The conformational mobility of bridged biphenyls

The energy barriers to conformational inversion of a number of bridged biphenyls have been measured by the NMR method and the effects of different bridging groups examined.     

High-Resolution Study of the Atilde;A′→X?A″ Transition of DO2: Analysis of the 000-000 Band

The near-infrared emission spectrum of the Atilde;²A′→X?²A″ transition of DO₂ has been studied by Fourier-transform spectrometry. The 000→000 band has been recorded at high spectral resolution. ΔK_a=±1 subbands up to K_a′=12→K_a″=11 and K_a′=9→K_a″=10, comprising lines from rotational levels up to N′=34, have been observed. With about a factor of 5-10 lower intensity, ΔK_a=0 subbands 0-0 to 6-6 were found, which are due to magnetic dipole transitions. Several local perturbations extending over 3-10 N″ values were observed. Two prominent perturbations in the F₁ levels of the òA′, 000, K_a″=11 and 12 states are attributed to ΔK_a=0, ΔJ=0, ΔN=±1 interactions with the 211 level of the X?²A″ ground state. The rotational constants for HO₂ and DO₂ have been used to deduce the molecular geometry of HO₂ at the zero point levels of the X?²A″ and òA′ states.     

Flow Friedel–Crafts alkylation of 1-adamantanol with arenes using HO-SAS as an immobilized acid catalyst

In this communication flow Friedel–Crafts alkylation was studied using hydroxy-substituted sulfonic acid-functionalized silica as a catalyst and 1-adamantanol as a model substrate. The reaction of 1-adamantanol ( 1a ) with toluene ( 2a ) proceeded well with 5 min of residence time at 120°C to give good yield of 1-tolyladamantane ( 3a ) as a 1:9 mixture of meta and para isomers. When the flow synthesis was carried out over 2.5 hr of running time, the collected five fractions contain the product 3a in 97–92% yields, suggesting the durability of the catalyst.     

Is the Kβ/Kα x-ray intensity ratio dependent upon the energy of an inducing proton?

K_β/K_αX-ray intensity ratios have been measured for various elements between Z = 29 and Z = 79 for incident proton energies of 23.6, 32.1 and 43.6 MeV. The results yield no evidence for a variation in ratio with particle energy.     

Combustion synthesis and characterization of nanocrystalline WO3

The energy payback time associated with the semiconductor active material is an important parameter in a photovoltaic solar cell device. Thus lowering the energy requirements for the semiconductor synthesis step or making it more energy-efficient is critical toward making the overall device economics more competitive relative to other nonpolluting energy options. In this communication, combustion synthesis is demonstrated to be a versatile and energy-efficient method for preparing inorganic oxide semiconductors such as tungsten trioxide (WO3) for photovoltaic or photocatalytic solar energy conversion. The energy efficiency of combustion synthesis accrues from the fact that high process temperatures are self-sustained by the exothermicity of the combustion process, and the only external thermal energy input needed is for dehydration of the fuel/oxidizer precursor mixture and bringing it to ignition. Importantly, we show that, in this approach, it is also possible to tune the optical characteristics of the oxide semiconductor (i.e., shift its response toward the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum) in situ by doping the host semiconductor during the formative stage itself. As a bonus, the resultant material shows enhanced surface properties such as markedly improved organic dye uptake relative to benchmark samples obtained from commercial sources. Finally, this synthesis approach requires only very simple equipment, a feature that it shares with other "mild" inorganic semiconductor synthesis routes such as sol-gel chemistry, chemical bath deposition, and electrodeposition. The present study constitutes the first use of combustion synthesis for preparing WO3 powder comprising nanosized particles.     

Isotope correction of mass spectrometry profiles

Isotope correction of a profile is an important step in the analysis of mass spectrometry derived data. The problem is mathematically formulated as a system of linear equations which is general enough to include previous correction methods. For the solution of these equations when applied to the whole profile an efficient algorithm is developed. In experimental tests the resulting algorithm corrected the profile fast and successfully.     

Reaction of fluorogenic reagents with proteins III. Spectroscopic and electrophoretic behavior of proteins labeled with Chromeo P503

The spectroscopic and electrophoretic properties of proteins labeled with Chromeo P503 were investigated. Its photobleaching characteristics were determined by continually infusing Chromeo P503-labeled alpha-lactalbumin into a sheath-flow cuvette and monitored fluorescence as a function of laser power. The labeled protein is relatively photo-labile with an optimum excitation power of about 2 mW. The unreacted reagent is weakly fluorescent but present at much higher concentration than the labeled protein. The unreacted reagent undergoes photobleaching at a laser power more than an order of magnitude higher than the labeled protein. One-dimensional capillary electrophoresis analysis of Chromeo P503-labeled alpha-lactalbumin produced concentration detection limits (3sigma) of 12 pM and mass detection limits of 0.7 zmol, but with modest theoretical plate counts of 17,000. The reagent was employed for the two-dimensional capillary electrophoresis analysis of a homogenate prepared from a Barrett's esophagus cell line; the separation quality is similar to that produced by 3-(2-furoyl)quinoline-2-carboxaldehyde (FQ), a more commonly used reagent.     

Creation of polarized ultracold neutrons and observation of Ramsey resonance for electric dipole moment measurement

Polarized UCNs have been created by selecting only one spin state passing through a magnetized Fe foil. Typical degree of polarization was about 90 %. The polarization relaxation time in the prototype Ramsey cell was $T_1 =1100^{+800}_{-400}(Nd,Pr)-(Tb,Dy,Gd)-(Fe,Co,Al,Cu)-B magnets were heat treated in two different ways and investigated in the temperature range 4.2 to 400 K. After optimal heat treatment intrinsic coercive field _i H _c?= 1640 and 5040 kA/m for room temperature and 10 K was obtained and the temperature coefficient of remanence α?=??0.01 for temperature range 80 to 375 K was found. On basis of magnetic measurements and ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy, the possible reasons for the increase of _i H _c during multi-step heat treatment are discussed.     

Phonon-induced Rabi-frequency renormalization of optically driven single InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots

We study optically driven Rabi rotations of a quantum dot exciton transition between 5 and 50 K, and for pulse areas of up to 14π. In a high driving field regime, the decay of the Rabi rotations is nonmonotonic, and the period decreases with pulse area and increases with temperature. By comparing the experiments to a weak-coupling model of the exciton-phonon interaction, we demonstrate that the observed renormalization of the Rabi frequency is induced by fluctuations in the bath of longitudinal acoustic phonons, an effect that is a phonon analogy of the Lamb shift.