Browse Articles

Low crosstalk modular flip-chip architecture for coupled superconducting qubits

We present a flip-chip architecture for an array of coupled superconducting qubits, in which circuit components reside inside individual microwave enclosures. In contrast to other flip-chip approaches, the qubit chips in our architecture are electrically floating, which guarantees a simple, fully modular assembly of capacitively coupled circuit components, such as qubit, control, and coupling structures as well as reduced crosstalk between the components. We validate the concept with a chain of three nearest neighbor coupled generalized flux qubits in which the center qubit acts as a frequency-tunable coupler. Using this coupler, we demonstrate a transverse coupling on/off ratio≈50, zz−crosstalk ≈0.7 kHz between resonant qubits and isolation between the qubit enclosures>60 dB.

Novel tissue biomarker candidates to predict both deep venous thrombosis and healing outcome after Achilles tendon rupture

Abstract Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and poor long-term patient outcomes frequently occur in patients with Achilles tendon rupture (ATR). Biomarkers for DVT and their possible relationship to long-term healing outcomes remain unexplored. To identify DVT biomarkers from proteomic profiles during the inflammatory and proliferative healing stages and assess their associations with one-year healing outcomes after surgical repair of ATR. A cohort of 53 patients undergoing standardized ATR repair from previous clinical trials was investigated. Intraoperative inflammatory-stage tendon biopsies were obtained from 40 patients, and tendon microdialysates from 28 patients were collected two weeks later during the proliferative stage. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry proteomic profiles were linked to DVT status at two weeks post-surgery using ultrasonography screening and to patient-reported outcomes at one-year post-surgery. Six candidate DVT biomarkers were identified from tendon biopsies, whereof four (ABI3BP, IGKV2-40/IGKV2D-40, PCYOX1, STIP1) were associated with one-year healing outcomes. In tendon microdialysates, 43 candidate DVT biomarkers were identified, but none were associated with healing outcomes. Bioinformatic analysis revealed pathways related to heat shock response, platelet signaling, collagen and extracellular matrix metabolism, and immunoglobulins. The results support shared inflammatory-stage protein pathways in regulating venous thrombosis and reported healing outcomes, where elements of individual hypoxic tolerance and platelet signaling emerge as potential key links.

DNA‐Capturing Manganese‐Coordinated Chitosan Microparticles Potentiate Radiotherapy via Activating the cGAS‐STING Pathway and Maintaining Tumor‐Infiltrating CD8 ⁺ T‐Cell Stemness

Abstract The radiotherapy‐induced release of DNA fragments can stimulate the cyclic guanosine monophosphate‐adenosine monophosphate synthase‐stimulator of interferon genes (cGAS‐STING) pathway to prime antitumor immunity, but this pathway is expected to be less potent because of the inefficient cytosolic delivery of negatively charged DNA fragments. In this study, manganese‐coordinated chitosan (CS‐Mn) microparticles with selective DNA‐capturing capacity are concisely prepared via a coordination‐directed one‐pot synthesis process to potentiate the immunogenicity of radiotherapy. The obtained CS‐Mn microparticles that undergo rapid disassembly under physiological conditions can selectively bind with DNA to form positively charged DNA‐CS assemblies because of the strong electrostatic interaction between linear chitosan and DNA molecules. They thus enable efficient cytosolic delivery of DNA in the presence of serum to cooperate with Mn 2+ to activate the cGAS‐STING pathway in dendritic cells. Upon intratumoral injection, the CS‐Mn microparticles markedly enhance the efficacy of radiotherapy against both irradiated and distal tumors in different tumor models via collectively promoting tumor‐infiltrating CD8 + T‐cell stemness and the activation of innate immunity. The radiosensitization effect of CS‐Mn microparticles can be further augmented by concurrently applying anti‐programmed cell death protein 1 (anti‐PD‐1) immunotherapy. This work highlights an ingenious strategy to prepare Trojan horse‐like DNA‐capturing microparticles as cGAS‐STING‐activating radiosensitizers for effective radioimmunotherapy.

Crystallographic Spin Torque Conductivity Tensor of Epitaxial IrO ₂ Thin Films for Oxide Spintronics

Abstract Unconventional spin‐orbit torques arising from electric‐field‐generated spin currents in anisotropic materials have promising potential for spintronic applications, including for perpendicular magnetic switching in high‐density memory applications. Here, all the independent elements of the spin torque conductivity tensor allowed by bulk crystal symmetries for the tetragonal conductor IrO 2 are determined via measurements of conventional (in‐plane) anti‐damping torques for IrO 2 thin films in the high‐symmetry (001) and (100) orientations. It is then tested whether rotational transformations of this same tensor can predict both the conventional and unconventional anti‐damping torques for IrO 2 thin films in the lower‐symmetry (101), (110), and (111) orientations, finding good agreement. The results confirm that spin‐orbit torques from all these orientations are consistent with the bulk symmetries of IrO 2 , and show how simple measurements of conventional torques from high‐symmetry orientations of anisotropic thin films can provide an accurate prediction of the unconventional torques from lower‐symmetry orientations.

