Pyrolysis of vinyl and vinylidene fluoride polymers: Influence of prior γ-irradiation

Quantitative comparisons were made between the rates of thermal volatilization of several fluoropolymers before and after exposure to γ-radiation. The effects of γ-irradiation on poly(vinyl fluoride) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) were also investigated by swelling and sol-gel ratios. With both polymers as well as with polytrifluoroethylene, crosslinks occur predominantly, though there is an appreciable number of scissions. The rates of volatilization and char formation were enhanced by γ-radiation, whereas the previously studied polytrifluoroethylene did not produce more char upon irradiation, although radiation did accelerate its volatilization. It is believed that in polytrifluoroethylene the enhanced rates of volatilization occur by a different mechanism than in the case of the vinyl and vinylidene fluoride polymers.     

Perfect Matchings and Perfect Powers

In the last decade there have been many results about special families of graphs whose number of perfect matchings is given by perfect or near perfect powers (N. Elkies et al., J. Algebraic Combin. 1 (1992), 111–132; B.-Y. Yang, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Mathematics, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1991; J. Propp, New Perspectives in Geometric Combinatorics, Cambridge University Press, 1999). In this paper we present an approach that allows proving them in a unified way. We use this approach to prove a conjecture of James Propp stating that the number of tilings of the so-called Aztec dungeon regions is a power (or twice a power) of 13. We also prove a conjecture of Matt Blum stating that the number of perfect matchings of a certain family of subgraphs of the square lattice is a power of 3 or twice a power of 3. In addition we obtain multi-parameter generalizations of previously known results, and new multi-parameter exact enumeration results. We obtain in particular a simple combinatorial proof of Bo-Yin Yang's multivariate generalization of fortresses, a result whose previously known proof was quite complicated, amounting to evaluation of the Kasteleyn matrix by explicit row reduction. We also include a new multivariate exact enumeration of Aztec diamonds, in the spirit of Stanley's multivariate version.     

Rare earth doped cobalt ferrite thin films deposited by PLD

CoFe₂O₄ thin films with preferential texture structure, small grain size, and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy can be obtained by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. In this work, we studied the influence of the Fe³⁺ ions substitution by three elements from lanthanide group (Dy, La, and Gd) on the structural properties of the thin films. The samples were deposited by Nd:YAG laser (λ=532 nm, 10 ns) ablation of CoFe_1.8RE_0.2O₄, (RE=Dy, La, Gd) targets at various substrate temperatures ranging from room temperature to 600 °C. The microstructure and chemical composition of the thin films were investigated by Raman spectroscopy, XRD, SEM-EDS, and ToF-SIMS. The XRD patterns and Raman spectra of the thin films indicated the formation of a single spinel structure. Thus, the desired substitution of the iron ions in the spinel lattice with the RE elements was achieved in the thin films, although in the bulk material, their presence determined the formation of a residual phase with a perovskite-type structure.     

Three-dimensional tracking of fluorescent nanoparticles with subnanometer precision by use of off-focus imaging

We show that the position of a fluorescent nanoparticle can be measured in three dimensions with subnanometer precision and 100-ms temporal resolution by use of standard epifluorescence video imaging in off-focus mode. The particle can be tracked without feedback in a volume of at least 40 microm x 60 microm x 3 microm. With the technique presented, the structure-mobility relationship of 216-nm latex particle in a porous polymer network was studied in three dimensions.     

Essential points of conformal vector fields

An essential point of a conformal vector field ξ$\xi$ on a conformal manifold (M,c)$(M,c)$ is a point around which the local flow of ξ$\xi$ preserves no metric in the conformal class c$c$. It is well-known that a conformal vector field vanishes at each essential point. In this note we show that essential points are isolated. This is a generalization to higher dimensions of the fact that the zeros of a holomorphic function are isolated. As an application, we show that every connected component of the zero set of a conformal vector field is totally umbilical.     

