Penetrating view of nano-structures in Aleochara verna spermatheca and flagellum by hard X-ray microscopy

A penetrating view of the three-dimensional nanostructure of female spermatheca and male flagellum in the species Aleochara verna is obtained with 100-nm resolution using a hard X-ray microscope, which provides a fast noninvasive imaging technology for insect morphology. Through introducing Zernike phase contrast and heavy metal staining, images taken at 8 keV displayed sufficient contrast for observing nanoscale fine structures, such as the spermatheca cochleate duct and the subapex of the flagellum, which have some implications for the study of the sperm transfer process and genital evolution in insects. This work shows that both the spatial resolution and the contrast characteristic of hard X-ray microscopy are quite promising for insect morphology studies and, particularly, provide an attractive alternative to the destructive techniques used for investigating internal soft tissues.

Investigation of Vacuum Ultraviolet Photoionization of Methylcyclohexane in Energy Region of 9-15.5 eV

Vacuum ultraviolet(VUV)photoionization and photodissociation of methylcyclohexane have been studied utilizing a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer(RTOF-MS)with synchrotron radiation source.Photoionization efficiency curves(PIEs)of molecule ion C7H14^+ and fragment ions C7H13^+,C6H11^+,C6H10+,C5H10^+,C5H9^+,C4H8^+,C4H7^+,and C3H5^+ were observed.The ionization energy of methylcyclohexane was measured to be(9.80±0.03)eV,and appearance energies of fragment ions were determined from the PIEs.Optimized structures of transitional states,intermediates and product ions were characterized at the B3LYP/6-31G(d)level and the energies were calculated using G3B3 method.Formation channels of dominating fragment ions were proposed.Intramolecular hydrogen migrations and carbon ring-opening were the foremost processes in fragmentation pathways of methylcyclohexane.

Mechanical design of a cryogenic Delta-Knot undulator for high energy photon source

Introduction A novel type of pure permanent cryogenic Delta–Knot Undulator was developed at IHEP to supply a high flux of full adjustable polarization synchrotron radiation with low on-axis power density.This prototype was an active attempt and early exploration for future APPLE–Knot undulator,which will be used at high energy photon source(HEPS).Materials and methods There are several challenges to develop a cryogenic delta undulator,such as the complicated structure,the influence of large magnetic force,and the magnetic measurement difficulty due to the very small gap.In this paper,the mechanical design for overcoming these difficulties will be presented in detail.Conclusion A special hall measuring system is developed,and the preliminary results agree with the theoretical results.This undulator prototype will provide valuable experience for angle magnetization technology,intricate magnetic attraction structure design,and magnetic field measurement under closed small space.

DEIReconstructor:a software for diffraction enhanced imaging processing and tomography reconstruction

Diffraction enhanced imaging （DEI） has been widely applied in many fields, especially when imaging low-Z samples or when the difference in the attenuation coefficient between different regions in the sample is too small to be detected. Recent developments of this technique have presented a need for a new software package for data analysis. Here, the Diffraction Enhanced Image Reconstructor （DEIReconstructor）, developed in Matlab, is presented. DEIReconstructor has a user-friendly graphical user interface and runs under any of the 32~bit or 64- bit Microsoft Windows operating systems including XP and WinT. Many of its features are integrated to support imaging preprocessing, extract absorption, refractive and scattering information of diffraction enhanced imaging and allow for parallel-beam tomography reconstruction for DEI-CT. Furthermore, many other useful functions are also implemented in order to simplify the data analysis and the presentation of results. The compiled software package is freely available.