Recent Developments in Conjugated Polymer Based Plastic Solar Cells

Summary.  Recent developments on photovoltaic elements based on solid state composites of conjugated, semiconducting polymers mixed with buckminsterfullerene are reviewed. The photoinduced charge transfer from donor-type semiconducting conjugated polymers onto acceptor-type conjugated polymers or acceptor molecules such as buckminsterfullerene is reversible, ultrafast (within 100 fs) with a quantum efficiency approaching unity, and the charge separated state is metastable (up to ms at 80 K). This phenomenon of photoinduced electron transfer leads to a number of potentially interesting applications which include, among others, sensitization of the photoconductivity, reverse saturable absorption (optical limiting), and photovoltaic phenomena. Recent studies on the realization of photovoltaic elements with 3% power conversion efficiency are reported. Received December 19, 2000. Accepted December 22, 2000     

A calixpyridinium-pyranine complex as a selective anion sensing assembly via the indicator displacement strategy

The recently reported calixpyridinium tetracation is shown to be very well-suited for anion sensing via the indicator displacement strategy. A very strong binding interaction between the positively charged receptor and the fluorescent pH indicator pyranine (8-hydroxy-1,3,6-pyrenetrisulfonate) requires an anionic guest of comparable negative charge for effective indicator displacement. Thus, selective and sensitive signalling of ATP is achieved in aqueous solutions.     

A Convenient Synthesis of Bisbenzimidazoles from Iminoester Hydrochlorides Via Microwave Technique

A simple and practical method has been developed for the synthesis of bisbenzimidazoles. Iminoester hydrochlorides of phenylacetic acids were used as intermediates in this reaction with 3,3′‐diaminobenzidine under microwave irradiation leading to the products with good yields and in short reaction times. This method can be a general technique for the synthesis of bisbenzimidazoles.     

Irregular polyomino tiling via integer programming with application in phased array antenna design

A polyomino is a generalization of the domino and is created by connecting a fixed number of unit squares along edges. Tiling a region with a given set of polyominoes is a hard combinatorial optimization problem. This paper is motivated by a recent application of irregular polyomino tilings in the design of phased array antennas. Specifically, we formulate the irregular polyomino tiling problem as a nonlinear exact set covering model, where irregularity is incorporated into the objective function using the information-theoretic entropy concept. An exact solution method based on a branch-and-price framework along with novel branching and lower-bounding schemes is proposed. The developed method is shown to be effective for small- and medium-size instances of the problem. For large-size instances, efficient heuristics and approximation algorithms are provided. Encouraging computational results including phased array antenna simulations are reported.     

Conventional and microwave irradiated synthesis,biological activity evaluation and molecular docking studies of highly substituted piperazine-azole hybrids

Azole derivatives(3,6) obtained starting from 1-(2-methoxyphenyl) piperazine were converted to the corresponding Mannich bases containing β-lactame or flouroquinolone core via a one pot three component reaction.The synthesis of conazole analogues was carried out starting from triazoles by three steps.Reactions were carried out under conventional and microwave mediated conditions.All the newly synthesized compounds were screened for their antimicrobial,enzyme inhibition and antioxidant activity,and most of them displayed good-moderate activity.Binding affinities and non-covalent interactions between enzyme-ligand complexes were predicted with molecular docking method at molecular level.Docking results complemented well the experimental results on α-glucosidase and urease inhibitory effects of the compounds.Higher binding affinities and much more interaction networks were observed for active compounds in contrary to inactive ones.It was predicted with the docking studies that triazole and anisole moieties in the structure of the synthesized compounds contributed to the stabilization of corresponding enzymes through noncovalent interactions.     

Recent Developments in Conjugated Polymer Based Plastic Solar Cells

 Recent developments on photovoltaic elements based on solid state composites of conjugated, semiconducting polymers mixed with buckminsterfullerene are reviewed. The photoinduced charge transfer from donor-type semiconducting conjugated polymers onto acceptor-type conjugated polymers or acceptor molecules such as buckminsterfullerene is reversible, ultrafast (within 100 fs) with a quantum efficiency approaching unity, and the charge separated state is metastable (up to ms at 80 K). This phenomenon of photoinduced electron transfer leads to a number of potentially interesting applications which include, among others, sensitization of the photoconductivity, reverse saturable absorption (optical limiting), and photovoltaic phenomena. Recent studies on the realization of photovoltaic elements with 3% power conversion efficiency are reported.     

Magnetization of Gd diffused YBa2Cu3O7-x superconductor：Experiment and theory

The magnetization of Gd diffused YBa2Cu3O7-x is measured by a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) at selected temperatures (5, 25, 50, 77 K). The experimental results for the magnetization are analyzed in the critical state framework involving Kim-Anderson field dependence Jc(H)=Jc0/(1+|H|/H0)n of critical current density and equilibrium magnetization M eq . It is found that the inclusion of the equilibrium magnetization becomes more important at higher temperatures. At 77 K, the shape of the isothermal M-H hysteresis curve is governed by the equilibrium magnetization. Some superconducting parameters are determined by fitting the calculated curves to the experimental data.