Phase formation and impurity effects in Ar+ ion irradiated Mo/Si thin film bilayer system

We report a dose‐dependent phase evolution in Mo/Si bilayer system upon Ar⁺ ion beam irradiation and subsequent flash annealing at 800 °C for 60 s. Micro‐structural characterization with Grazing Incidence X‐ray Diffraction and Raman scattering reveals a dose‐dependent nucleation of polymorphic phases occurring at the amorphized interface region. The ion beam mixing process has been investigated by Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry. While low ion doses favour nucleation of only metastable MoSi₂ phase, co‐existence of polymorphic phases are observed at high ion doses. The persistence of such polymorphic phases even after a high‐temperature anneal for high dose implanted specimen is indicative of phase retardation. The phase retardation of h‐MoSi₂ to t‐MoSi₂ is accounted in terms of nucleation and growth process. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pollen from Glycine species survive cryogenic exposure

Pollen of 12 genotypes of the annual soybean and its wild perennial relatives were stored without pre-desiccation at low temperatures (-20 C and -196 C) and tested for their viability in vitro. The influence of cryopreserved pollen on pod set and seed production was also investigated. Cryopreserved pollen of all the genotypes showed germination in vitro. Pollen of annual soybean stored at -20 C retained their viability for 4 months, however, pollen of its wild perennial relatives at same storage conditions failed to germinate in vitro. Flowers pollinated with cryopreserved pollen had similar pod set and number of seeds/pod as those pollinated with fresh pollen. Results of this study suggest that cryopreservation of pollen can be used successfully for soybean breeding, and also offers the possibility of conserving the haploid gene pool of soybean and wild perennial species in a cryobank facility.     

Photophysical characterization of pyrromethene 597 laser dye in silicon-containing organic matrices

Samples of dipyrromethene-BF₂ dye PM597 incorporated in copolymers of 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate (TMSPMA) with methyl methacrylate (MMA) and 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA), and in terpolymers of MMA, HEMA and TMSPMA are characterized. The absorption cross-section spectra, stimulated emission cross-section spectra, and the excited-state absorption cross-section at 527 nm are determined. The fluorescence quantum distributions and fluorescence lifetimes are measured. The photo-degradation is studied under cw laser excitation conditions and quantum yields of photo-degradation are extracted. PM597 solid state samples are compared with PM597 in liquid ethyl acetate solution. The fluorescence quantum yield of PM597 is higher in doped samples (around 70%) compared to PM597 in ethyl acetate (43%). The excited-state absorption cross-section was found to be negligibly small. The photo-stability is considerably larger in the polymeric samples compared to the liquid solutions. PACS 42.55.-f; 78.45.+h; 78.55.-m; 78.40.Me     

Rapid breakdown anodization technique for the synthesis of high aspect ratio and high surface area anatase TiO2 nanotube powders

Clusters of high aspect ratio, high surface area anatase-TiO₂ nanotubes with a typical nanotube outer diameter of about 18 nm, wall thickness of approximately 5 nm and length of 5-10 μm were synthesized, in powder form, by breakdown anodization of Ti foils in 0.1 M perchloric acid, at 10 V (299 K) and 20 V (∼275 and 299 K). The surface area, morphology, structure and band gap were determined from Brunauer Emmet Teller method, field emmission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman, photoluminescence and diffuse reflectance spectroscopic studies. The tubular morphology and anatase phase were found to be stable up to 773 K and above 773 K anatase phase gradually transformed to rutile phase with disintegration of tubular morphology. At 973 K, complete transformation to rutile phase and disintegration of tubular morphology were observed. The band gap of the as prepared and the annealed samples varied from 3.07 to 2.95 eV with increase in annealing temperature as inferred from photoluminescence and diffuse reflectance studies.     

A cylindrically symmetric inhomogeneous cosmological model with electromagnetic field

A cylindrically symmetric inhomogeneous cosmological model with electromagnetic field for perfect fluid distributions is obtained. To get a determinate solution, a supplementary conditionA=(BC) ⁿ between metric potentials is used whereA, B, andC are functions of bothx andt andn is a constant. Some physical and geometrical properties of the model and behavior of electromagnetic field tensors are also discussed.     

Tracking an Auto-Regressive Process with Limited Communication per Unit Time

Samples from a high-dimensional first-order auto-regressive process generated by an independently and identically distributed random innovation sequence are observed by a sender which can communicate only finitely many bits per unit time to a receiver. The receiver seeks to form an estimate of the process value at every time instant in real-time. We consider a time-slotted communication model in a slow-sampling regime where multiple communication slots occur between two sampling instants. We propose a successive update scheme which uses communication between sampling instants to refine estimates of the latest sample and study the following question: Is it better to collect communication of multiple slots to send better refined estimates, making the receiver wait more for every refinement, or to be fast but loose and send new information in every communication opportunity? We show that the fast but loose successive update scheme with ideal spherical codes is universally optimal asymptotically for a large dimension. However, most practical quantization codes for fixed dimensions do not meet the ideal performance required for this optimality, and they typically will have a bias in the form of a fixed additive error. Interestingly, our analysis shows that the fast but loose scheme is not an optimal choice in the presence of such errors, and a judiciously chosen frequency of updates outperforms it.     

ChemInform Abstract: Study of Phase Transformation in BaTe2O6 by in situ High‐Pressure X‐Ray Diffraction,Raman Spectroscopy,and First‐Principles Calculations.

The title compound is synthesized by solid state reaction of a stoichiometric mixture of BaCO₃ and TeO₂ (air, 550 °C for 6 h, and 650 °C for 12 h).     

Steady-state fluorescence investigations of aqueous binary mixtures of myristyl alcohol based bis-sulfosuccinate anionic gemini surfactant and effect of different conventional surfactants therein

The present research work is associated with the fluorescence investigations of binary aqueous mixed surfactants solutions of anionic bis-sulfosuccinate gemini surfactant (BSGSMA_1,8) and three different conventional surfactants—anionic viz. sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), cationic viz. cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), and nonionic surfactant viz. Triton X 100. Steady-state fluorescence spectroscopy technique has been utilized to examine the micellization behavior of aqueous solution of pure myristyl alcohol-based BSGSMA_1,8 having flexible methylene chain [(CH₂)₈] as spacer group. Critical micelle concentration (CMC), aggregation number (N), and micropolarity of pure and mixed surfactants systems were explored during the investigations. The results revealed the best synergism behavior of prepared gemini BSGSMA_1,8 with SDS as compared to CTAB and Triton X 100. The maximum reduction in the value of pyrene intensity ratio (I₁/I₃) was observed for gemini and SDS mixed surfactant solution. On the other hand, the increased I₁/I₃ value of mixed gemini with Triton X 100 exhibited that mixed surfactant system of anionic gemini BSGSMA_1,8 with non-ionic Triton X 100 is not as compact as other mixed surfactant systems. Aggregation number increased and micropolarity decreased with increased concentration of gemini surfactants.     

Synthesis, spectra, and theoretical investigations of the triarylamines based on 6H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline

Triarylamines containing a 6H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline core and aromatic units such as phenyl, naphthyl, pyrene, anthracene, or fluorene have been synthesized by employing palladium-catalyzed C-N and C-C coupling reactions and characterized by optical absorption and emission spectra, electrochemical behavior, and thermal studies. Even though the electronic absorption spectra of the compounds were influenced by the nature of the peripheral amines, the emission spectra indicated close similarity for the excited states in these compounds. For the derivatives in which the amines were directly anchored on the 6H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline nucleus, the emission appeared to be dominated by the state localized on the 6H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline chromophore, while in the compounds containing the extended conjugation the fluorescence originated from the polyaromatic linker. The compounds displayed green or yellow emission depending on the nature of the amine segment. All of the dyes displayed one-electron quasi-reversible oxidation couple in the cyclic voltammograms, which is attributable to the oxidation of the peripheral amines at the 6H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline core. An additional one-electron oxidation process observable at the high positive potentials for the compounds 7 and 8 probably arises from the oxidation of the arylthiophene segment. The enhanced thermal stability and relatively higher glass transition temperatures observed for these compounds were attributed to the presence of dipolar 6H-indolo[2,3-b]quinoxaline segment. The origin of the optical spectra and the trends observed therein were rationalized using TDDFT simulations.