A long-standing problem for the origins of life is that polymerization of many biopolymers, including nucleic acids and peptides, is thermodynamically unfavourable in aqueous solution. If bond making and breaking is reversible, monomers and very short oligomers predominate. Recent experiments have shown that wetting and drying cycles can overcome this problem and drive the formation of longer p...

We report on nonlocal transport in multiterminal superconductor-ferromagnet structures, which were fabricated by means of e-beam lithography and shadow evaporation techniques. In the presence of a significant Zeeman splitting of the quasiparticle states, we find signatures of spin transport over distances of several μm, exceeding other length scales such as the coherence length, the normal-stat...

In this paper, we study the agent’s optimal quitting in a continuous-time principal-agent problem, where the agent is payed once at the end of the contract. In a jump diffusion setting, we formulate the agency problem as a combined optimal stopping and stochastic control problem in weak formulation. To find the solutions, we develop the classical verification theorem in terms of Variational Ine...

Isothermal mutual diffusion coefficients (D) have been measured for binary aqueous solutions of sodium alkylsulfonates at 25 degrees C. The diffusion coefficient values drop as the concentration of micelles in the system increases. As the length of the hydrocarbon chain increases, the observed drop in D becomes increasingly sharp and shifts to lower concentrations. When the micellization proces...

We performed detailed H isotope diffusion measurements in the upper 3 m of firn at Summit, Greenland. Using a small snow gun, a thin snow layer was formed from H-enriched water over a 6× 6 m area. We followed the diffusion process, quantified as the increase of the δH diffusion length, over a 4-year period, by retrieving the layer once per year by drilling a firn core and slicing it into 1 cm l...

Four different tandem EGFPs were constructed to elucidate the nuclear microenvironment by quantifying its diffusional properties in both aqueous solution and the nuclei of living cells. Diffusion of tandem EGFP was dependent on the length of the protein as a rod-like molecule or molecular ruler in solution. On the other hand, we found two kinds of mobility, fast diffusional mobility and much sl...

The temperature dependence of the exciton dynamics in a conjugated polymer is studied using time-resolved spectroscopy. Photoluminescence decays were measured in heterostructured samples containing a sharp polymer-fullerene interface, which acts as an exciton quenching wall. Using a 1D diffusion model, the exciton diffusion length and diffusion coefficient were extracted in the temperature rang...

We present a combined quantum-chemical and Monte Carlo approach for calculating exciton transport properties in disordered organic materials starting from the molecular scale. We show that traps and energetic disorder are the main limitations for exciton diffusion in conjugated polymers. An analytical model for exciton hopping in a medium of sites with uncorellated energetic disorder gives a qu...