In disk diffusion assays all ESBL-producing E. coli were multidrug-resistant (n = 21) and whole-genome sequencing of selected strains revealed a multitude of transmissible resistance genes (ARG), with blaCTX-M-1 (4 of 11) and blaCTX-M-15 (3 of 11) as the most frequent ESBL genes. Overall, the increased occurrence of indicator ARB with increased total indicator bacteria suggests that the latter might be a suitable estimate for presence of respective ARB strains. Finally, the high prevalence of ESBL-producing E. coli with transmissible ARG emphasizes the need to establish legal critical values and monitoring guidelines for ARB in irrigation water.
Plastic materials, including microplastics, accumulate in all types of ecosystems, even in remote and cold environments such as the European Alps. This pollution poses a risk for the environment and ...humans and needs to be addressed. Using shotgun DNA metagenomics of soils collected in the eastern Swiss Alps at about 3,000 m a.s.l., we identified genes and their proteins that potentially can degrade plastics. We screened the metagenomes of the plastisphere and the bulk soil with a differential abundance analysis, conducted similarity-based screening with specific databases dedicated to putative plastic-degrading genes, and selected those genes with a high probability of signal peptides for extracellular export and a high confidence for functional domains. This procedure resulted in a final list of nine candidate genes. The lengths of the predicted proteins were between 425 and 845 amino acids, and the predicted genera producing these proteins belonged mainly to Caballeronia and Bradyrhizobium. We applied functional validation, using heterologous expression followed by enzymatic assays of the supernatant. Five of the nine proteins tested showed significantly increased activities when we used an esterase assay, and one of these five proteins from candidate genes, a hydrolase-type esterase, clearly had the highest activity, by more than double. We performed the fluorescence assays for plastic degradation of the plastic types BI-OPL and ecovio® only with proteins from the five candidate genes that were positively active in the esterase assay, but like the negative controls, these did not show any significantly increased activity. In contrast, the activity of the positive control, which contained a PLA-degrading gene insert known from the literature, was more than 20 times higher than that of the negative controls. These findings suggest that in silico screening followed by functional validation is suitable for finding new plastic-degrading enzymes. Although we only found one new esterase enzyme, our approach has the potential to be applied to any type of soil and to plastics in various ecosystems to search rapidly and efficiently for new plastic-degrading enzymes.
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