Electrical and optical properties of chalcogenide amorphous semiconductors modified with Ni

The electrical and optical properties of the chalcogenide semiconductor (Se₃₂Te₃₂As₄Ge₃₂)_100?xNixitx have been studied. As the Ni concentration is increased the electrical dc conductivity is drastically increased and variable range hopping conduction becomes dominant even above room temperature. The optical energy gap decreases with the Ni concentration from 1.18–0.95 eV. Ni-atoms in the chalcogenide semiconductor donate free electrons which occupy the gap state. This occupation causes the shift of the Fermi level toward the conduction band. It is an effect of this shift that the thermal activation energy is decreased. The decrease in optical energy gap is independent of the shift of the Fermi level and is ascribable to the appearance of the additional level located at 0.95 eV above the top of the valence band. This level originates from the 3d-level of the Ni-atom.     

Photochemical vapor deposition of amorphous silicon through 185 nm excitation of monosilane

Photochemical vapor deposition of a-Si films at a high rate using SiH₄ and a 185 nm low pressure mercury lamp is described. A maximum rate of 1 nm/sec was attained using the 185 nm lamp. This rate was about ten times higher than that using a 254 nm lamp. Assuming that there is no interaction between the effects of the two wavelengths, the deposition rate per light output power of 184.9 nm light is 160 times larger than that for 253.7 nm light. The absorption cross-section of the 184.9 nm light is ten times greater than that for the 253.7 nm light.     

Spatial study on a multibubble system for sonochemistry by laser-light scattering

Volumetric oscillation of multiple cavitation bubbles in an ultrasonic standing-wave field is investigated spatially through the intensity measurements of scattered light from bubbles changing the measuring position in the direction of sound propagation. When a thin light sheet finer than half of wavelength of sound is introduced into the cavitation bubbles, at an antinode of sound pressure the scattered light intensity oscillates. The peak-to-peak light intensity corresponds to the number of the bubbles which contribute to the sonochemical reaction because the radius for oscillating bubbles at pressure antinodes is restrictive in a certain range due to the shape instability and the action of Bjerknes force that expels from the antinode bubbles that are larger than the resonant size. The experimental results show that the intensity waveform of oscillating scattered light measured at the side near the sound source is similar to the waveform as seen in a single-bubble experiment. The peak-to-peak light intensity for the scattered light waveform is low at the side near the sound source where the progressive wave is dominant, while at the side near the water surface far from the sound source the intensity is relatively high and has periodic structure corresponding to the periodicity of half wavelength from the standing wave. These tendencies of high intensity near the water surface and the periodicity correspond to the periodic luminescent stripes seen in images of luminescence in an ultrasonic standing wave as reported by Hatanaka et al. [Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 39 (2000) 2962]. The present method of light scattering is promising for evaluating spatial distribution of violently oscillating cavitation bubbles which effect sonochemical reactions.     

Production of doubly charged helium ions by two-photon absorption of an intense sub-10-fs soft x-ray pulse at 42 eV photon energy

We report on the observation of doubly charged helium ions produced by a nonlinear interaction between a helium atom and photons with a photon energy of 42 eV which are generated with the 27th harmonic of a femtosecond pulse from a Ti:sapphire laser. The number of ions is proportional to the square of the intensity of the 27th harmonic pulse, and thus two-photon double ionization should be dominantly induced as compared with other nonlinear processes accompanying sequential ionization via a singly charged ion. This phenomenon is utilized to measure the pulse duration of the 27th harmonic pulse by using an autocorrelation technique, for the first time to our knowledge, and as a result a duration of 8 fs is found.     

Thermal splitting of Bis-Cu(II) octaphyrin(1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1) into two Cu(II) porphyrins

When heated, bis-Cu(II) octaphyrin(1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1) is quantitatively split into two Cu(II) porphyrins both in solution and film states, which is accompanied by large absorption spectral changes.     

Effect of moisture on impact toughness of sugar-coated tablets manufactured by the dusting method

The purpose of this study was to clarify the effect of moisture on the impact toughness of sugar-coated tablets manufactured by the dusting method. We demonstrated that moisture plays an important role in the impact toughness of sugar-coated tablets. Moisturizing the sugar-coating layer resulted in enhancement of impact toughness of sugar-coated tablets, while reducing moisture in the sugar-coating layer resulted in weakening of the impact toughness. This was due to the characteristics of sucrose, the main ingredient of the sugar-coating layer, which is a soft and non-fragile material at high moisture levels, but hard and fragile at low moisture levels. We also demonstrated that friability as an indicator of impact toughness changed with time, and friability should be measured at 14 d after manufacture. This is due to moisture movement from outer sugar-coating layer into the inner sugar-coated tablets. Incorporating microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) in the subcoating layer resulted in sugar-coating layers with high resistance against impact even though moisture content of sugar-coated tablets was low. We confirmed the high impact toughness of the sugar-coated tablets with MCC whose moisture content was low from the results of both free fall and friability tests. We suggest that the dusting method using dusting powder containing MCC is a useful method for the production of sugar-coated tablets containing moisture sensitive drugs.     

