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Abstract Intercalation has become a powerful approach to tune the intrinsic properties and introduce novel phenomena in layered materials. Intercalating van der Waals (vdW) magnetic materials is a promising route to engineer the low-dimensional magnetism. Recently, metal thiophosphates,MPX₃, has been widely studied because their magnetic orders are highly tunable and persist down to the two-dimensional limit. In this work, we used electrochemical technique to intercalate Li into NiPS₃single crystals and found the emergence of ferrimagnetism at low temperature in Li-intercalated NiPS₃. Such tuning of magnetic properties highlights the effectiveness of intercalation, providing a novel strategy to manipulate the magnetism in vdW magnets. 

Phase distribution of Hermite–Gauss (HG) beams generated by a gas laser is investigated experimentally by studying their interference with a plane wave and diffraction by a single slit by selecting pairs of bright lobes with different phases. Experimentally recorded interference and diffraction profiles support HG mode phase profiles expounded on in this paper. We find that the phase difference between one bright lobe and another is not simply zero orπbut increases (or decreases) uniformly in steps ofπas the number of zeros between them increases, in agreement with analytic function theory. An immediate application of this phase profile is that an HG mode can serve as a phase ruler with bright lobes as markers in steps ofπ. 

ABSTRACT Physical agents, such as low electric voltage and current, have recently gained attention for antimicrobial treatment due to their bactericidal capability. Although microampere electric current was shown to suppress the growth of bacteria, it remains unclear to what extent the microampere current damaged the bacterial membrane. Here, we investigated the membrane damage and two-way leakage caused by microampere electric current (≤100 μA) with a short exposure time (30 min). Based on MitoTracker staining, propidium iodide staining, filtration assays, and quantitative single-molecule localization microscopy, we observed significant membrane damage, which allowed two-way leakage of ions, small molecules, and proteins. This study paves the way to new development of antimicrobial applications for ultralow electric voltage and current. IMPORTANCE Although electric voltage and current have been studied for a long time in terms of their ability to suppress the growth of bacteria and to kill bacteria, increasing interest has been aroused more recently due to the prevalence of antibiotic resistance of microbes in past decades. Toward understanding the antimicrobial mechanism of low electric voltage and current, previous studies showed that treating bacteria with milliampere electric currents (≥5 mA) for ≥72 h led to significant damage of the bacterial membrane, which likely resulted in leakage of cellular contents and influx of toxic substances through the damaged membrane. However, it remains unclear to what extent membrane damage and two-way (i.e., inward and outward) leakage are caused by lower (i.e., microampere) electric current in a shorter time frame. In this work, we set out to answer this question. We observed that the membrane damage was caused by microampere electric current in half an hour, which allowed two-way leakage of ions, small molecules, and proteins.