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- ItemGuidance of mesenchymal stem cells on fibronectin structured hydrogel films(San Francisco, California, US : PLOS, 2014) Kasten, Annika; Naser, Tamara; Brüllhoff, Kristina; Fiedler, Jörg; Müller, Petra; Möller, Martin; Rychly, Joachim; Groll, Jürgen; Brenner, Rolf E.; Engler, Adam J.Designing of implant surfaces using a suitable ligand for cell adhesion to stimulate specific biological responses of stem cells will boost the application of regenerative implants. For example, materials that facilitate rapid and guided migration of stem cells would promote tissue regeneration. When seeded on fibronectin (FN) that was homogeneously immmobilized to NCO-sP(EO-stat-PO), which otherwise prevents protein binding and cell adhesion, human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) revealed a faster migration, increased spreading and a more rapid organization of different cellular components for cell adhesion on fibronectin than on a glass surface. To further explore, how a structural organization of FN controls the behavior of MSC, adhesive lines of FN with varying width between 10 µm and 80 µm and spacings between 5 µm and 20 µm that did not allow cell adhesion were generated. In dependance on both line width and gaps, cells formed adjacent cell contacts, were individually organized in lines, or bridged the lines. With decreasing sizes of FN lines, speed and directionality of cell migration increased, which correlated with organization of the actin cytoskeleton, size and shape of the nuclei as well as of focal adhesions. Together, defined FN lines and gaps enabled a fine tuning of the structural organization of cellular components and migration. Microstructured adhesive substrates can mimic the extracellular matrix in vivo and stimulate cellular mechanisms which play a role in tissue regeneration.
- ItemInfluence of diluted acid mixtures on selective etching of MHz- and kHz-fs-laser inscribed structures in YAG(Washington, DC : OSA, 2021) Hasse, Kore; Kip, Detlef; Kränkel, ChristianWe show that the inscription velocity of fs-laser written structures in YAG crystals can be significantly improved by the use of MHz repetition rates for the writing process. Using a 10 MHz inscription laser, record high writing velocities up to 100 mm/s are achieved. Also, the selective etching process is accelerated using a diluted mixture of 22% H3PO4 and 24% H2SO4. The diluted mixture enables selective etching of up to 9.6 mm long, 1 µm wide and 18 µm high microchannels in 23 days. The etching parameter D of 11.2 µm2/s is a factor of 3 higher than previously reported and the selectivity is even increased by an order of magnitude.
- ItemUltrafast inter-ionic charge transfer of transition-metal complexes mapped by femtosecond x-ray powder diffraction(Les Ulis : EDP Sciences, 2013) Zamponi, F.; Freyer, B.; Juvé, V.; Stingl, J.; Woerner, M.; Chergui, M.; Elsaesser, T.Transient electron density maps are derived from x-ray diffraction patterns of photoexcited [Fe(bpy)3]2+(PF6 -)2 powder. Upon photoexcitation, the 5T 2 quintet state reveals a charge transfer from the PF 6- ions and from the Fe atoms to neighboring bpy units. The charge transfer from the Fe points to a partial and weak charge-transfer character of this state.
