Thermal Characterization of Polybutadiyne

Butadiyne was thermally polymerized from the vapor phase onto substrate polyethylene, poly(vinylidene fluoride), polytetrafluoro-ethylene, and fluorinated ethylene propylene films at 20°C. The reaction is characterized as an initial absorption of monomer into the film followed by polymerization in the condensed state. A postpolymerization thermal reaction of the polybutadiyne pendant ethynyl groups was conducted over a 120 to 470°C temperature range with a subsequent surface electrical resistivity decrease to 7 × 10¹¹ ohm/square. The reaction of the pendant acetylenic groups was monitored by DSC and IR spectroscopy and found to be more complex than an intramolecular conversion of an acetylenic polyene to a polyacene structure.     

Halothiation as a Method for Oxidation of Primary Halides and Terminal Olefins to Aldehydes

The richly varied reactivity of the aldehyde group frequently imparts pivotal importance to this functionality in organic synthesis. This fact has resulted in the development of several methods for the elaboration of this structural unit from a variety of precursors.² The report delineates the feasibility of two new couplementary approaches which proceed under mild conditions and demonstrate the utility of “halothiation” as applied to the oxidation of primary halides and terminal olefins. We were led to investigate this approach as a direct consequence of our interest in the Ramberg-Bäcklund rearrangement³ where the preliminary step often involves α-chlorination of the sulfide substrate.⁴ Halothiation is defined by us as a three-step transformation involving introduction of an ArS moiety, directed α-chlorination of the resulting sulfide, and hydrolysis. In principle, of course, the ArSCH₂-unit is uniquely an aldehyde synthon and attention is therefore focused specifically on it at this time.     

Imploding conical shock waves

The behaviour of conical shock waves imploding axisymmetrically was first studied numerically by Hornung (J Fluid Mech 409:1–12, 2000) and this prompted a limited experimental investigation into these complex flow patterns by Skews et al. (Shock Waves 11:323–326, 2002). Modification of the simulation boundary conditions, resulting in the loss of self-similarity, was necessary to image the flow experimentally. The current tests examine the temporal evolution of these flows utilising a converging conical gap of fixed width fed by a shock wave impinging at its entrance, supported by CFD simulations. The effects of gap thickness, angle and incident shock strength were investigated. The wave initially diffracts around the outer lip of the gap shedding a vortex which, for strong incident shock cases, can contain embedded shocks. The converging shock at exit reflects on the axis of symmetry with the reflected wave propagating outwards resulting in a triple point developing on the incident wave together with the associated shear layer. This axisymmetric shear layer rolls up into a mushroom-shaped toroidal vortex ring and forward-facing jet. For strong shocks, this deforms the Mach disk to the extent of forming a second triple point with the primary shock exhibiting a double bulge. Separate features resembling the Richtmeyer–Meshkov and Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities were noted in some tests. Aside from the incident wave curvature, the reflection patterns demonstrated correspond well with the V- and DV-types identified by Hornung although type S was not clearly seen, possibly due to the occlusion of the reflection region by the outer diffraction vortex at these early times. Some additional computational work explicitly exploring the limits of the parameter space for such systems has demonstrated the existence of a possible further reflection type, called vN-type, which is similar to the von Neumann reflection for plane waves. It is recommended that the parameter space be more thoroughly explored experimentally.     

Double prompt photon production at high transverse momentum byπ − on protons at 280 GeV/c

A search for pairs of highp _T prompt photons produced in hydrogen by a 280 GeV/c incidentπ ^- beam has been carried out using a fine-grained electromagnetic calorimeter and the Omega spectrometer at the CERN SPS. Clear evidence for the existence of such events is found with a six standard deviation signal forp _T >3.0 GeV/c. The cross-sections are consistent with beyond leading order QCD calculations. A discussion on the determination of α _s is also presented.     

The structure of events triggered by direct photons in π− p, π+ p andpp collisions at 280 GeV/c

The structure of events associated with the production of direct photons in π^? p, π⁺ p andpp reactions of 280 GeV/c has been studied using data from the WA 70 experiment at the CERN SPS. Results are presented on the distributions of the fractional momenta of the colliding partons and on the fragmentation of the recoil jet and a comparison is made with predictions using the structure functions of Duke and Owens in the Lund Monte Carlo with string fragmentation.     