Ultra-low on-resistance high voltage (>600 V) SOI MOSFET with a reduced cell pitch

A low specific on-resistance (R S,on) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) trench MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect-transistor) with a reduced cell pitch is proposed.The lateral MOSFET features multiple trenches:two oxide trenches in the drift region and a trench gate extended to the buried oxide (BOX) (SOI MT MOSFET).Firstly,the oxide trenches increase the average electric field strength along the x direction due to lower permittivity of oxide compared with that of Si;secondly,the oxide trenches cause multiple-directional depletion,which improves the electric field distribution and enhances the reduced surface field (RESURF) effect in the SOI layer.Both of them result in a high breakdown voltage (BV).Thirdly,the oxide trenches cause the drift region to be folded in the vertical direction,leading to a shortened cell pitch and a reduced R S,on.Fourthly,the trench gate extended to the BOX further reduces R S,on,owing to the electron accumulation layer.The BV of the MT MOSFET increases from 309 V for a conventional SOI lateral double diffused metal-oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) to 632 V at the same half cell pitch of 21.5 μm,and R S,on decreases from 419 m · cm 2 to 36.6 m · cm 2.The proposed structure can also help to dramatically reduce the cell pitch at the same breakdown voltage.     

The Distribution of the Free Path Lengths in the Periodic Two-Dimensional Lorentz Gas in the Small-Scatterer Limit

We study the free path length and the geometric free path length in the model of the periodic two-dimensional Lorentz gas (Sinai billiard). We give a complete and rigorous proof for the existence of their distributions in the small-scatterer limit and explicitly compute them. As a corollary one gets a complete proof for the existence of the constant term in the asymptotic formula of the KS entropy of the billiard map in this model, as conjectured by P. Dahlqvist.In memory of Walter Philipp     

The Statistics of the Trajectory of a Certain Billiard in a Flat Two-Torus

We consider a billiard in the punctured torus obtained by removing a small disk of radius >0 from the flat torus ², with trajectory starting from the center of the puncture. In this case the phase space is given by the range of the velocity only. Let (), and respectively R(), denote the first exit time (length of the trajectory), and respectively the number of collisions with the side cushions when ² is being identified with [0,1)². We prove that the probability measures on [0, ) associated with the random variables and R are weakly convergent as 0⁺ and explicitly compute the densities of the limits. Research partially supported by ANSTI grant C6189/2000.     

Validation of protein structural models using THz spectroscopy: a promising approach to solve three-dimensional structures

Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy is a promising technique for the study of protein structure and internal flexibility. Here, we used THz spectroscopy and molecular modeling for bovine serum albumin (BSA) structure investigation. BSA molecule was built using homology modeling methods and 30 different more relaxed models were obtained by molecular dynamics simulations of the hydrated protein. As the experimental and simulated THz spectra are linear, we compared them by comparing the slopes of the lines that fit them. Six BSA structures had slope values in the range given by the slope of the experimental spectrum $\pm $  0.2 and a total of sixteen BSA structures had slope values in the 0.6 interval near the experimental slope value. BSA average structures were calculated over the six and the sixteen identified BSA molecules. Based on the similarity with the crystal structure of BSA, we validated the average structure calculated over the sixteen BSA conformations. The comparison with the crystal structure showed that the structure validated using THz spectroscopy is a coarse model of BSA, as its root-mean-square deviation relative to the crystal structure is 1.9 Å. The regions from our model that present the highest deviation from the crystal structure are exterior loops. The results presented here show that using THz spectroscopy and molecular modeling is a promising approach to determine the structure of proteins.     

Soft X-ray resonant magnetic scattering studies on Fe/CoO exchange bias system

We have used soft X-ray resonant magnetic scattering (XRMS) to search for the presence of an effective ferromagnetic moment belonging to the antiferromagnetic (AF) layer which is in close contact with a ferromagnetic (F) layer. Taking advantage of the element specificity of the XRMS technique, we have measured hysteresis loops of both Fe and CoO layers of a CoO(40 Å)/Fe (150 Å) exchange bias bilayer. From these measurements we have concluded that the proximity of the F layer induces a magnetic moment in the AF layer. The F moment of the AF layer has two components: one is frozen and does not follow the applied magnetic field and the other one follows in phase the ferromagnetic magnetization of the F layer. The temperature dependence of the F components belonging to the AF layer is shown and discussed.