The quantities of outer and inner"halves" produced by freeze-fracturing human erythrocyte membranes have been measured by visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. Assays have been developed that are based on the use of two membrane surface markers: hemoglobin (Hb), a native marker for the cytoplasmic side of the membrane, and fluoresceinated concanavalin A (FITC-Con-A), a marker for the extracell...

Using evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS), we monitored the change in the absorbance of a thin film of methylene blue (MB) at an air/fused-silica interface while varying the polarization of the incident light (600 nm). We derived the average orientation angle of the planar MB molecules with respect to the surface normal and observed that the average orientation angle decreas...

The atomic layer deposition sALDd of tin oxide thin films has been examined using in situ quartz crystal microbalance sQCMd and Fourier transform infrared sFTIRd techniques. The SnOx films were deposited using sequential exposures of SnCl4 and H2O2 at temperatures from 150 to 430 °C. The linear growth of the tin oxide ALD films was observed by both the mass gain during QCM measurements and the ...

Organic wavelength-selective mirrors are used to reduce the loss of emitted photons through the surface of a luminescent solar concentrator (LSC). A theoretical calculation suggests that application of a 400 nm broad reflector on top of an LSC containing BASF Lumogen Red 305 as a luminophore can reflect 91% of all surface emitted photons back into the device. Used in this way, such broad reflec...

Why do plants reflect in the green and have a "red edge" in the red, and should extrasolar photosynthesis be the same? We provide (1) a brief review of how photosynthesis works, (2) an overview of the diversity of photosynthetic organisms, their light harvesting systems, and environmental ranges, (3) a synthesis of photosynthetic surface spectral signatures, and (4) evolutionary rationales for ...

The optical and morphological properties of lustrous metal self-healing liquid-like nanofilms were systematically studied for different applications (e.g., optical mirrors or filters). These nanofilms were formed by a one-step self-assembly methodology of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) at immiscible water-oil interfaces, previously reported by our group. We investigated a host of experimental varia...

The environment of individual tryptophans in known protein structures and the effectiveness of four commercial robotic UV microscopes to illuminate tryptophan-containing protein crystals by either tryptophan fluorescence (epi-illumination) or absorbance (transmission) are evaluated. In agreement with other studies, tryptophan residues are found on average to be largely buried in protein structu...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Epidermal phenolic compounds (mainly flavonoids) constitute a vital screen that protects the leaf from damage by natural ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The effectiveness of epidermal UV-screening depends on leaf anatomy, the content of UV-screening compounds and their spatial uniformity over the leaf area. To investigate in vivo the spatial pattern of the epidermal UV-screen du...

Exact solutions to diffraction problems in wave optics are scarce though strongly demanded for accurate knowledge of electromagnetic fields the immediate vicinity scatterers. Here, we obtain and analyze an exact analytical solution plane-wave at a lateral junction two-dimensional (2D) conductors with dissimilar surface conductivities. We find that near possesses dipolelike radiative component 2...