A design of magnetic tunnel junctions for the deployment of neuromorphic hardware for edge computing

The electrically readable complex dynamics of robust and scalable magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) offer promising opportunities for advancing neuromorphic computing. In this work, we present an MTJ design with a free layer and two polarizers capable of computing the sigmoidal activation function and its gradient at the device level. This design enables both feedforward and backpropagation computations within a single device, extending neuromorphic computing frameworks previously explored in the literature by introducing the ability to perform backpropagation directly in hardware. Our algorithm implementation reveals two key findings: (i) the small discrepancies between the MTJ-generated curves and the exact software-generated curves have a negligible impact on the performance of the backpropagation algorithm, (ii) the device implementation is highly robust to inter-device variation and noise, and (iii) the proposed method effectively supports transfer learning and knowledge distillation. To demonstrate this, we evaluated the performance of an edge computing network using weights from a software-trained model implemented with our MTJ design. The results show a minimal loss of accuracy of only 0.4% for the Fashion MNIST dataset and 1.7% for the CIFAR-100 dataset compared to the original software implementation. These results highlight the potential of our MTJ design for compact, hardware-based neural networks in edge computing applications, particularly for transfer learning.

Scaling of cardiovascular risk factors in 230 Latin American cities

Abstract Urbanization results in increased numbers of people living in cities and poses challenges and opportunities to public health policies. Studies of urban scaling have unveiled how cities’ socio-economic and infrastructural attributes vary systematically with city size. Previous studies have explored the scaling properties of health outcomes across metropolitan areas in different countries, but chronic diseases have been infrequently examined. This paper examines scaling behaviors of 4 cardiovascular risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, tobacco smoking, and obesity across 230 cities in six countries of Latin America. In analyses pooled across countries, diabetes and hypertension showed weakly superlinear scaling (higher prevalence in larger cities). In comparison, obesity showed linear scaling, and tobacco showed weakly sublinear scaling (lower prevalence in larger cities), although most coefficients did not differ significantly from the null. In country-specific analyses, hypertension and diabetes tended to show a superlinear pattern across most countries, obesity tended to show a sublinear pattern in most countries, and tobacco tended to be superlinear (in contrast to the analysis pooled across countries where it was sublinear). Results suggest the need to examine further the drivers of this varying scaling of risk factors.

Chemical engineering of CRISPR–Cas systems for therapeutic application

Cryo‐Shocked Tumor‐Reprogrammed Sonosensitive Antigen‐Presenting Cells Improving Sonoimmunotherapy via T Cells and NK Cells Immunity

Abstract Ultrasound therapy has turned up as a noninvasive multifunctional tool for cancer immunotherapy. However, the insufficient co‐stimulating molecules and loss of peptide‐major histocompatibility complex I (MHC‐I) expression on tumor cells lead to poor therapy of sonoimmunotherapies. Herein, this work develops a sonosensitive system to augment MHC‐I unrestricted natural killer (NK) cell‐mediated innate immunity and T cell‐mediated adaptive immunity by leveraging antigen presentation cell (APC)‐like tumor cells. Genetically engineered tumor cells featuring sufficient co‐stimulating molecules are cryo‐shocked and conjugated with a sonosensitizer, hematoporphyrin monomethyl ether, using click chemistry. These cells (DPNLs) exhibit characteristics of tumor and draining lymph node homing. Under ultrasound, NK cell‐mediated innate immunity within the tumor microenvironment could be activated, and T cells in the tumor‐draining lymph nodes (TDLNs) are stimulated through co‐stimulatory molecules. In combination with programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD‐L1) antibody, DPNLs extend the survival time and inhibited lung metastasis in triple‐negative breast cancer (TNBC) models. This study provides an alternative approach for sonoimmunotherapy with precise sonosensitizer delivery and enhanced NK cell and T cell activation.

Fabricating Lattice‐Confined Pt Single Atoms With High Electron‐Deficient State for Alkali Hydrogen Evolution Under Industrial‐Current Density

Abstract The confining effect is essential to regulate the activity and stability of single‐atom catalysts (SACs), but the universal fabrication of confined SACs is still a great challenge. Here, various lattice‐confined Pt SACs supported by different carriers are constructed by a universal co‐reduction approach. Notably, Pt single atoms confined in the lattice of Ni(OH) 2 (Pt 1 /Ni(OH) 2 ) with a high electron‐deficient state exhibit excellent activity for basic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Specifically, Pt 1 /Ni(OH) 2 just requires 15 mV to get 10 mA cm −2 and the mass activity of Pt 1 /Ni(OH) 2 is 15 times of commercial Pt/C. Moreover, Pt 1 /Ni(OH) 2 assembled in an alkaline water electrolyzer shows 1030 h durability under the industrial current density of 800 mA cm −2 . In situ spectroscopy techniques reveal Pt─H and “free” OH radical can be directly observed for Pt 1 /Ni(OH) 2 , confirming the lattice‐confined Pt single atoms play a key role during HER. Further density functional theory uncovers the Pt 3d orbital strongly hybridizes with O 2p and Ni 3d orbitals in Ni(OH) 2 , which quickly optimizes the electronic state of the Pt site, thus largely reducing the energy barrier of the rate‐determining step to 0.16 eV for HER. Finally, this synthesis method is extended to construct other 9 lattice‐confined SACs.

Mechanically robust wrinkled liquid marbles

Liquid marble (LM) is a droplet covered with jammed low-wettability fine particles, which exhibits non-sticking to contacting media while keeping its fluid reconfigurability. While the LM facilitated the handling of the droplet, LM breaks down upon squeezing, which limits the robust handling. Here, we show that LM exhibits high compression stability when the jammed particles distort the liquid surface to form sub- to single-micron roughness. We find that the particle layers' distortion increases with the evaporation of the inner liquid. Thus, we regulated the evaporation degree of the droplet by varying the mixing ratio of the nonvolatile and volatile liquids. First, we show the regulation of the mixing ratio and its effect on the equilibrium LM static shape and particle layer structure. Then, the effect of the LMs' surface structure on their mechanical response is explored. When 90% of the inner liquid is evaporated, the submicrometer wrinkle structure appears on the LM surface. We name the LM with the wrinkle structure “wrinkled liquid marble (WLM).” The WLM exhibited high compression stability and significantly higher resilience force than the droplet one. We believe this work helps the practical use of the LMs by improving their mechanical stability. Moreover, the fundamental understanding of the particle layer stability at the interface can be advanced.

Validation of a whole blood coagulometer sensitive to the direct oral anticoagulants

Open Targets: 10 years of partnership in target discovery

Glassy Thermal Transport Triggers Ultra‐High Thermoelectric Performance in GeTe

Abstract The consequences of broken long‐range atomic arrangement in glasses or amorphous solids are reflected in the temperature dependence of lattice thermal conductivity (κ lat ). However, the appearance of glassy ultralow κ lat in a crystalline solid with high electrical transport like metal is unusual but can have a remarkable impact on the thermoelectric performance of a material. Here, an ultra‐high thermoelectric performance is demonstrated with a maximum figure of merit, zT ≈ 2.7 (≈2.92 with Dulong–Petit heat capacity) via achieving glassy thermal transport along with significant electrical conductivity in ball milled BiSe, Pb co‐doped polycrystalline Ge 1.03 Te followed by spark plasma sintering. The glassy thermal transport results from the inhomogeneous ferroelectric instability developed due to local polar distortions near the dopant sites, which interacts with soft polar optical modes via strain fluctuations. Resulting structural degeneracy and associated soft vibrations sink heat effectively from acoustic phonons, which along with various nanoscale defects, confine the phonon mean free path (MFP) close to the interatomic distance, rendering the thermal transport glassy. However, the material still maintains a high electrical conductivity at ambient condition due to much longer MFP of the charge carriers. A promising output power density of ≈0.8 W cm −2 for ΔT ≈441 K in double‐leg thermoelectric device demonstrate the potential of this material for mid‐temperature thermoelectric applications.

Supercooled Liquids in a Core–Shell Coordination Structure for Practical Long‐Term Energy Storage

Abstract Mutual acquisition of phase‐stability and controllable phase‐transition becomes a predominant criterion of phase‐change materials for the practical long‐term energy storage but seems contradictory always. Here a strategy combining coordination and hydrogen bonds hierarchically to create a supercooled liquid in a core–shell coordination structure is reported, addressing that demand successfully. This new material is composed of a Mn‐methylurea complex (MM) core and the hierarchically bonded erythritols shell. MM glass core with a viscosity of 10 8 Pa·s determines its thermal phase‐stability. As discovered, the ingenious ligand‐exchange between erythritol and Cl − ion coordinated with MM core accounts for this effectively reversible phase‐transition. This can be triggered by a small shear‐stress of 10 Pa within tens of seconds, exhibiting good practicability. Thermodynamics and kinetics of phase‐transition are explored.

