Dynamic topology of fullerene coalescence

Atomic rearrangements leading to the coalescence of fullerene cages are revealed by topological analysis. Paths found for nanotubes and C(60) consist exclusively of Stone-Wales bond rotations. Computed intermediate states show gradual evolution from separate clusters to completely fused coherent units. Molecular dynamics simulations follow the predicted routes, overcome the nucleation barrier, and reach a final annealed state. While the overall behavior resembles macroscopic sintering, the nanoscale neck undergoes quantized changes in diameter and crystalline order.     

Minimal coupling of electromagnetic field in Riemann-Cartan spacetime for perfect fluids

We minimally couple the electromagnetic field to gravity in Riemann-Cartan spacetime in the self-consistent formalism for perfect fluids by treating the internal energy of matter as a function of the electromagnetic field. The overall Lagrangian of the gravitational field, perfect fluid, and the electromagnetic field is constrained to be gauge invariant under gauge transformations of the vector potential. The theory preserves both charge conservation and particle number conservation, and gives the usual form of the free field equations.     

Interband recombination dynamics in resonantly excited single-walled carbon nanotubes

Wavelength-dependent pump-probe spectroscopy of micelle-suspended single-walled carbon nanotubes reveals two-component dynamics. The slow component (5-20 ps), which has not been observed previously, is resonantly enhanced whenever the pump photon energy coincides with an absorption peak and we attribute it to interband carrier recombination, whereas we interpret the always-present fast component (0.3-1.2 ps) as intraband carrier relaxation in nonresonantly excited nanotubes. The slow component decreases drastically with decreasing pH (or increasing H+ doping), especially in large-diameter tubes. This can be explained as a consequence of the disappearance of absorption peaks at high doping due to the entrance of the Fermi energy into the valence band, i.e., a 1D manifestation of the Burstein-Moss effect.     

Synthesis and structural evolution of rusb3, a new metastable skutterudite compound

A thin-layer synthesis technique was used to synthesize bulk amounts of the metastable phase, RuSb(3), a novel compound with the skutterudite structure. The compound crystallized at 350 degrees C and was stable to 525 degrees C. When annealed above 550 degrees C, it decomposed into RuSb(2) and Sb. Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction data showed the presence of excess Sb residing in the interstitial site in the skutterudite structure. X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis experiments allowed us to examine the evolution of the sample as a function of annealing and determine the reaction pathway. The activation energy for the crystallization of the compound was determined to be 3 eV/nucleation event, while the activation energy for decomposition was approximately 8 eV.     

Geometrization of spin and the Weyssenhoff fluid conjecture

We show that the logical treatment of spinning perfect fluids occurs in a metrictorsion space-time with or without mass conservation. The consequence is the geometrization of spin; that is, we obtain the Weyssenhoff form relating spin and the trace-free torsion without any ad hoc assumption.     

Gravitational radiation in asymptotic de Sitter space

A solution of the gravitational field equations is found by using an axially symmetric metric which is asymptotically a de Sitter space metric. We use the general approach of Bondi, van der Burg, and Metzner as applied to the asymptotic flat-space case and search for the necessary conditions for gravitational radiation in asymptotic de Sitter space. We find that the character of the gravitational radiation, if it exists at all, is considerably different from that obtained in the case of asymptotic flat space.     

Interfacial bridge-mediated electron transfer: mechanistic analysis based on electrochemical kinetics and theoretical modelling

Understanding the physical and chemical factors that control the kinetics of interfacial electron-transfer (ET) reactions is important for a large number of technological applications. The present article describes electrochemical kinetic studies of these factors, in which standard interfacial ET rate constants (k(0)(l)) have been measured for ET between substrate Au electrodes and various redox couples attached to the electrode surfaces by variable lengths (l) of oligomethylene (OM), oligophenylenevinylene (OPV) and oligophenyleneethynylene (OPE) bridges, which were constituents of mixed self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). The k(0)(l) measurements employed the indirect laser-induced temperature jump (ILIT) technique, which permits the measurement of interfacial ET rates that are orders of magnitude faster than those measurable by conventional techniques using the macroelectrodes that are the most convenient substrates for the mixed SAMs. The robustness of the measured rate constants (k(0)(l)), together with the Arrhenius activation energies (E(a)(l)) and preexponential factors (A(l)), is demonstrated by their invariance with respect to several experimental system parameters (including the chemical nature and length of the diluent component of the mixed SAM). Analysis of the kinetic results demonstrates that all of the observed interfacial ET processes proceed through a common type of transition state (predominantly associated with solvent reorganization around the redox moiety) and that the actual ET step involves direct electronic tunnelling between the Au electrode and the redox moiety. However, for the full range of l investigated, a global exponential decay of A(l) is not found for any of the three types of bridges. Possible reasons for this behavior, including the role of rate determining steps associated with adiabatic mechanisms within or beyond the transition state theory framework, are discussed, and comparisons with related conductance measurements are presented.     

微波消解ICP-MS测定唐古特乌头中的多种微量元素

采用HNO3-H2O2混合酸体系微波消解及电感耦合等离子体-质谱法,消解唐古特乌头样品,测定其中Mn、Fe、Co、As、Ni、Se、Cu、Zn、V和Cr共10种微量元素。探讨了样品消解的条件,通过加标回收实验,回收率为94.08%—103.50%,验证了分析数据的可靠性。结果表明,该法具有快速、简便、准确度高、能同时分析多元素的优点,结果令人满意。     

Chiral interactions of histidine in a hydrated vermiculite clay

Recent work shows a correlation between chiral asymmetry in non-terrestrial amino acids extracted from the Murchison meteorite and the presence of hydrous mineral phases in the meteorite [D. P. Glavin and J. P. Dworkin, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2009, 106, 5487-5492]. This highlights the need for sensitive experimental tests of the interactions of amino acids with clay minerals together with high level computational work. We present here the results of in situ neutron scattering experiments designed to follow amino acid adsorption on an exchanged, 1-dimensionally ordered n-propyl ammonium vermiculite clay. The vermiculite gel has a (001) d-spacing of order 5 nm at the temperature and concentration of the experiments and the d-spacing responds sensitively to changes in concentration, temperature and electronic environment. The data show that isothermal addition of D-histidine or L-histidine solutions of the same concentration leads to an anti-osmotic swelling, and shifts in the d-spacing that are different for each enantiomer. This chiral specificity, measured in situ, in real time in the neutron beam, is of interest for the question of whether clays could have played an important role in the origin of biohomochirality.