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BACKGROUND: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is based on the Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent contrast and has been exploited for the indirect study of the neuronal activity within both the brain and the spinal cord. However, the interpretation of spinal cord fMRI (scfMRI) is still controversial and its diffusion is rather limited because of technical limitations. Overcoming these limitations would have a beneficial effect for the assessment and follow-up of spinal injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. PURPOSE: This study was aimed at systematically verify whether sagittal scanning in scfMRI using EPI readout is a viable alternative to the more common axial scanning, and at optimizing a pipeline for EPI-based scfMRI data analysis, based on Spinal Cord Toolbox (SCT). METHODS: Forty-five healthy subjects underwent MRI acquisition in a Philips Achieva 3T MRI scanner. T2*-weighted fMRI data were acquired using a GE-EPI sequence along sagittal and axial planes during an isometric motor task. Differences on benchmarks were assessed via paired two-sample t-test at p=0.05. RESULTS: We investigated the impact of the acquisition strategy by means of various metrics such as Temporal Signal to Noise Ratio (tSNR), Dice Coefficient to assess geometric distortions, Reproducibility and Sensitivity. tSNR was higher in axial than in sagittal scans, as well as reproducibility within the whole cord mask (t=7.4, p<0.01) and within the GM mask (t=4.2, p<0.01). The other benchmarks, associated with distortion and functional response, showed no difference between images obtained along the axial and sagittal planes. CONCLUSIONS: Quantitative metrics of data quality suggest that axial scanning would be the optimal choice. We conclude that axial acquisition is advantageous specially to mitigate the effects of physiological noise and to minimize inter-subject variance., Comment: 27 pages (body text 13 pages), 6 figures, 1 supplementary figure, 52 references)

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is one of the deadliest and most aggressive cancers, remarkably resilient to current therapeutic treatments. Here, we report in vivo studies of GBM treatments based on photo-nanotherapeutics able to induce synergistic killing mechanisms. Core-shell nanoparticles have been weaponized by combining the photophysical properties of an Ir(III) complex - a new generation PDT agent - with the thermo-plasmonic effects of resonant gold nanospheres. To investigate the damages induced in GBM treated with these nanosystems and exposed to optical radiation, we recurred to the X-ray phase contrast tomography (XPCT). This high-resolution 3D imaging technique highlighted a vast devascularization process by micro-vessels disruption, which is responsible of a tumor elimination without relapse.

It is now well established that superconductivity in cuprates competes with charge modulations giving electronic phase separation at a nanoscale. More specifically, superconducting electronic current takes root in the available free space left by electronic charge ordered domains, called charge density wave (CDW) puddles. This means that CDW domain arrangement plays a fundamental role in the mechanism of high temperature superconductivity in cuprates. Here we report about the possibility of controlling the population and spatial organization of the charge density wave puddles in a single crystal La2CuO4+y through X - ray illumination and thermal treatments. We apply a pump - probe method based on X - ray illumination as pump and X - ray diffraction as a probe setting a writing and reading procedure of CDW puddles. Our findings are expected to allow new routes for advanced design and manipulation of superconducting pathways in new electronics., Comment: 11 Pages 4 figures

Defaults in vascular (VN) and neuronal networks of spinal cord are responsible for serious neurodegenerative pathologies. Because of inadequate investigation tools, the lacking knowledge of the complete fine structure of VN and neuronal systems is a crucial problem. Conventional 2D imaging yields incomplete spatial coverage leading to possible data misinterpretation, whereas standard 3D computed tomography imaging achieves insufficient resolution and contrast. We show that X-ray high-resolution phase-contrast tomography allows the simultaneous visualization of three-dimensional VN and neuronal systems of mouse spinal cord at scales spanning from millimeters to hundreds of nanometers, with neither contrast agent nor a destructive sample-preparation. We image both the 3D distribution of micro-capillary network and the micrometric nerve fibers, axon-bundles and neuron soma. Our approach is a crucial tool for pre-clinical investigation of neurodegenerative pathologies and spinal-cord-injuries. In particular, it should be an optimal tool to resolve the entangled relationship between VN and neuronal system., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures

