分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 >> 整合生物学 提交时间: 2016-05-12
摘要: The traditional herb Plumula Nelumbinis is widely used in the world because it has many biological activities, such as anti-inflammation, antioxidant, antihypertension, and butyrylcholinesterase inhibition. However, the action of Plumula Nelumbinis on airway smooth muscle (ASM) relaxation has not been investigated. A chloroform extract of Plumula Nelumbinis (CEPN) was prepared, which completely inhibited precontraction induced by high K+ in a concentration-dependent manner in mouse tracheal rings, but it had no effect on resting tension. CEPN also blocked voltage-dependent L-type Ca2+ channel-(VDCC-) mediated currents. In addition, ACh-induced precontraction was also completely blocked by CEPN and partially inhibited by nifedipine or pyrazole 3. Besides, CEPN partially reduced ACh-activated nonselective cation channel (NSCC) currents. Taken together, our data demonstrate that CEPN blocked VDCC and NSCC to inhibit Ca2+ influx, resulting in relaxation of precontracted ASM. This finding indicates that CEPN would be a candidate of new potent bronchodilators.
分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Quantum emitters in van der Waals (vdW) materials have attracted lots of attentions in recent years, and shown great potentials to be fabricated as quantum photonic nanodevices. Especially, the single photon emitter (SPE) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) emerges with the outstanding room-temperature quantum performances, whereas the ubiquitous blinking and bleaching restrict its practical applications and investigations critically. The blister in vdW materials possessing stable structure can modify the local bandgap by strains on nanoscale, which is supposed to have the ability to fix this photostability problem. Here we report a blister-induced high-purity SPE in hBN under ambient conditions showing stable quantum-emitting performances, and no evidence of blinking and bleaching for one year. Remarkably, we observe the nontrivial successive activating and quenching dynamical process of the fluorescent defects at the SPE region under low pressures for the first time, and the robust recoverability of the SPE after turning back to the atmospheric pressure. The pressure-tuned performance indicates the SPE origins from the lattice defect isolated and activated by the strain induced from the blister, and sheds lights on the future high-performance quantum sources based on hBN.
分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 提交时间: 2016-05-12
摘要: The participation of large-conductance Ca2+ activated K+ channels (BKs) in chloroquine (chloro)-induced relaxation of precontracted airway smooth muscle (ASM) is currently undefined. In this study we found that iberiotoxin (IbTx, a selective inhibitor of BKs) and chloro both completely blocked spontaneous transient outward currents (STOCs) in single mouse tracheal smooth muscle cells, which suggests that chloro might block BKs. We further found that chloro inhibited Ca2+ sparks and caffeine-induced global Ca2+ increases. Moreover, chloro can directly block single BK currents completely from the intracellular side and partially from the extracellular side. All these data indicate that the chloro-induced inhibition of STOCs is due to the blockade of chloro on both BKs and ryanodine receptors (RyRs). We also found that low concentrations of chloro resulted in additional contractions in tracheal rings that were precontracted by acetylcholine (ACH). Increases in chloro concentration reversed the contractile actions to relaxations. In the presence of IbTx or paxilline (pax), BK blockers, chloro-induced contractions were inhibited, although the high concentrations of chloro-induced relaxations were not affected. Taken together, our results indicate that chloro blocks BKs and RyRs, resulting in abolishment of STOCs and occurrence of contraction, the latter will counteract the relaxations induced by high concentrations of chloro.
分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Contextuality, a hallmark feature of the quantum theory, captures the incompatibility between quantum correlations and any noncontextual hidden-variable model. The Greenberger--Horne--Zeilinger (GHZ)-type paradoxes are proofs of contextuality which reveal this incompatibility with deterministic logical arguments. However, the simplest GHZ-type paradox with the fewest number of complete contexts and the largest degree of nonclassicality remains elusive. Here, we derive a GHZ-type paradox utilising only three complete contexts and show this number cannot be further reduced. We forward to demonstrating the paradox with an experiment which recovered all essential ingredients in a 37-dimensional contextuality test based on high-speed modulation, optical convolution and homodyne detection of time-multiplexed modes of coherent light that can be interpreted as a classical entity. By proposing and observing a strong form of contextuality in an extremely high-dimensional system, our results pave the way for the exploration of exotic quantum correlations with optical systems.
分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Optically addressable spin defects in solid-state materials are the promising platform for quantum information applications, such as quantum network. The two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) as a carrier of abundant defects is an emerging candidate. While negatively charged boron vacancy (V$_\text{B}^-$) spin defect in hBN is studied intensively, the coherent control of single spin in 2D materials has not been realized yet, which constitutes the cornerstone for applying the 2D spin defect in quantum-information tasks. Here, we report the first coherent control of the single electronic spin in 2D materials at room temperature. Considering both the optical and spin properties, this defect belongs to a new type of spin defects distinguished to all other spin defects observed before. This defect has simultaneously the narrow zero-phonon line, high Debye-Waller factor, high brightness, high polarization of PL photons, low $ g^{(2)}(0) $, moderate spin $ T_{1} $ and $ T_{2} $ comparable to V$ _\text{B}^{-} $. These excellent optical properties and relatively good spin properties of this single spin lay the foundation for the applications of the 2D-material-hosted spin defects in quantum information tasks.
分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Optically addressable spins in two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) attract widespread attention for their potential advantage in on-chip quantum devices, such as quantum sensors and quantum network. A variety of spin defects have been found in hBN, but no convenient and deterministic generation methods have been reported for other defects except negatively charged boron vacancy ($\rm V_B^-$). Here we report that by using femtosecond laser direct writing technology, we can deterministically create spin defect ensembles with spectra range from 550 nm to 800 nm. Positive single-peak optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) signals are detected in the presence of longitudinal magnetic field, and the contrast can reach 0.8%. With the appropriate thickness of hBN flakes and femtosecond laser pulse energy, we can deterministically generate bright spin defects in-situ. Our results provide a convenient deterministic method to create spin defects in hBN, which will motivate more endeavors for future researches and applications of spin-based technologies.