Quantum-confined single photon emission at room temperature from SiC tetrapods

Controlled engineering of isolated solid state quantum systems is one of the most prominent goals in modern nanotechnology. In this letter we demonstrate a previously unknown quantum system namely silicon carbide tetrapods. The tetrapods have a cubic polytype core (3C) and hexagonal polytype legs (4H)-a geometry that creates spontaneous polarization within a single tetrapod. Modeling of the tetrapod structures predicts that a bound exciton should exist at the 3C-4H interface. The simulations are confirmed by the observation of fully polarized and narrowband single photon emission from the tetrapods at room temperature. The single photon emission provides important insights into understanding the quantum confinement effects in non-spherical nanostructures. Our results pave the way to a new class of crystal phase nanomaterials that exhibit single photon emission at room temperature and therefore are suitable for sensing, quantum information and nanophotonics. © 2014 the Partner Organisations

Investigation of the role of SDHB inactivation in sporadic phaeochromocytoma and neuroblastoma

Germline mutations in the succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) (mitochondrial respiratory chain complex II) subunit B gene, SDHB, cause susceptibility to head and neck paraganglioma and phaeochromocytoma. Previously, we did not identify somatic SDHB mutations in sporadic phaeochromocytoma, but SDHB maps to 1p36, a region of frequent loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in neuroblastoma as well. Hence, to evaluate SDHB as a candidate neuroblastoma tumour suppressor gene (TSG) we performed mutation analysis in 46 primary neuroblastomas by direct sequencing, but did not identify germline or somatic SDHB mutations. As TSGs such as RASSF1A are frequently inactivated by promoter region hypermethylation, we designed a methylation-sensitive PCR-based assay to detect SDHB promoter region methylation. In 21% of primary neuroblastomas and 32% of phaeochromocytomas (32%) methylated (and unmethylated) alleles were detected. Although promoter region methylation was also detected in two neuroblastoma cell lines, this was not associated with silencing of SDHB expression, and treatment with a demethylating agent (5-azacytidine) did not increase SDH activity. These findings suggest that although germline SDHB mutations are an important cause of phaeochromocytoma susceptibility, somatic inactivation of SDHB does not have a major role in sporadic neural crest tumours and SDHB is not the target of 1p36 allele loss in neuroblastoma and phaeochromocytoma

Correlations vs connectivity in R-charge

The holographic relation between quantum correlations and connectivity of spacetime is explored for single R-charged AdS$_5$ black holes and their half-BPS limits (superstars). In a two boundary set-up, the wormhole between both universes reduces to a designable and computable quantum mechanical correlation between the dual microscopic degrees of freedom in the BPS limit. This quantum connectivity is seen as a naked singularity by a single sided observer. In a single boundary set-up, as a small step towards the description of entangled black holes, we describe quantum teleportation between two labs in different locations of the transverse 5-sphere using entangled gravitons in a reference state that provides a classical channel between both labs.Comment: 53 pages + appendices, 29 figures v2: few corrections and added a conclusion sectio