Far infrared optical properties of high Tc superconductors LnBa2Cu3Ox (Ln=Y, Ho, Er, Sm, GD, Dy, Eu, Pr)

Systematic measurements of the far infrared reflection spectra of high T_c superconductors LnBa₂Cu₃O_x for various Ln as shown in the title were performed. Infrared reflection spectra of tetragonal LnBa₂Cu₃O_x exhibit Reststrahlen vibration near 640, 590, 530, 355 and 250 cm^–1, common to these materials, and the spectra of the orthorhombic LnBa₂Cu₃O_x exhibit the characteristics of free carriers except PrBa₂Cu₃O_x with weak phonon structures near 617, 570, 317 and 285 cm^–1. PrBa₂Cu₃O_x is not a superconductor, and it has no characteristic broad band due to free carriers for all x in the range of 6 to 7. Lattice dynamical calculation was performed by the use of the shell model and the calculated results express quite well the characteristic features of infrared experiments.     

A first high enantiocontrol of an asymmetric tertiary carbon center attached with a fluoroalkyl group via Rh(I)-catalyzed conjugate addition reaction

Treatment of fluoroalkylated electron-deficient olefins with various boronic acids in the presence of a catalytic amount of Rh(I) coordinated with (S)-BINAP in toluene/H₂O at the reflux temperature for 3 h gave the corresponding conjugate addition products with high enantioselectivity in high yields.     

m × n] metal ion arrays templated by coordination cages

Three-dimensional m × n arrays of metal ion clusters can be assembled as aromatic stacks of planar polynuclear metal complexes within columnar coordination cages. The polynuclear complexes and cage height program the final array structures of the metal ion clusters. Cyclic trinuclear Au(I) complexes (m = 3) assembled into trigonal prismatic arrays (n = 1-3) within the cages and the array structures were clearly shown by X-ray crystallographic analysis. A silver-sandwiched hetero-Au(3)-Ag-Au(3) cluster was also prepared by treating a hexanuclear Au(3)-Au(3) cluster with Ag(I) ion.     

Pneumatic handling of droplets on-demand on a microfluidic device for seamless processing of reaction and electrophoretic separation

Sequential operations of pre-separation reaction process by picoliter droplets and following electrophoretic separation process were realized in a single microfluidic device with pneumatic handling of liquid. The developed device consists of a fluidic chip made of PDMS, an electrode substrate, and a temperature control substrate on which thin film heater/sensor structures are fabricated. Liquid handling, including introduction of liquid samples, droplet generation, and merging of droplets, was implemented by pneumatic manipulation through microcapillary vent structures, allowing air to pass and stop liquid flow. Since the pneumatic manipulations are conducted in a fully automated manner by using a programmable air pressure control system, the user simply has to load liquid samples on each liquid port of the device. Droplets of 420 pL were generated with an accuracy of ± 2 pL by applying droplet generation pressure in the range of 40-100 kPa. As a demonstration, a binding reaction of a 15 mer ssDNA with a peptide nucleic acid oligomer used as an oligoprobe followed by denaturing electrophoresis to discriminate a single-base substitution was performed within 1.5 min. By exploiting the droplet-on-demand capability of the device, the influence of various factors, such as reaction time, mixing ratio and droplet configurations on the ssDNA-peptide nucleic acid binding reaction in the droplet-based process, was studied toward realization of a rapid detection method to discriminate rapid single-base substitution.     

Efficient decoherence-free entanglement distribution over lossy quantum channels

We propose and demonstrate a scheme for boosting the efficiency of entanglement distribution based on a decoherence-free subspace over lossy quantum channels. By using backward propagation of a coherent light, our scheme achieves an entanglement-sharing rate that is proportional to the transmittance T of the quantum channel in spite of encoding qubits in multipartite systems for the decoherence-free subspace. We experimentally show that highly entangled states, which can violate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality, are distributed at a rate proportional to T.     

Two-dimensional and three-dimensional Fermi surfaces of superconducting BaFe2(As(1-x)P(x))2 and their nesting properties revealed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

We have studied the three-dimensional shapes of the Fermi surfaces (FSs) of BaFe(2)(As(1-x)P(x))(2) (x=0.38), where superconductivity is induced by isovalent P substitution and by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Moderately strong electron mass enhancement has been identified for both the electron and hole FSs. Among two observed hole FSs, the nearly two-dimensional one shows good nesting with the outer two-dimensional electron FS, but its orbital character is different from the outer electron FS. The three-dimensional hole FS shows poor nesting with the electron FSs. The present results suggest that the three dimensionality and the difference in the orbital character weaken FS nesting while partial nesting among the outer electron FSs of d(xy) character and/or that within the three-dimensional hole FS becomes dominant, which may lead to the nodal superconductivity.     

Gasification characteristics of woody biomass in the packed bed reactor

Gasification technology is recognized as one of the possibilities for utilizing biomass effectively. This study focused on woody biomass gasification fundamentals, using a bench-scale packed-bed reactor. In this experiment, pellets of black pine were gasified, using air as the oxidizing agent. Gasification tests were carried out under both updraft and downdraft conditions. Temperature distributions and compositions of syngas inside the gasifier were continuously monitored during gasification experiments at several ports on the wall of the reactor. The syngas at the exit of the gasifier was also sampled to estimate the amount of tar. Lower heating values of the syngas under updraft and downdraft conditions were 4.8 and 3.8 MJ/m³N, respectively. It was easier to control the height of the packed bed under the downdraft condition than under the updraft condition. Under the updraft condition, a bridging phenomenon occurred. Tar generation under the downdraft condition was lower than that under the updraft condition. This is because tar passes through a partial combustion zone or higher temperature zone in the downdraft gasifier.     

Evolution of the Kondo effect in a quantum dot probed by shot noise

We measure the current and shot noise in a quantum dot in the Kondo regime to address the nonequilibrium properties of the Kondo effect. By systematically tuning the temperature and gate voltages to define the level positions in the quantum dot, we observe an enhancement of the shot noise as temperature decreases below the Kondo temperature, which indicates that the two-particle scattering process grows as the Kondo state evolves. Below the Kondo temperature, the Fano factor defined at finite temperature is found to exceed the expected value of unity from the noninteracting model, reaching 1.8±0.2.