Unconventional spin-to-charge conversion in MnPd3

We demonstrate the unconventional and conventional spin-to-charge conversion (SCC) in MnPd3 using local SCC device at room temperature. The low crystal symmetry along the (114) growth direction allows unconventional SCC in MnPd3. The figure of merit of in-plane spin polarization in unconventional SCC is determined to be 4.70%. Unconventional and conventional SCCs are promising for magnetization detection in spintronics and magnetoelectric devices.

Enhanced automated art curation using supervised modified CNN for art style classification

Perturbing Organelle‐Level K ⁺ /Ca ²⁺ Homeostasis by Nanotherapeutics for Enhancing Ion‐Mediated Cancer Immunotherapy

Abstract Intracellular ions are involved in numerous pivotal immune processes, but the precise regulation of these signaling ions to achieve innovative immune therapeutic strategies is still a huge challenge. Here, an ion‐mediated immunotherapy agent (IMIA) is engineered to achieve precise spatiotemporal control of perturbing K + /Ca 2+ homeostasis at the organelle‐level, thereby amplifying antitumor immune responses to achieve high‐performance cancer therapy. By taking in intracellular K + and supplying exogenous Ca 2+ within tumor cells, K + /Ca 2+ homeostasis is perturbed by IMIA. In parallel, perturbing K + homeostasis induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress triggers the release of Ca 2+ from ER and causes a decreased concentration of Ca 2+ in ER, which further accelerates ER‐mitochondria Ca 2+ flux and the influx of extracellular Ca 2+ (store‐operated Ca 2+ entry (SOCE)) via opening Ca 2+ release‐activated Ca 2+ (CRAC) channels, thus creating a self‐amplifying ion interference loop to perturb K + /Ca 2+ homeostasis. In this process, the elevated immunogenicity of tumor cells would evoke robust antitumor immune responses by driving the excretion of damage‐associated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Importantly, this ion‐immunotherapy strategy reshapes the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), and awakens the systemic immune response and long‐term immune memory effect, thus effectively inhibiting the growth of primary/distant tumors, orthotopic tumors as well as metastatic tumors in different mice models.

Stress Relaxation for Lead Iodide Nucleation in Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract Porous lead iodide (PbI 2 ) film is crucial for the complete reaction between PbI 2 and ammonium salts in sequential‐deposition technology so as to achieve high crystallinity perovskite film. Herein, it is found that the tensile stress in tin (IV) oxide (SnO 2 ) electron transport layer (ETL) is a key factor influencing the morphology and crystallization of PbI 2 films. Focusing on this, lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate (LiOTf) is used as an interfacial modifier in the SnO 2 /PbI 2 interface to decrease the tensile stress to reduce the necessary critical Gibbs free energy for PbI 2 nuclei formation. The relaxed tensile stress facilitates the more porous PbI 2 generation with larger particles and higher roughness, resulting in superior‐quality perovskite films. Besides, this strategy effectively passivates the inherent electron traps of SnO 2 and smooths the interfacial energy levels, boosting the charge extraction and transfer. As a result, a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.33% (25.10% stabilized for 600 s) is achieved. Furthermore, the device demonstrates exceptional stability, retaining 90% of its initial PCE at its maximum power point tracking measurement (under 100 mW cm −2 white light illumination at ≈55 °C temperature, in N 2 atmosphere) after 600 h.

Orbital torque in Mn/FM bilayer systems

We investigate the orbital torque generated in ferromagnetic (FM)/manganese (Mn) bilayer systems based on angular-dependent spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance (ST-FMR) experiments. From the ST-FMR results, it is found that a relatively large out-of-plane anti-damping torque can be obtained in Ni/Mn bilayers. The Gilbert damping constant, derived from the resonant linewidth of frequency-dependent ST-FMR experiments, decreases almost linearly with increasing thickness of Mn, further indicating the out-of-plane anti-damping torque in Ni/Mn bilayer systems. The origin of this torque can be attributed to the orbital Rashba–Edelstein effect. Furthermore, the orbital diffusion length (λL) in Mn is determined to be more than 17 nm and larger than spin diffusion length, suggesting that the torque observed in our sample is predominantly influenced by the orbital-related effect. Finally, the insertion of Pt in a Ni/Mn bilayer system significantly enhances the orbital-to-spin conversion efficiency. These results clearly demonstrate that Mn is a promising material for future orbitronics devices.

Effects of forest structure from graph theory connectivity indicators on river water quality in the Caspian Sea Basin