Evaluation and application of liquid chromatographic columns coated with 'intelligent' ligands: (I) acylcarnitine column

Unique stationary phases of octadecylsilica (ODS) coated with acylcarnitines have been developed for liquid chromatographic columns. The ODS column coated with acylcarnitine was readily prepared by recycling the solution containing acylcarnitine through an ODS column in a closed loop. Acylcarnitine was adsorbed on the ODS surfaces by hydrophobic interaction between the acyl group of acylcarnitine and the octadecyl group of the ODS phases. The ODS column coated with stearoylcarnitine (CN-18 column) was the most stable among the four columns coated with acylcarnitines of various acyl chain lengths (decanoylcarnitine, lauroylcarnitine, myristoylcarnitine, and stearoylcarnitine) under the condition of delivery of the mobile phase, indicating that adsorption of acylcarnitine on the ODS surfaces depended on the length of acyl chains. The CN-18 column was usable for delivering the mobile phase contained less than 20% (v/v) acetonitrile, retaining almost the same separation efficiency as the intact ODS column. The retention behavior of ionic solutes on the CN-18 column could be explained by both ionic and electrostatic interactions between the solutes and the stationary phase. The CN-18 column enabled efficient separation of inorganic anions, nicotinic acids, amino acids, and nucleotides. The chiral ODS column coated with enantiomer of stearoylcarnitine, L-stearoylcarnitine (L-CN-18 column) could achieve direct enantiomeric separation of DL-tryptophan, alpha-methyl-DL-tryptophan and DL-3-indolelactic acid using 100% water as the mobile phase. The L-CN-18 column could also separate enantiomers of amino acids and alpha-hydroxycarboxylic acids by ligand-exchange chromatographic mode using a mobile phase containing copper(II) ion. The chiral recognition is discussed for enantiomeric separation on the L-CN-18 column.     

Inelastic effect in low energy ion-surface collisions: He+Au,Ag

Energy distributions of He⁺ ions scattered by Au and Ag surfaces are measured by an ISS system with high energy resolution, at a scattering angle of 90° and at incident ion energies ranging from 277 to 977 eV. It is found that the observed peak energies deviate toward the low energy side by several electron-volts with respect to the calculated elastic single collision energies. Both the deviation Q' and the inelastic loss energy Q are plotted as a function of incident ion energy for the Au surface.     

Initial growth process and surface structure of Ag on Si(111) studied by low-energy Ion-Scattering Spectroscopy (ISS) and LEED-AES

The growth process of silver on a Si(111) substrate has been studied in detail by low-energy ion-scattering spectroscopy (ISS) combined with LEED-AES. Neon ions of 500 eV were used as probe ions of ISS. The ISS experiments have revealed that the growth at room temperature and at high temperature are quite different from each other even in the submonolayer coverage range. The following growth models have been proposed for the respective temperatures. At room temperature, the deposited Ag forms a two-dimensional (2D) island at around 2/3 monolayer (ML) coverage, where the Ag atoms are packed commensurately with the Si(111)1 substrate. One third of the substrate Si surface remains uncovered there. Then it starts to develop into Ag crystal, and at a few ML coverage a 3D island of bulk Ag crystal grows directly on the substrate. An intermediate layer, which covers uniformly the whole surface before the growth of Ag crystal, does not exist. At high temperatures (>~200°C), the well-known Si(111)√3-Ag layer is formed as an intermediate layer, which consists of 2/3 ML of Ag atoms and covers the whole surface uniformly. These Ag atoms are embedded in the first double layer of the Si substrate. It is concluded that the formation of the √3 structure needs relatively high activation energy which may originate from the large displacement of Si atoms owing to the embedment of the Ag atoms, and does not proceed below about 200°C. The most stable state of the Ag atoms on the outermost Si layer is in the shape of an island, both for the Si(111) surface and for the Si(111)√3-Ag surface.     

Self-aligned imaging system using phase conjugate readout from elementary holographic grating

We propose a self-aligned imaging system (SAIS) using phase conjugate readout from an elementary holographic grating. The SAIS provides a huge amount of interconnections between a lot of points on two corresponding imaging planes without troublesome mechanical alignment. In the SAIS, a hologram for one-to-one interconnection is used for many-to-many interconnections. In addition, the SAIS has the capability of correcting aberration. Preliminary experiments verify the principle and the capability of the SAIS.     

Control of a photoreaction by electron spin resonance (II): The effect of radical pair lifetime on the control efficiency

The magnetic-field and the microwave effects on the photoreactions of anthraquinone-2-sulfonate and anthraquinone-2-carboxylic acid with xanthene were observed in an SDS micellar solution. The reaction products were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography. With increasing the magnetic-field strength from the residual value to 400 mT, the yield of dixanthenyl, which is an “escape product”, increased considerably. Upon irradiating the system with a microwave (9400 MHz, 1.0 kW), however, the yield decreased almost to the minimum value at around 334 mT, where the intermediate radical pair becomes resonant with the microwave field. Therefore, we can detect the ESR spectrum of the transient radical pair by the product yield (product-yield-detected ESR or PYESR). In the present study, we observed a clear reversed microwave effect at the center of the PYESR spectrum, whose cause was attributed to “spin locking” of the radical pair by an intense microwave field. The microwave effects for the two systems were, different from each other in several respects including the extent of this spin locking effect in the product yield. The PYESR spectra were calculated by using a quantum mechanical method to discuss the relation between the microwave effect and the radical pair dynamics, the latter of which was also observed in the present study by the “pulse-PYESR” method.     

Hydrogen-induced reordering of the surface

Using elastic recoil detection analysis and low energy electron diffraction we have investigated the adsorption process of hydrogen on the surface. We find that (1) room temperature adsorption of atomic hydrogen induces a structure transformation from the to Si(111)-1 × 1-Ag(H) structures, (2) a saturation coverage of hydrogen is 1.5 monolayer, which almost coincides with the one on a clean 7 × 7 surface, and (3) thermal desorption of hydrogen from the ordered 1 × 1-Ag(H) surface results in the recovery of the original surface.     

Peierls mechanism of the metal-insulator transition in ferromagnetic hollandite K2Cr8O16

Synchrotron x-ray diffraction experiment shows that the metal-insulator transition occurring in a ferromagnetic state of a hollandite K(2)Cr(8)O(16) is accompanied by a structural distortion from the tetragonal I4/m to monoclinic P112(1)/a phase with a √2×√2×1 supercell. Detailed electronic structure calculations demonstrate that the metal-insulator transition is caused by a Peierls instability in the quasi-one-dimensional column structure made of four coupled Cr-O chains running in the c direction, leading to the formation of tetramers of Cr ions below the transition temperature. This provides a rare example of the Peierls transition of fully spin-polarized electron systems.     

Design and Evaluation of Computer Generated Hologram with Binary Subwavelength Structure Designed by Deterministic Process

A binary subwavelength structure for multilevel phase modulation can be designed by our previously proposed deterministic design method without iterative optimization method. To use our design technique in various applications of a computer generated hologram (CGH) like an array illuminator, beam-shaping, signal processing, and so on, an image quality of a reconstructed image from a CGH has become much more important. In this paper, we verify the image quality of a reconstructed image from a CGH designed by our method in terms of the modulation transfer function (MTF) and the spatial resolution. Simulation results show that our technique can theoretically achieve a MTF of more than 99% over a wide range and a spatial resolution of less than 9.66μm.     

Crosstalk Suppression in Header Recognition Unit Using Time-Space Conversion

We demonstrate a suppression effect of a crosstalk among a target and similar header signals using the header recognition filter designed by a design technique of the multiple-object discriminant filter.