- ItemBatch and continuous lactic acid fermentation based on a multi-substrate approach(Basel : MDPI AG, 2020) Olszewska-Widdrat, Agata; Alexandri, Maria; López-Gómez, José Pablo; Schneider, Roland; Venus, JoachimThe utilisation of waste materials and industrial residues became a priority within the bioeconomy concept and the production of biobased chemicals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility to continuously produce L-lactic acid from different renewable substrates, in a multi-substrate strategy mode. Based on batch experiments observations, Bacillus coagulans A534 strain was able to continuously metabolise acid whey, sugar beet molasses, sugar bread, alfalfa press green juice and tapioca starch. Additionally, reference experiments showed its behaviour in standard medium. Continuous fermentations indicated that the highest productivity was achieved when molasses was employed with a value of 10.34 g·L−1·h−1, while the lactic acid to sugar conversion yield was 0.86 g·g−1 . This study demonstrated that LA can be efficiently produced in continuous mode regardless the substrate, which is a huge advantage in comparison to other platform chemicals. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
- ItemA molecular dynamics view of hysteresis and functional fatigue in martensitic transformations(Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2010) Kastner, Oliver; Ackland, Graeme J.; Eggeler, Gunther; Weiss, WolfShape memory alloys (SMA) exhibit a number of features which are not easily explained by equilibrium thermodynamics, including hysteresis in the phase transformation and ?reverse? shape memory in the high symmetry phase. Processing can change these features: repeated cycling can ?train? the reverse shape memory effect, while changing the amount of hysteresis and other functional properties. These effects are likely to be due to creation of persistent localised defects, which are impossible to study using non-atomistic methods. Here we present a molecular dynamics simulation study of this behaviour. To ensure the largest possible system size, we use a two dimensional binary Lennard-Jones model, which represents a reliable qualitative model system for martensite/austenite transformations. The evolution of the defect structure and its excess energy is investigated in simulations of cyclic transformation/ reverse transformation processes with 160,000 atoms. The simulations show that the transformation proceeds by non-diffusive nucleation and growth processes and produces distinct microstructure. Upon transformation, lattice defects are generated which affect subsequent transformations and vary the potential energy landscape of the sample. Some of the defects persist through the transformation, providing nucleation centres for subsequent cycles. Such defects may provide a memory of previous structures, and thereby may be the basis of a reversible shape memory effect.
- ItemFast scatterometric measurement of periodic surface structures plasma-etching processes(Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2018) Klesse, Wolfgang Matthias; Rathsfeld, Andreas; Groß, Claudine; Malguth, Enno; Skibitzki, Oliver; Zealouk, LahbibTo satisfy the continuous demand of ever smaller feature sizes, plasma etching technologies in microelectronics processing enable the fabrication of device structures with dimensions in the nanometer range. In a typical plasma etching system a plasma phase of a selected etching gas is activated, thereby generating highly energetic and reactive gas species which ultimately etch the substrate surface. Such dry etching processes are highly complex and require careful adjustment of many process parameters to meet the high technology requirements on the structure geometry. In this context, real-time access of the structures dimensions during the actual plasma process would be of great benefit by providing full dimension control and film integrity in real-time. In this paper, we evaluate the feasibility of reconstructing the etched dimensions with nanometer precision from reflectivity spectra of the etched surface, which are measured in real-time throughout the entire etch process. We develop and test a novel and fast reconstruction algorithm, using experimental reflection spectra taken about every second during the etch process of a periodic 2D model structure etched into a silicon substrate. Unfortunately, the numerical simulation of the reflectivity by Maxwell solvers is time consuming since it requires separate time-harmonic computations for each wavelength of the spectrum. To reduce the computing time, we propose that a library of spectra should be generated before the etching process. Each spectrum should correspond to a vector of geometry parameters s.t. the vector components scan the possible range of parameter values for the geometrical dimensions. We demonstrate that by replacing the numerically simulated spectra in the reconstruction algorithm by spectra interpolated from the library, it is possible to compute the geometry parameters in times less than a second. Finally, to also reduce memory size and computing time for the library, we reduce the scanning of the parameter values to a sparse grid.
- ItemHölder-estimates for non-autonomous parabolic problems with rough data(Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Meinlschmidt, Hannes; Rehberg, JoachimIn this paper we establish Hölder estimates for solutions to non-autonomous parabolic equations on non-smooth domains which are complemented with mixed boundary conditions. The corresponding elliptic operators are of divergence type, the coefficient matrix of which depends only measurably on time. These results are in the tradition of the classical book of Ladyshenskaya et al., which also serves as the starting point for our investigations.
