Chemical bonding variations and electron-phonon interactions

A new functional, Psib(Phi), of an electronic state in solids based on the bonding indicator B(tau,tau') in terms of Mulliken's electron partitioning approach has been introduced. Using Psib(Phi), the bonding variations of an electronic state caused by electron-phonon coupling can be studied. With this proposed approach, the differences between the "flat band" states for Hg in coupling to the phonons and the peaklike structure of electron-phonon coupling constants in the q space are well explained.     

Matter-wave interferometer for large molecules

We demonstrate a near-field Talbot-Lau interferometer for C70 fullerene molecules. Such interferometers are particularly suitable for larger masses. Using three free-standing gold gratings of 1 microm period and a transversally incoherent but velocity-selected molecular beam, we achieve an interference fringe visibility of 40% with high count rate. Both the high visibility and its velocity dependence are in good agreement with a quantum simulation that takes into account the van der Waals interaction of the molecules with the gratings and are in striking contrast to a classical moiré model.     

Indices de refraction et birefringence spontanee de l'orthophosphate de plomb ferroelastique

Refraction indices at room temperature and the temperature dependence of the spontaneous birefringence have been measured in ferroelastic lead orthophosphate. The 180°C phase transition in this material has been determined as a thermodynamic first order transition.     

Parallel synthesis and high throughput dissolution testing of biodegradable polyanhydride copolymers

We have demonstrated that polycondensation reactions can be carried out in a combinatorial fashion and that the polymer library can be screened at high throughput using a rapid prototyping technique to fabricate multiwell substrates. A linearly varying compositional library of 100 different biodegradable polyanhydride random copolymers that are promising carriers for controlled drug delivery was designed, fabricated, and characterized by IR microscopy within a few hours. The polyanhydride copolymer library was based on 1,6-bis(p-carboxyphenoxy)hexane (CPH) and sebacic anhydride (SA) and was characterized with infrared microspectroscopy to determine the composition within each well. Since degradation and release rates depend on copolymer composition, we also developed new high-throughput methods to investigate drug release from this library of copolymers by designing specific wells for each task. A subset of this library was chosen, and a substrate was designed and fabricated to enable the synthesis and monitoring of dye dissolution from a range of polyanhydride copolymers in a parallel fashion using a CCD camera. Multisample substrates were fabricated with a novel rapid prototyping method that consists of an organic solvent-resistant array of 10 x 10 microwells of 2-muL volume each. The libraries were deposited with a custom-built liquid dispensing system consisting of a series of computer-controlled volume-dispensing pumps and XYZ motion stages. The parallel dye dissolution study displayed a decreasing rate of release with increasing CPH content. This result agrees with previously published data for dye release from poly(CPH-co-SA) copolymers. The methodology described in this work is amenable to numerous applications in the arenas of high-throughput polymer synthesis and characterization.     

Estimation of frequency-averaged loss factors by the power injection and the impulse response decay methods

This paper describes a comparison, both analytically and experimentally, between two widely used loss factor estimation techniques frequently used in statistical energy analysis. Analytical models of simple spring/mass/damper systems were created to compare frequency-averaged loss factor values from the single subsystem power injection method and the impulse response decay method. The parameters of the analytical models were varied to study the effects of the total number of modes, amount of damping, location of modes within frequency bands, and the width of the frequency bands on loss factor estimation. The analytical study shows that both methods give accurate loss factor values as long as the damping values remain realistic for linear systems and at least one modal resonance is present in each frequency band. These analytical results were verified experimentally by measuring the loss factors of simple steel plates, with and without damping treatments applied.