pH-Sensitive Oscillatory Motion of a Urease Motor on the Urea Aqueous Phase

A self-propelled object coupled with an enzyme reaction between urease and urea was investigated at the air/aqueous interface. A plastic object that was fixed to a urease-immobilized filter paper was used as a self-propelled object, termed a urease motor, placed on an aqueous urea solution. The driving force of the urease motor is the difference in the surface tension around the object. Oscillatory motion or no motion was triggered depending on the initial pH of the urea solution. Both the frequency and maximum speed of the oscillatory motion varied depending on the initial pH of the water phase. The mechanisms underlying the oscillatory motion and no motion were discussed in relation to the bell-shaped enzyme activity of urease in the enzyme reaction and the surface tension around the urease motor.     

Stable all-optical formation of Bose–Einstein condensate using pointing-stabilized optical trapping beams

By stabilizing the beam pointing of optical trapping beams, we have succeeded in stable formation of Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of ⁸⁷Rb with all-optical method. The thermal effect of acousto-optic modulator (AOM) is usually one of the most serious problems to induce beam-pointing instability, especially for high power CO₂ laser. By passing the beam through AOM twice, we have improved the beam pointing from about 4.8 mrad to less than 0.4 mrad, which has been experimentally confirmed to be small enough to stably form BEC at the crossed region of CO₂ lasers as well as to perform experiments using an optical lattice which might have been affected by beam-pointing instability. PACS 32.80.Pj; 42.79.Jq; 03.75.Mn     

Trinucleon cluster structure at high-excitation energies in A=6 nuclei

Trinucleon molecular structures in ⁶He and ⁶Be were investigated by using the ⁶Li(⁷Li, ⁷Be)⁶He reaction at 455 MeV and ⁶Li(³He, t)⁶Be reaction at 450 MeV, respectively. Binary decays into t + t from a broad state at E _x =18.0±1.0 MeV in ⁶He and into ³He + ³He from one at E _x =18.0±1.2 MeV in ⁶Be, respectively, were observed by measuring trinucleon cluster decays in coincidence with reaction particles. The branching ratios for binary decay were estimated to be about 0.7 for ⁶He and ⁶Be. These large branching ratios show that a trinucleon cluster state exists as an isobaric partner around E _x =18 MeV in ⁶He and ⁶Be.     

Ion-pair formation of a copper(II)-ammine complex with an anionic surfactant and the recovery of copper(II) from ammonia medium by the surfactant-gel extraction method.

The extraction and separation of copper(II), zinc(II), cobalt(II), and cadmium(II) were investigated. Both copper(II) and zinc(II) formed ammine-complexes, while cadmium(II) and cobalt(II) formed hydroxide precipitates in an ammonia medium. By the addition of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS), a copper(II) complex formed an ion-pair (copper-ammine-DS), which was extracted into the SDS phase. However, a zinc(II) complex did not form an ion-pair, and was soluble in water. Copper(II) ion was recovered by stripping (back-extraction) after the addition of hydrochloric acid. This method was applied to the separation of copper(II) in a brass alloy.     

Measurement of circular dichroism spectra of liquid/liquid interface by centrifugal liquid membrane method.

The direct measurement of the circular dichroism (CD) spectra of liquid/liquid interface has been achieved for the first time by the centrifugal liquid membrane (CLM) method combined with a conventional CD spectropolarimetry. In the sample chamber of the CD spectropolarimeter, a cylindrical glass cell containing small amounts of organic and aqueous phases was rotated at ca. 7000 rpm to generate a two-phase liquid membrane with a high specific interfacial area. The CD spectra of the J-aggregate of protonated 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin formed at the toluene/sulfuric acid interface in the rotating cell have been measured. The results demonstrated the novelty and advantages of this method.     

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering from oleate-stabilized silver colloids at a liquid/liquid interface.

Oleate-stabilized silver colloids of 5-nm-diameter were adsorbed to a toluene/water interface, and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra from these colloids were measured under the total internal reflection (TIR) condition. From the observed spectra, we examined the states of oleate ions and toluene molecules on silver colloids at the liquid/liquid interfacial region. The TIR-SERS spectra of oleate ions showed stronger peaks of the carboxylate group and the ethylene group than those of alkyl chains. From these results, it was found that the oleate ions were adsorbed on the silver surface in two different ways at the liquid/liquid interface; the carboxylate group adsorbed in the organic phase side, while the ethylene group adsorbed in the aqueous phase side. The shifts of the toluene in the interfacial SERS spectra were identical to those of bulk toluene, though the relative intensities among the peaks were not same. This result suggested that the toluene was adsorbed with a weak interaction, but was significantly enhanced by the local electromagnetic field at the colloid surface.     

High magnification microscopic system focusing on transparent liquid/liquid interface formed in thin-layer two-phase microcell.

A thin-layer two-phase microcell was fabricated without an adhesive, which showed no fluorescence and resisted acids. The lower hollow of the microcell was thin (0.18 mm), which was in the range of the working distance of the used objective of high magnification (60x) and high numerical aperture (1.2). A reflection method using probe light was newly employed for focusing the objective on a transparent dodecane/water interface strictly with an inverted microscope. The system was applied to in situ fluorescence microscopic measurements of the dynamics of single DNA molecules (165600 base pairs) at the dodecane/water interface.     

Phase Conjugation in Saturable Absorbing Dye Films by Degenerate Four-Wave Mixing and Holographic Processes Using Nanosecond Pulse and CW Lasers

We report on the simultaneous generation of phase-conjugate signals by degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) and holographic processes using a nanosecond pulse and a CW lasers in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) films doped with four kinds of saturable absorbing dyes. For the pulse laser, of the four kinds of dye-doped PVA films, the erythrosine B-doped PVA and uranine doped-PVA films generate PC signals only by the DFWM process, while the other dye-doped PVA films generate PC signals simultaneously by not only the DFWM process but also the holographic process. Especially, the safranin T-doped PVA film generates strong PC signals by the holographic process. In contrast, all of the dye-doped PVA films generate the two types of PC signals for the CW laser. The fading of dye molecules is found to result in the generation of the holographic component of PC signals which governs the temporal behavior of the total PC signals.     

Application of total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to small glass fragments.

Total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (TXRF) has been applied for trace elemental analysis of small glass fragments. A small glass sample (a fragment with weight less than 0.5 mg) was decomposed by 100 microg of HF/HNO3 acid; the material was condensed to 10 microl and was dried on a Si wafer. Since the size of the dried residue on the Si wafer was less than 1 cm in diameter, an incident X-ray beam with about 1 cm in width could effectively excite elemental components in such a small glass fragment. The precision of the present technique was checked by analyzing the glass fragments (<0.5 mg) from NIST SRM612; the relative standard deviations (RSD) of less than 8.1% were achieved for elemental ratios that were normalized by Sr. Fragments (<0.5 mg) obtained from 23 figured sheet glasses were used as samples for estimating the utility of this technique to forensic discrimination. Comparison of five elemental ratios of Ti/Sr, Mn/Sr, Zn/Sr, Rb/Sr, and Pb/Sr calculated from X-ray fluorescence spectra was effective in distinguishing glass fragments that could not be differentiated by their refractive indexes (RI).