Bound excitons in p-doped GaAs quantum wells

Photoluminescence attributed to excitons bound to neutral impurities has been observed from GaAs quantum wells in Al_xGa_1?xAs-GaAs heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The quantum wells were either doped with [Be] ≈ 10¹⁷ cm^-3 or Zn-diffused. At low temperatures both single and multiple quantum wells exhibited this extrinsic luminescence which is ascribed to the radiative recombination of the n=1 ground state heavy hole exciton E_1h bound to a neutral acceptor A^o. The dissociation energy E_D of the A^o-E_1h complex is obtained directly from the measured separation of this extrinsic peak from the intrinsic E_1h free exciton peak. For 46Å wide GaAs wells, E_D=6.5meV and E_D decreases with increasing well width.     

Complex dynamics in a simple model of pulsations for super-asymptotic giant branch stars

When intermediate mass stars reach their last stages of evolution they show pronounced oscillations. This phenomenon happens when these stars reach the so-called asymptotic giant branch (AGB), which is a region of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram located at about the same region of effective temperatures but at larger luminosities than those of regular giant stars. The period of these oscillations depends on the mass of the star. There is growing evidence that these oscillations are highly correlated with mass loss and that, as the mass loss increases, the pulsations become more chaotic. In this paper we study a simple oscillator which accounts for the observed properties of this kind of stars. This oscillator was first proposed and studied in Icke et al. [Astron. Astrophys. 258, 341 (1992)] and we extend their study to the region of more massive and luminous stars -the region of super-AGB stars. The oscillator consists of a periodic nonlinear perturbation of a linear Hamiltonian system. The formalism of dynamical systems theory has been used to explore the associated Poincare map for the range of parameters typical of those stars. We have studied and characterized the dynamical behavior of the oscillator as the parameters of the model are varied, leading us to explore a sequence of local and global bifurcations. Among these, a tripling bifurcation is remarkable, which allows us to show that the Poincare map is a nontwist area preserving map. Meandering curves, hierarchical-islands traps and sticky orbits also show up. We discuss the implications of the stickiness phenomenon in the evolution and stability of the super-AGB stars. (c) 2002 American Institute of Physics.     

Synthesis and preliminary in vivo evaluations of polyurethane microstructures for transdermal drug delivery

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Polymers have been considered as important materials in fabrication of microstructures for various medical purposes including drug delivery. This study evaluates polyurethane as material for hollow microstructures preparation. RESULTS: Polyurethane microstructures were obtained by interfacial polyaddition combined with spontaneous emulsification and present slightly acid pH values. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the existence of irregular shapes and agglomerated microstructures. The material is heat resistant up to 280 [DEGREE SIGN]C. Good results were recorded on murine skin tests in case of polyurethane microstructures based on isophorone diisocyanate. Mesenchymal stem cells viability presents good results for the same sample after 48 hours based on the Alamar Blue test. CONCLUSIONS: The research revealed the reduced noxiousness of this type of microstructures and consequently the possibility of their use for therapeutic purposes.     

Silica veils-conductive diamond powder composite as a new propitious substrate for platinum electrocatalysts

An innovative composite was obtained by a straightforward sol-gel procedure, involving boron-doped diamond powder (BDDP) incorporation into a SiO₂ veil (SiO₂V) matrix. Composite-coated glassy carbon plates were used as substrate for Pt electrochemical deposition, and the electrodes thus obtained (Pt/BDDP–SiO₂V) were compared on a relative basis with those prepared in the absence of the silica matrix (Pt/BDDP). SEM measurements have shown that a BDDP substrate promotes Pt cluster formation, whereas on BDDP–SiO₂V, particles are much smaller (ca. 45 nm to ca. 140 nm). The activity for CH₃OH oxidation was checked by cyclic voltammetry, and it was found that at Pt/BDDP–SiO₂V, the main anodic peak is shifted with ca. 0.35 V toward lower potentials, indicating a considerable improvement in the overall process kinetics. Stripping experiments together with long-term polarization measurements demonstrated that when deposited on the BDDP–SiO₂V support, Pt particles are less susceptible to CO poisoning and this behavior was tentatively ascribed to the presence of a higher relative surface concentration of more stable, oxidized platinum species, as evidenced by XPS.     

Generalized constant ratio surfaces in \mathbb{E}^3

It iswell-known that the positionvector function is themost basic geometric object for a surface immersed in the three dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{E}^3 $ . In 2001, B.-Y. Chen defined constant ratio hypersurfaces in Euclidean n-spaces. Independently, in 2010, by using another approach in dimension 3, the second author classified constant slope surfaces. In this paper, we extend this concept in order to study surfaces with the property that the tangential component of the position vector is a principal direction on the surface.     

Modeling of imperfect contact interfaces in sonic composites

In this paper, the tangential and normal discontinuities at the interface between the scatterer and the matrix are independently modeled, and these relative displacements are directly proportional to the corresponding components of tractions at the interface. The generation of full band-gaps is investigated on the basis of the derived imperfect interface conditions for a sonic plate with an array of acoustic piezoceramic hollow spheres scatterers embedded in an epoxy matrix. The scatterers are made from functionally graded materials with radial polarization. Numerical evaluation has shown that imperfect interface may have a significant effect on the increasing of the length of the full band-gaps. (© 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Nanoparticles synthesis by electron beam radiolysis

Electron beam (EB) irradiation is a useful method to generate stable silver nanoparticles without the interference of inherent impurities generated from chemical reactions. Our experiments were carried out using linear electron beam accelerators with two different EB absorbed dose rates: 2 kGy min^?1 and 7–8 kGy s^?1, and with different absorbed dose levels. The optimum conditions for silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) generation by radiolysis, or by radiolysis combined with chemical reduction, were established. In order to obtain a good yield for AgNPs synthesized by radiolysis, a high dose rate is required, resulting in a rapid production process. At low absorbed dose rates, the utilization of a stabilization agent is advisable. By modifying the experimental conditions, the ratio between the chemical and radiolytic reduction process can be adjusted, thus it is possible to obtain nanoparticles with tailored characteristics, depending on the desired application.

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Errors in evaluation of the kinetic parameters in temperature programmed reduction

The objective of this work was to develop and validate a fast and reproducible method which is able to determine the concentration of ketoconazole in raw materials and tablets. The samples were analyzed by dynamic thermogravimetry at heating rates of 10, 20, 40, 60 and 80°C min⁻¹ in nitrogen and nitrogen-synthetic air mixture. The concentrations of ketoconazole in the raw material and in the tablets were obtained from the vapor pressure curves. The data showed that there is no significant difference between the vapor pressure profiles of ketoconazole itself and in its tablet in both studied environmental conditions confirming that the process is really vaporization. The concentration of ketoconazole was determined in the raw material and tablets of the drug.     

Correcting statistical models via empirical distribution functions

We consider the two-sample homogeneity problem where the information contained in two samples is used to test the equality of the underlying distributions. In cases where one sample is simulated by a procedure modelling the data generating process of another observed sample, a mere rejection of the null hypothesis is unsatisfactory. Instead, the data analyst would like to know how the simulation can be improved. Based on the popular Kolmogorov–Smirnov test and a general mixture model, we propose an algorithm that determines an appropriate correction distribution function. Complementing the simulation sample by a given proportion of observations sampled from this distribution reduces the Kolmogorov–Smirnov distance between the modified and the observed sample. Therefore, the correction distribution indicates possible improvements to the current simulation process. We prove our algorithm to run in linear time when applied to sorted samples. We further illustrate its intuitive results on simulated as well as on real data sets from astrophysics and bioinformatics.