Melting pattern of diquark condensates in quark matter

Thermal color superconducting phase transitions in high density three-flavor quark matter are investigated in the Ginzburg-Landau approach. The effects of nonzero strange quark mass, electric and color charge neutrality, and direct instantons are considered. Weak coupling calculations show that an interplay between the mass and electric neutrality effects near the critical temperature gives rise to three successive second-order phase transitions as the temperature increases: a modified color-flavor locked (mCFL) phase (ud, ds, and us pairings) --> a d-quark superconducting (dSC) phase (ud and ds pairings) --> an isoscalar pairing phase (ud pairing) --> a normal phase (no pairing). The dSC phase is novel in the sense that while all eight gluons are Meissner screened as in the mCFL phase, three out of nine quark quasiparticles are always gapless.     

Sonochemically enhanced adsorption and degradation of methyl orange with activated aluminas

Removal of Methyl orange (MO), as a model contaminants, in aqueous solution by the simultaneous application of ultrasound with the addition of porous adsorbent powders is reported. Activated alumina powders in acidic form were used as an adsorbent. Results showed that MO could be degraded by ultrasonic irradiation at 130 kHz with the first order rate constant of 8x10(-4) and 5x10(-4) sec(-1), in acidic and basic conditions, respectively, without adsorbents. Adsorption rates of MO by activated alumina mainly depended on the acidity of alumina, the pH of solution and the stirring speed. At pH=4.2 with mechanical stirring without ultrasonic radiation, acidic activated alumina (0.1 g/100 ml) removed MO at about two times more rapidly than ultrasonic irradiation. In the case of simultaneous application of ultrasound irradiation and activated alumina, MO was almost removed from the solution within 10 min, which corresponded to as a rate constant of 5x10(-3) sec(-1). This kind of synergistic enhancement of removal rate with ultrasound and adsorbents should be practically useful for the elimination of contaminants in the water treatment processes. In addition, the effects of pH and coexisting chemicals in the solution were examined for the processes. Although the adsorption process was effective in some selected conditions, ultrasonic degradation was more robust in wider range of pH and coexisting chemicals. Simultaneous application of the two processes can perform complementary.     

Reliability of mean transit time obtained using perfusion-weighted MR imaging; comparison with positron emission tomography

The purpose of this project was to assess the reliability of the cerebral mean transit time (MTT) obtained using perfusion-weighted MR imaging by comparing it with the MTT obtained when performing positron emission tomography (PET). Ten patients with chronic occlusive cerebrovascular disease were investigated. They had either unilateral internal carotid artery occlusion or middle cerebral artery occlusion. The regions-of-interest were placed in non-infarcted areas within the territory of the middle cerebral artery on the affected side. Control regions-of-interest were placed in mirrored regions of the contralateral side. Linear regression analyses were performed using the parameters of the MTT obtained with perfusion-weighted MR imaging and the MTT, cerebral blood flow, vascular reactivity, and oxygen extraction fraction obtained with PET. The respective MTTs of the affected and non-affected sides obtained with perfusion-weighted MR imaging versus those with PET were 7.3 +/- 2.2 s and 6.0 +/- 1.2 s versus 8.2 +/- 3.0 s and 6.4 +/- 1.7 s. The MTT obtained using perfusion-weighted MR imaging and PET demonstrated statistically significant correlation (r = 0.87, p < 0.0001). The MTT obtained with perfusion-weighted MR imaging correlated statistically with cerebral blood flow (r = -0.74, p < 0.001), vascular reactivity (r = -0.73, p < 0.001) and oxygen extraction fraction (r = 0.61, p < 0.01). Similarly, the MTT obtained using PET statistically correlated with cerebral blood flow (r = -0.78, p < 0.0001), vascular reactivity (r = -0.51, p < 0.05) and oxygen extraction fraction (r = 0.68, p < 0.01). The reliability of the MTT obtained using perfusion-weighted MR imaging appears to be approximately equal to that obtained with positron emission tomography.