Interplay of fibrinogen α_EC globular domains and factor XIIIa cross-linking dictates the extensibility and strain stiffening of fibrin networks

Background: Fibrinogen is a plasma protein forming the fibrin scaffold of blood clots. Its mechanical properties therefore affect the risk of bleeding as well as thrombosis. There has been much recent interest in the biophysical mechanisms controlling fibrin mechanics; however, the role of molecular heterogeneity of the circulating fibrinogen...

Self healing in Fe-based systems: From model alloys to designed steels

When high-temperature steels are loaded under under industrially relevant conditions not only creep (i.e. a time dependent strain increase even under nominally constant loading conditions) occurs, but also local damage is formed. At relatively short exposure times quasi-spherical micron-sized cavities form preferentially at the grain boundaries...

Multiscale characterization of pathological bone tissue

Bone is a complex natural material with a complex hierarchical multiscale organization, crucial to perform its functions. Ultrastructural analysis of bone is crucial for our understanding of cell to cell communication, the healthy or pathological composition of bone tissue, and its three-dimensional (3D) organization. A variety of techniques...

Robust Sample Preparation of Large-Area In- and Out-of-Plane Cross Sections of Layered Materials with Ultramicrotomy

Layered materials (LMs) such as graphene or MoS2 have attracted a great deal of interest recently. These materials offer unique functionalities due to their structural anisotropy characterized by weak van der Waals bonds along the out-of-plane axis and covalent bonds in the in-plane direction. A central requirement to access the structural...

Operando Transmission Electron Microscopy Study of All-Solid-State Battery Interface: Redistribution of Lithium among Interconnected Particles

With operando transmission electron microscopy visualizing the solid-solid electrode-electrolyte interface of silicon active particles and lithium oxide solid electrolyte as a model system, we show that (de)lithiation (battery cycling) does not require all particles to be in direct contact with electrolytes across length scales of a few...

Nanoscale imaging of light-matter coupling inside metal-coated cavities with a pulsed electron beam

Many applications in (quantum) nanophotonics rely on controlling light-matter interaction through strong, nanoscale modification of the local density of states (LDOS). All-optical techniques probing emission dynamics in active media are commonly used to measure the LDOS and benchmark experimental performance against theoretical predictions....

The 2018 correlative microscopy techniques roadmap

Developments in microscopy have been instrumental to progress in the life sciences, and many new techniques have been introduced and led to new discoveries throughout the last century. A wide and diverse range of methodologies is now available, including electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, small-angle x...

Conformance Control in Heterogeneous Oil Reservoirs with Polymer Gels and Nano-Spheres

In many oil fields, water is injected into a reservoir to displace oil to the production wells. During the injection process, oil is pushed by water towards production wells which have a lower pressure than the rest of the reservoir. If the reservoir is homogeneous, then a good sweep efficiency of the water flood process is expected. However,...

Simultaneous Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy of Samples in Liquid

A combined use of fluorescence and light microscopy is a powerful approach to further increase our understanding in biological systems of structure-function relations at cellular and sub-cellular levels. The power of fluorescence microscopy (FM) is to spectrally resolve and visualize individual proteins with endogenous or immuno- fluorescent...

Evidence of the Griffiths phase in multiferroic BiMnO3 and BiFe0.5Mn0.5O3 films

Microstructure and magnetic properties of BiMnO3 and BiFe0.5Mn0.5O3 films, prepared by rf magnetron sputtering on LaAlO3 (001) single-crystalline substrate, are investigated. The selected-area electron diffraction analysis allows us to identify the crystal structure of the BiMnO3 film as orthorhombic, while the BiFe0.5Mn0.5O3 film has a...

Subcellular trafficking of mycobacteria: Implications for virulence and immunogenicity

The aim of this thesis is to determine the properties of the compartment where mycobacteria end up after phagocytosis and which mycobacterial genes play a role in this process. In most cases, bacterial pathogens are taken up by the cell, processed in the endocytic pathway and eventually bacterial derived peptides are presented on MHC class II...

DNA and ion transport through solid-state nanopores

This thesis describes experimental work on a novel type of devices capable of detecting single-(bio)molecules; nanometer-sized pores, or nanopores. Individual nanopores are placed in between two electrolyte-filled liquid compartments and (bio)molecules are electrophoretically driven through them. During passage of a single (bio)molecule the...

Formation and stability of rocksalt ZnO nanocrystals in MgO

Coimplantation of Zn and O ions into a single crystalline MgO and subsequent thermal annealing were applied in the synthesis of ZnO nanocrystals. Electron microscopy showed that rocksalt instead of wurtzite ZnO stabilizes for relatively large nanocrystals up to ~15?nm, resulting from its small lattice mismatch with MgO of ~1.7%. The vacancies...

Enhancing the charge ordering temperature in thin films of Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3 by strain

We report the effects of biaxial strain on the charge ordering temperature Tco of the mixed-valent manganite perovskite oxide Pr0.5Ca0.5MnO3. Thin films were grown on SrTiO3, which has a 1.3% larger in-plane lattice parameter. Other substrates were used for comparison. Transport measurements combined with data from electron microscopy show that...

Electrical properties, texture, and microstructure of vicinal YBa2Cu3O7?? thin films

Vicinal YBa2Cu3O7?? (YBCO) thin films of thickness h = 20–480?nm are grown by pulsed-laser deposition on 10° miscut (001) SrTiO3 substrates. The anisotropic resistivities, c-axis texture, and critical temperature drastically depend on the thickness of vicinal films. High-resolution electron microscopy reveals a defect microstructure with strong...