- ItemModelling the role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance by incorporating SPITFIRE into the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE - Part 1: Simulating historical global burned area and fire regimes(München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2014) Yue, C.; Ciais, P.; Cadule, P.; Thonicke, K.; Archibald, S.; Poulter, B.; Hao, W.M.; Hantson, S.; Mouillot, F.; Friedlingstein, P.; Maignan, F.; Viovy, N.Fire is an important global ecological process that influences the distribution of biomes, with consequences for carbon, water, and energy budgets. Therefore it is impossible to appropriately model the history and future of the terrestrial ecosystems and the climate system without including fire. This study incorporates the process-based prognostic fire module SPITFIRE into the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE, which was then used to simulate burned area over the 20th century. Special attention was paid to the evaluation of other fire regime indicators such as seasonality, fire size and fire length, next to burned area. For 2001–2006, the simulated global spatial extent of fire agrees well with that given by satellite-derived burned area data sets (L3JRC, GLOBCARBON, GFED3.1), and 76–92% of the global burned area is simulated as collocated between the model and observation, depending on which data set is used for comparison. The simulated global mean annual burned area is 346 Mha yr−1, which falls within the range of 287–384 Mha yr−1 as given by the three observation data sets; and is close to the 344 Mha yr−1 by the GFED3.1 data when crop fires are excluded. The simulated long-term trend and variation of burned area agree best with the observation data in regions where fire is mainly driven by climate variation, such as boreal Russia (1930–2009), along with Canada and US Alaska (1950–2009). At the global scale, the simulated decadal fire variation over the 20th century is only in moderate agreement with the historical reconstruction, possibly because of the uncertainties of past estimates, and because land-use change fires and fire suppression are not explicitly included in the model. Over the globe, the size of large fires (the 95th quantile fire size) is underestimated by the model for the regions of high fire frequency, compared with fire patch data as reconstructed from MODIS 500 m burned area data. Two case studies of fire size distribution in Canada and US Alaska, and southern Africa indicate that both number and size of large fires are underestimated, which could be related with short fire patch length and low daily fire size. Future efforts should be directed towards building consistent spatial observation data sets for key parameters of the model in order to constrain the model error at each key step of the fire modelling.
- ItemComplex refractive indices of Saharan dust samples at visible and near UV wavelengths: A laboratory study(München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2012) Wagner, R.; Ajtai, T.; Kandler, K.; Lieke, K.; Linke, C.; Müller, T.; Schnaiter, M.; Vragel, M.We have retrieved the wavelength-dependent imaginary parts of the complex refractive index for five different Saharan dust aerosol particles of variable mineralogical composition at wavelengths between 305 and 955 nm. The dust particles were generated by dispersing soil samples into a laboratory aerosol chamber, typically yielding particle sizes with mean diameters ranging from 0.3 to 0.4 μm and maximum diameters from 2 to 4 μm. The extinction and absorption coefficients as well as the number size distribution of the dust particles were simultaneously measured by various established techniques. An inversion scheme based on a spheroidal dust model was employed to deduce the refractive indices. The retrieved imaginary parts of the complex refractive index were in the range from 0.003 to 0.005, 0.005 to 0.011, and 0.016 to 0.050 at the wavelengths 955, 505, and 305 nm. The hematite content of the dust particles was determined by electron-microscopical single particle analysis. Hematite volume fractions in the range from 1.1 to 2.7% were found for the different dusts, a range typical for atmospheric mineral dust. We have performed a sensitivity study to assess how accurately the retrieved imaginary refractive indices could be reproduced by calculations with mixing rule approximations using the experimentally determined hematite contents as input.
- ItemWeak solutions and weak-strong uniqueness for a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model(Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Lasarzik, Robert; Rocca, Elisabetta; Schimperna, GiulioIn this paper we prove the existence of weak solutions for a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model introduced in [26] in two and three dimensions of space. We use a notion of solution inspired by [18], where the pointwise internal energy balance is replaced by the total energy inequality complemented with a weak form of the entropy inequality. Moreover, we prove existence of local-in-time strong solutions and, finally, we show weak-strong uniqueness of solutions, meaning that every weak solution coincides with a local strong solution emanating from the same initial data, as long as the latter exists.