Electronic functionalities in materials from silicon to transition metal oxides are to a large extent controlled by defects and their relative arrangement. Outstanding examples are the oxides of copper, where defect order is correlated with their high superconducting transition temperatures. The oxygen defect order can be highly inhomogeneous, even in "optimal" superconducting samples, which raises the question of the nature of the sample regions where the order does not exist but which nonetheless form the "glue" binding the ordered regions together. Here we use scanning X-ray microdiffraction (with beam 300 nm in diameter) to show that for La2CuO4+y, the "glue" regions contain incommensurate modulated local lattice distortions, whose spatial extent is most pronounced for the best superconducting samples. For an underdoped single crystal with mobile oxygen interstitials in the spacer La2O2+y layers intercalated between the CuO2 layers, the incommensurate modulated local lattice distortions form droplets anticorrelated with the ordered oxygen interstitials, and whose spatial extent is most pronounced for the best superconducting samples. In this simplest of high temperature superconductors, there are therefore not one, but two networks of ordered defects which can be tuned to achieve optimal superconductivity. For a given stoichiometry, the highest transition temperature is obtained when both the ordered oxygen and lattice defects form fractal patterns, as opposed to appearing in isolated spots. We speculate that the relationship between material complexity and superconducting transition temperature Tc is actually underpinned by a fundamental relation between Tc and the distribution of ordered defect networks supported by the materials., Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures

Silver nanocrystals have been prepared by reacting silver nitrate with ascorbic acid in aqueous solution containing a low concentration of a commercial polynaphtalene sulphonate polymer (Daxad 19). Various crystalline morphologies have been obtained simply by tuning the reaction temperature. We have investigated the nanoparticle formation mechanism at three different temperatures by in situ and time resolved Small Angle X ray Scattering measurements. By modeling the scattering intensity with interacting spherical particles in a fractal-like polymer-Ag matrix, we found signatures of nucleation, growth and assembly of primary particles of about 15-20 nm. We observed how the time evolution of both spatial correlations between primary particles and the dynamic fractal geometry of the polymer-Ag matrix could influence and determine both the aggregation mechanism and the morphology of forming nanostructures in solution.

The disposition of defects in metal oxides is a key attribute exploited for applications from fuel cells and catalysts to superconducting devices and memristors. The most typical defects are mobile excess oxygens and oxygen vacancies, and can be manipulated by a variety of thermal protocols as well as optical and dc electric fields. Here we report the X-ray writing of high-qualitysuperconducting regions, derived from defect ordering, in the superoxygenated layered cuprate, La2CuO4+y. Irradiation of a poor superconductor prepared by rapid thermal quenching results first in growth of ordered regions, with an enhancement of superconductivity becoming visible only after a waiting time, as is characteristic of other systems such as ferroelectrics, where strain must be accommodated for order to become extended. However, in La2CuO4+y, we are able to resolve all aspects of the growth of (oxygen) intercalant order, including an extraordinary excursion from low to high and back to low anisotropy of the ordered regions. We can also clearly associate the onset of high quality superconductivity with defect ordering in two dimensions. Additional experiments with small beams demonstrate a photoresist-free, single-step strategy for writing functional materials., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures

Using scanning micro X-ray diffraction we report a mixed real and reciprocal space visualization of the spatial heterogeneity of the lattice incommensurate supermodulation in single crystal of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+y with Tc=84 K. The mapping shows an amplitude distribution of the supermodulation with large lattice fluctuations at microscale with about 50% amplitude variation. The angular distribution of the supermodulation amplitude in the a-b plane shows a lattice chiral symmetry, forming a left-handed oriented striped pattern. The spatial correlation of the supermodulation is well described by a compressed exponential with an exponent of 1.5 and a correlation length of about 50 {\mu}m, showing the intrinsic lattice disorder in high temperature superconductors., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; Physical Review B Rapid Communications 2011

It is well known that the microstructures of the transition-metal oxides (refs 1-3), including the high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) copper oxide superconductors (refs 4-7), are complex. This is particularly so when there are oxygen interstitials or vacancies (ref.8), which influence the bulk properties. For example, the oxygen interstitials in the spacer layers separating the superconducting CuO2 planes undergo ordering phenomena in Sr(2)O(1+y)CuO(2) (ref. 9), YBa(2)Cu(3)O(6+y) (ref. 10) and La(2)CuO(4+y) (refs 11-15) that induce enhancements in the transition temperatures with no changes in hole concentrations. It is also known that complex systems often have a scale-invariant structural organization16, but hitherto none had been found in high-Tc materials. Here we report that the ordering of oxygen interstitials in the La(2)O(2+y) spacer layers of La(2)CuO(4+y) high-Tc superconductors is characterized by a fractal distribution up to a maximum limiting size of 400 microns. Intriguingly, these fractal distributions of dopants seem to enhance superconductivity at high temperature., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

Magnesium is the most abundant intracellular divalent cation. We present an innovative experimental approach to localizing intracellular magnesium that combines elemental and morphological information from individual cells with high-resolution spatial information. Integration of information from scanning fluorescence X-ray microscopy with information from atomic force microscopy was used to generate a magnesium concentration map and to determine the X-ray linear absorption coefficient map within a whole dehydrated mammary epithelial cell., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures

The 3D phase diagram of iron pnictides where the critical temperature depends on charge density and microstrain in the active FeAs layers is proposed. The iron pnictides superconductors are shown to be a practical realization of a heterostructure at the atomic limit made of a superlattice of FeAs layers intercalated by spacer layers. We have focussed our interest on the A 1-x BxFe2As2 (122) families and we show that FeAs layers have a tensile microstrain due to the misfit strain between the active layers and the spacers. We have identified the critical range of doping and microstrain where the critical temperature gets amplified to its maximum value., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We report the temperature dependent x-ray powder diffraction of the FeAs-based superconductors in the range between 300 K and 95 K. In the case of NdOFeAs we have detected the structural phase transition from the tetragonal phase, with P4/nmm space group, to the orthorhombic phase,with Cmma space group, over a broad temperature range from 150 K to 120 K, centered at T0 137K. This transition is reduced, by about 30K, by the internal chemical pressure going from LaOFeAs to NdOFeAs. On the contrary the superconducting critical temperature increases from 27K to 51 K going from LaOFeAs to NdOFeAs doped samples. The FeAs layers in all undoped 1111 and 122 systems suffer a tensile misfit strain. The tensile misfit strain is reduced in 1111 and in 122 samples and at optimum doping the misfit strain is close to zero. This result shows that the normal striped orthorhombic Cmma phase competes with the superconducting tetragonal phase. In the orthorhombic clusters the charges can move only along the stripes in the b direction and are localized by the magnetic interaction., Comment: 9 pages and 2 figures. accepted by Journal of Superconductivity and novel magnetism

At the time of writing, data have been reported on several hundred different cuprates materials, of which a substantial fraction show superconductivity at temperatures as high as 130 K. The existence of several competing phases with comparable energy shows up in different ways in different materials, therefore it has not been possible to converge toward a universal theory for high Tc superconductivity. With the aim to find a unified description the Aeppli-Bianconi 3D phase diagram of cuprates has been proposed where the superlattice misfit strain (eta) is the third variable beyond doping (delta) and temperature T. The 3D phase diagrams for the magnetic order, and for the superconducting order extended to all cuprates families are described. We propose a formula able to describe the Tc (delta,eta) surface, this permits to identify the stripe quantum critical point at (delta)c=1/8 and (eta)c =7percent which is associated with the incommensurate to commensurate stripe phase transition, controlled by the misfit strain., Comment: 12 pages and 2 figures

High Tc superconductivity in FeAs-based multilayers (pnictides), evading temperature decoherence effects in a quantum condensate, is assigned to a Feshbach resonance (called also shape resonance) in the exchange-like interband pairing. The resonance is switched on by tuning the chemical potential at an electronic topological transition (ETT) near a band edge, where the Fermi surface topology of one of the subbands changes from 1D to 2D topology. We show that the tuning is realized by changing i) the misfit strain between the superconducting planes and the spacers ii) the charge density and iii) the disorder. The system is at the verge of a catastrophe i.e. near a structural and magnetic phase transition associated with the stripes (analogous to the 1/8 stripe phase in cuprates) order to disorder phase transition. Fine tuning of both the chemical potential and the disorder pushes the critical temperature Ts of this phase transition to zero giving a quantum critical point. Here the quantum lattice and magnetic fluctuations promote the Feshbach resonance of the exchange-like anisotropic pairing. This superconducting phase that resists to the attacks of temperature is shown to be controlled by the interplay of the hopping energy between stripes and the quantum fluctuations. The superconducting gaps in the multiple Fermi surface spots reported by the recent ARPES experiment of D. V. Evtushinsky et al. arXiv:0809.4455 are shown to support the Feshbach scenario., Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures

We report the temperature dependent x-ray powder diffraction of the quaternary compound NdOFeAs (also called NdFeAsO) in the range between 300 K and 95 K. We have detected the structural phase transition from the tetragonal phase, with P4/nmm space group, to the orthorhombic or monoclinic phase, with Cmma or P112/a1 (or P2/c) space group, over a broad temperature range from 150 K to 120 K, centered at T0 ~137 K. Therefore the temperature of this structural phase transition is strongly reduced, by about ~30K, by increasing the internal chemical pressure going from LaOFeAs to NdOFeAs. In contrast the superconducting critical temperature increases from 27 K to 51 K going from LaOFeAs to NdOFeAs doped samples. This result shows that the normal striped orthorhombic Cmma phase competes with the superconducting tetragonal phase. Therefore by controlling the internal chemical pressure in new materials it should be possible to push toward zero the critical temperature T0 of the structural phase transition, giving the striped phase, in order to get superconductors with higher Tc., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures