O−• chemical ionization of carbonyl compounds

The negative ion chemical ionization mass spectra of twentyeight C₄ to C₇ carbonyl compounds were recorded using the oxide radical anion O^?? as reagent ion. As noted earlier, the reactions occurring include H⁺ abstraction, H ₂ ^+? abstraction, H? atom displacement, and alkyl radical displacement. In addition, the [M?2H]^? ions fragment further by alkyl radical elimination. The relative importance of these reactions depends strongly on molecular structure, with the result that isomer distinction frequently is possible. Where this is not possible, as for isomeric aldehydes, the collisional charge inversion mass spectra of common product ions provides isomer distinction. The H ₂ ^+? abstraction reaction is shown to involve abstraction not only of two hydrogens from the same α-carbon but also, in part, abstraction of one hydrogen from each α-carbon.     

Manifestation of grain boundaries in the transport properties of p-sexiphenyl films

Direct current conductivity of p-sexiphenyl films with 0.2-2.5 microm thickness deposited on glass substrates was investigated at temperatures between 10 and 300 K. The molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemical calculations of the experimentally observed conductivity have shown that there exist at least three different states of the films effectively contributing to the observed features of the dc conductivity: conductivity caused by proper crystalline states, conductivity originated from amorphous-like inter-grain region and caused by grain's boundary. Comparison of the experimental data and theoretically calculated dependences shows that the main contribution to the observed dc conductivity gives grain boundaries between polycrystalline grains and amorphous-like background, though the latter possesses a relatively low part of the total volume.     

Search for color singlet technicolor particles in p&pmacr; collisions at radicals = 1.8 TeV

We search for color singlet technirho and technipion production in p&pmacr; collisions at sqrt[s] = 1.8 TeV recorded with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. These exotic technimesons are present in a model of walking technicolor. The signatures studied are lepton plus two jets plus E(T) and multijet final states. No excess of events is seen in either final state. We set an upper limit on the technirho production cross section and exclude a region in the technipion mass versus technirho mass plane.     

Reversible switching of high-speed air-liquid two-phase flows using electrowetting-assisted flow-pattern change

This work is the first demonstration of electrical modulation of surface energy to reversibly switch dynamic high-speed gas-liquid two-phase microfluidic flow patterns. Manipulation of dynamic two-phase systems with continuous high-speed flows is complex and interesting due to the multiple types of forces that need to be considered. Here, distinct stable flow patterns are formed through a multipronged approach: both surface tension forces generated by surface chemistry modulation as well as viscous and inertial forces produced by fluid flows are employed. The novel fluidic actuation mechanism provides insights into better understanding microscale two-phase flow dynamics and offers new opportunities for the development of two-phase biochemical microsystems that are mechanically simple and operational at high speeds.     

Electrical conductivity of polycrystalline films of p-sexiphenyl

In this work the results of DC conductivity measurements of polycrystalline p-sexiphenyl thin films are presented. The investigations concerned the effect of temperature, film thickness and electric field on the DC conductivity mechanism. The thickness of the investigated material varied from 0.2 to 2.5 μm. The measurements were carried out for different electrode polarities of the 0 -100 V voltage and at temperatures ranging from 15 to 325 K. Thin films of p-sexiphenyl were obtained by controlled vacuum sublimation on BK-7 glass substrate with gold and aluminium electrodes. Analyzing the obtained results we conclude that injection of the charge carrier from electrodes into the investigated material proceeds by thermionic emission and field emission and it is dependent on temperature and external electric field. The charge carrier transport is controlled by localized states (traps) in the forbidden energy gap. The activation energy calculated from formula ln I = f(1/kT) varied from kT for low temperature up to 1.0 eV.     

Control of Two-photon Fluorescence of Common Dyes and Conjugated Dyes

We present a comprehensive study of the selective excitation of two-photon fluorescence from various pairs of dyes and dyes in different conjugation states with tailored pulse shapes found with a genetic algorithm (GA). We investigate a number of biologically important dyes, and include dyes conjugated to trastuzumab (Herceptin®) and to a poly(amidoamine) dendrimer. We consider in detail the ability of tailored pulse shaping to discriminate dyes with significant spectral overlap. Our procedure for adaptive pulse shaping includes power-law and chirp-scaling checks to prevent trivial convergences. The GA uses a multiplicative fitness parameter in a graded search method that converges on pulse shapes that not only differentiate two-photon processes, but do so in a high signal regime. We consider the results in terms of not only the absolute maximum ratio of discrimination achieved, but also present the evolutionary course of the GA and compare the improvement to a quantitative measure of the noise level. We also implement a time-domain acousto-optic measurement of two-photon excitation cross-section spectra. The results show that the ability to discriminate dyes is determined almost entirely by their differences in two-photon excitation cross section.     

High birefringence of the yttrium vanadate crystal in the middle wavelength infrared

A high birefringence of over 0.21 for the yttrium vanadate (YVO4) crystal in the middle wavelength infrared (i.e., 3-5 microm) was measured. A Fourier transform infrared spectrometer was employed in the channel spectra technique to obtain the measurements.