Quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) are unipolar semiconductor lasers operating in the mid infrared region. Their emitted wavelength is defined by the separation of intersubband levels which can be tailored by band structure engineering. Due to the fact that the maximum conduction band offset in the GaAs/AlGaAs material system is 380 meV, the lowest directly accessible wavelength is roughly 7 μm. One...

The electronic structure of a large ~4096 atom! and realistic model of amorphous diamond is studied. The density of states and the individual eigenstates in the valence-band tail and midgap region are computed with two ‘‘order-N’’ spectral electronic-structure methods: the maximum entropy method and the shifted Lanczos method. We observe approximately exponential band tails at both valenceand c...

We have synthesized a series of cluster assembled materials in which the building blocks are As(7)(3-) clusters linked by group 12 metals, Zn, Cd and Hg, to investigate the effect of covalent linkers on the band gap energy. The synthesized assemblies include zero dimensional assemblies of [Zn(As(7))(2)](4-), [Cd(As(7))(2)](4-), [Hg(2)(As(7))(2)](4-), and [HgAsAs(14)](3-) in which the clusters a...

α₁-Antichymotrypsin is encoded by the unique SERPINA3 gene in humans, while it is encoded by a cluster of eight closely related genes in cattle. BovSERPINA3 proteins present a high degree of similarity and significant divergences in the reactive centre loop (RCL) domains which are responsible for the antiprotease activity. In this study, we analysed their expression patterns in a range of cattl...

In order to investigate the deuteration effect on the vibrational dynamics of the NH and/or ND stretch excited levels of the 7-azaindole (7-AI) normal dimer and its tautomeric dimer, we have carried out infrared spectroscopy of three isotopic species for each dimers; undeuterated one (NH-NH) and one or two hydrogen atom(s) of the NH groups is deuterated ones (NH-ND and ND-ND, respectively). It ...

Cytoskeletal proteins are axonally transported with slow components a and b (SCa and SCb). In peripheral nerves, the transport velocity of SCa, which includes neurofilaments and tubulin, is 1-2 mm/d, whereas SCb, which includes actin, tubulin, and numerous soluble proteins, moves as a heterogeneous wave at 2-4 mm/d. We have shown that two isoforms of microtubule-associated protein 1B (MAP1B), w...