Background: Approximately one quarter of all nosocomial infections can be attributed to the urinary tract. The infections are supposed to be mainly caused by implantations of urethral catheters and stents. A new catheter design is introduced with the aim to lower the high number of nosocomial urethral infections. In order to avoid limitations to use, the design is first applied to conventional ...

We present a study of the ordering temperature of an ultrathin antiferromagnetic film in the proximity of a ferromagnetic layer. The Néel temperature of a single-crystalline antiferromagnetic FexMn1-x film on Cu(001) in contact with a ferromagnetic Ni layer was monitored by the discontinuity in the coercivity as a function of temperature by magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements. It decreases...

The structure and morphology of ultrathin lattice matched CaF2 films of very few monolayers thickness, which were deposited on Si 111 substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy, have been studied in situ by synchrotron based grazing incidence x-ray diffraction. Even for the thinnest investigated film of three monolayers thickness, the in-plane structure of the CaF2 film is determined by a lateral sep...

Thin organic films containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have received increasing attention in many fields. In this study, a robust thin superhydrophobic film has been created by using layer-by-layer assembly of the carbon nanotubes wrapped by poly(dopamine) (CNT@PDA) and poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI). UV-vis spectroscopy, ellipsometry, and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) measurem...

In this study, the effect of molybdate on the electrochemical behavior and semi-conductive properties of duplex stainless steel 2205 passive film at NaCl solutions was investigated. Cyclic potentiodynamic polarization, impedance spectroscopy, mott-schottky plots and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the passive behavior. Polarization curves showed that the corrosion current ...

The method of thin film preparation known as layer-by-layer assembly is of growing interest for current and envisioned developments in bionanotechnology. Here, cysteine-containing 32mer peptides have been designed, synthesized, purified, and used to prepare polypeptide films. A range of methods-quartz crystal microbalance, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy...

Currently, TiO2 on a fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate is the most commonly used type of photoelectrode in high-efficiency quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs). The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of TiO2 photoelectrodes is limited because of higher charge recombination and lower QD loading on the TiO2 film. This article describes the effect of a TiO2 compact layer on a TiO2 film to e...

A compressively strained elastic film bonded to a viscous layer can form wrinkles. The present study provides a theoretical model for the wrinkling process. The elastic film is modeled with the nonlinear theory of a thin plate subject to in-plane and out-of-plane loads. The flow of the viscous layer is modeled with the theory of lubrication. The interface between the elastic film and the viscou...

Biophysical properties of the tear film lipid layer are studied at the molecular level employing coarse grain molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with a realistic model of the human tear film. In this model, polar lipids are chosen to reflect the current knowledge on the lipidome of the tear film whereas typical Meibomian-origin lipids are included in the thick non-polar lipids subphase. Simula...

N-doped ZnO thin films were deposited on n-type Si(100) and homo-buffer layer, and undoped ZnO thin film was also deposited on homo-buffer layer by RF magnetron sputtering method. After deposition, all films were in-situ annealed at 800 C for 5 minutes in ambient of O2 with pressure of 10 Torr. X-ray diffraction shows that the homobuffer layer is beneficial to the crystalline of N-doped ZnO thi...