Compact complex homogeneous manifolds with large automorphism groups

Let X be a compact complex homogeneous manifold and let Aut(X) be the complex Lie group of holomorphic automorphisms of X. It is well-known that the dimension of Aut(X) is bounded by an integer that depends only on n=dim X. Moreover, if X is K?hler then dimAut (X)≤n(n+2) with equality only when X is complex projective space. In this article examples of non-K?hler compact complex homogeneous manifolds X are given that demonstrate dimAut(X) can depend exponentially on n. Let X be a connected compact complex manifold of dimension n. The group of holomorphic automorphisms of X, Aut(X), is a complex Lie group [3]. For a fixed n>1, the dimension of Aut(X) can be arbitrarily large compared to n. Simple examples are provided by the Hirzebruch surfaces F _m , m∈N, for which dimAut(F _m )=m+5, see, e.g. [2, Example 2.4.2]. If X is homogeneous, that is, any point of X can be mapped to any other point of X under a holomorphic automorphism, then the dimension of the automorphism group of X is bounded by an integer that depends only on n, see [1, 2, 6]. The estimate given in [2, Theorem 3.8.2] is roughly dimAut(X)≤(n+2) ⁿ . For many classes of manifolds, however, the dimension of the automorphism group never exceeds n(n+2). For example, it follows directly from the classification given by Borel and Remmert [4], that if X is a compact homogeneous K?hler manifold, then dimAut(X)≤n(n+2) with equality only when X is complex projective space P ⁿ . It is an old question raised by Remmert, see [2, p. 99], [6], whether this same bound applies to all compact complex homogeneous manifolds. In this note we show that this is not the case by constructing non-K?hler compact complex homogeneous manifolds whose automorphism group has a dimension that depends exponentially on n. The simplest case among these examples has n=3m+1 and dimAut(X)=3m+3 ^m , so the above conjectured bound is exceeded when n≥19. These manifolds have the structure of non-trivial fiber bundles over products of flag manifolds with parallelizable fibers given as the quotient of a solvable group by a discrete subgroup. They are constructed using the original ideas of Otte [6, 7] and are surprisingly similar to examples found there. Generally, a product of manifolds does not result in an automorphism group with a large dimension relative to n. Nevertheless, products are used in an essential way in the construction given here, and it is perhaps this feature that caused such examples to be previously overlooked. Oblatum 13-X-97 & 24-X-1997     

Light emission from porous silicon single and multiple cavities

Experimental and theoretical techniques are used to examine the effects of microstructuring on the optical properties of multilayer, single and multiple microcavity structures fabricated from porous silicon. Measurements of the reflectivity and photoluminescence spectra of three multilayer samples are presented. The results are modelled using a transfer matrix technique including a negative absorption term to represent the effect of spontaneous emission which gives luminescence. The emitted light is strongly controlled by the optical modes of the structures and very good agreement is observed between theory and experiment.     

Studies on photoinduced effects in pulse-electrodeposited Ag/Hg-1212/CdSe hetero-nanostructures

Metal/superconductor/semiconductor (Ag/Hg-1212/CdSe) hetero-nanostructures have been fabricated using pulse-electrodeposition technique and are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies. The junction capacitance of Ag/Hg-1212, Hg-1212/CdSe and Ag/Hg-1212/CdSe heterojunctions is measured in dark and under laser irradiation at room temperature. The nature of the junction formed and built-in-junction potentials were determined. The increase in carrier concentration across the junction due to photo-irradiation has been observed.     

Effect of laser irradiation of C-V characteristics of electrodeposited Ag/Tl-2223/CdSe hetero-nanostructures

One of the innovative technological directions for the high-temperature superconductors has been persued by fabricating the heteroepitaxial multilayer structures such as superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures. In the present investigation, metal/superconductor/semiconductor (Ag/Tl-2223/CdSe) hetero-nanostructures have successfully been fabricated using dc electrodeposition technique and were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies. The measurement of junction capacitance as a function of biasing voltage was used for the estimation of junction built-in-potential (V _D) and to study the charge distribution in a heterojunction. The Mott-Schottky plots were measured for each junction in dark and under the photo-irradiation. The effect of laser irradiation on C-V characteristics of hetero-nanostructure has been studied.