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Measuring the quantum state of photoelectrons

A photoelectron, emitted due to the absorption of light quanta as described by the photoelectric effect, is often characterized experimentally by a classical quantity, its momentum. However, since the photoelectron is a quantum object, its rigorous characterization requires the reconstruction of the complete quantum state, the photoelectron’s density matrix. Here we use quantum-state tomography to fully characterize photoelectrons emitted from helium and argon atoms upon absorption of ultrashort, extreme ultraviolet light pulses. While in helium we measure a pure photoelectronic state, in argon, spin–orbit interaction induces entanglement between the ion and the photoelectron, leading to a reduced purity of the photoelectron state. Our work shows how state tomography gives new insights into the fundamental quantum aspects of light-induced electronic processes in matter, bridging the fields of photoelectron spectroscopy and quantum information and offering new spectroscopic possibilities for quantum technology.

Decarbonizing urban residential communities with green hydrogen systems

Community green hydrogen systems, typically consisting of rooftop photovoltaic panels paired with hybrid hydrogen-battery storage, offer urban environments with improved access to clean, on-site energy. However, economically viable pathways for deploying hydrogen storage within urban communities remain unclear. Here we develop a bottom-up energy model linking climate, human behavior and community characteristics to assess the impacts of pathways for deploying community green hydrogen systems in North America from 2030 to 2050. We show that for the same community conditions, the cost difference between the best and worst pathways can be as high as 60%. In particular, the household centralized option emerges as the preferred pathway for most communities. Furthermore, enhancing energy storage demands within these deployment pathways can reduce system design costs up to fourfold. To achieve cost-effective urban decarbonization, the study underscores the critical role of selecting the right deployment pathway and prioritizing the integration of increased energy storage in pathway designs.

Improving lithium-sulfur battery performance using a polysaccharide binder derived from red algae

Li-S batteries are a promising energy storage technology due to their high theoretical capacity, but they suffer from issues such as poor cycle stability and capacity loss over time. Here, we investigate the impact of carrageenan, a polysaccharide binder derived from red algae, on the performance of Li-S batteries. Electrode slurries are prepared without the toxic solvent N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, using only water as a solvent and dispersant, making the process potentially scalable and cost-effective. With the optimal amount of carrageenan, we observe a capacity retention of 69.1% at 4 C after 1000 charge-discharge cycles. Carrageenan-based electrodes deliver 30% higher capacity than those made with the industry-standard polyvinylidene fluoride binder. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis confirms the chemical binding of carrageenan to the sulfur active material, and transmission X-ray absorption spectroscopy reveals that carrageenan effectively traps shorter-chain lithium polysulfides, improving the overall battery performance.

A unified deep framework for peptide–major histocompatibility complex–T cell receptor binding prediction

Antigen peptides that are presented by a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and recognized by a T cell receptor (TCR) have an essential role in immunotherapy. Although substantial progress has been made in predicting MHC presentation, accurately predicting the binding interactions between antigen peptides, MHCs and TCRs remains a major computational challenge. In this paper, we propose a unified deep framework (called UniPMT) for peptide, MHC and TCR binding prediction to predict the binding between the peptide and the CDR3 of TCR β in general, presented by class I MHCs. UniPMT is comprehensively validated by a series of experiments and achieved state-of-the-art performance in the peptide–MHC–TCR, peptide–MHC and peptide–TCR binding prediction tasks with up to 15% improvements in area under the precision–recall curve taking the peptide–MHC–TCR binding prediction task as an example. In practical applications, UniPMT shows strong predictive power, correlates well with T cell clonal expansion and outperforms existing methods in neoantigen-specific binding prediction with up to 17.62% improvements in area under the precision–recall curve on experimentally validated datasets. Moreover, UniPMT provides interpretable insights into the identification of key binding sites and the quantification of peptide–MHC–TCR binding probabilities. In summary, UniPMT shows great potential to serve as a useful tool for antigen peptide discovery, disease immunotherapy and neoantigen vaccine design.

Management practices and manufacturing firm responses to a randomized energy audit

Increasing the efficiency of industrial energy use is widely considered important for mitigating climate change. We randomize assignment of an energy audit intervention aimed at improving energy efficiency and reducing energy expenditures of small- and medium-sized metal processing firms in Shandong Province, China, and examine impacts on energy outcomes and interactions with firms’ management practices. We find that the intervention reduced firms’ unit cost of electricity by 8% on average. Firms with more developed structured management practices showed higher rates of recommendation adoption. However, the post-intervention electricity unit cost reduction is larger in firms with less developed practices, primarily driven by a single recommendation that corrected managers’ inaccurate reporting of transformer usage at baseline, lowering their electricity costs. By closing management-associated gaps in awareness of energy expenditures, energy audit programmes may reduce a firm’s unit cost of energy but have an ambiguous impact on energy use and climate change.

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