The specific volume of dry protein is of interest in the interpretation of electron micrographs of protein molecules. A pycnometer with helium gas as the fluid is described and measurements on dry powders of lysozyme, ovalbumin, bovine serum albumin, and fibrinogen are reported. The values obtained exceed those from determinations on solutions by an average of 1.4 per cent when the latter measu...

A novel method for the reduction of subthreshold slope below the room-temperature Boltzmann limit of 60 mV/dec for a field-effect transistor based on negative differential capacitance is proposed. This effect uses electric field induced electrostriction of a piezoelectric gate barrier of the transistor. The mechanism amplifies the internal surface potential over the applied gate voltage. This i...

A small piezoelectric device for cell penetration is described. It retracts the micropipette slowly by electrostriction, and pushes it very fast (less than 5 microsecond) forward by short-circuiting the transducer. The design, operation circuit, and performance under test conditions are described. Penetration examples from small nerve fibers (less than 5 micrometer) show that membrane puncture ...

The microscopic and the macroscopic (phenomenological) approach to the electromagnetic theory in matter can be looked upon as complementary to each other. In view of the complexity of the deductive microscopic approach it is desirable to use experimental information to test the predictions of the more simple macroscopic theory. The purpose of the present paper is to review and give the theory o...

Within the framework of Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire approach we explore impact elastic anisotropy, electrostriction, flexoelectric couplings, and mismatch strain on domain structure morphology in ferroelectric core-shell nanoparticles spherical shape. We perform finite element modelling (FEM) for multiaxial nanoparticle cores covered with an elastically-isotropic soft or elastically-anisotropic ...

Polymer-stabilized blue-phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) has become an increasingly important technology trend for information display and photonic applications. BPLC exhibits several attractive features, such as reasonably wide temperature range, submillisecond gray-to-gray response time, no need for alignment layer, optically isotropic voltageoff state, and large cell gap tolerance when an in-p...

Controlled actuation of electroactive polymers with embedded high dielectric nanoparticles is theoretically analyzed. If the inclusions are placed randomly in the elastomer body, the composite always contracts along the direction of the applied field. For a simple cubic distribution of inclusions, contraction occurs if the applied field is directed along the [001] direction of the lattice. For ...