Titania-Doped Silica Fibers Prepared by Electrospinning and Sol-Gel Process

Titania-doped silica fibers were prepared by electrospinning of the sol of silica containing titania. The electrospun fibers had ribbon type morphology. The fibers had significant quantities of hydroxyl groups of Si—OH and Ti—OH. The fibers did not have crystalline structure. Diameters of the fibers were reduced by solvent evaporation and calcination. The hydroxyl groups on the fibers disappeared by calcination. The hydroxyl groups, M—OH (MSi, Ti) were changed to M—O—M by intermolecular and intramolecular condensation reactions.     

The influence of solvent polarity and metalation on energy and electron transfer in porphyrin-phthalocyanine heterotrimers

Heteroporphyrin and -phthalocyanine arrays represent an attractive class of light harvesters and charge-separation systems exhibiting an easy route of synthesis and high chemical stability. In the present work, we report the results of photophysical investigations of two novel non-sandwich-type porphyrin-phthalocyanine heterotriads, in which two meso-tetraphenylporphyrin rings (H2TPP or ZnTPP) are linked to the central silicon atom of a silicon(IV) phthalocyanine core. It was found that the photophysical properties of the triads (H2Tr and ZnTr) in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and toluene are strongly affected by two different types of interaction between the porphyrin (P) and the phthalocyanine (Pc) parts, namely excitation energy transfer (EET) and photoinduced charge transfer. The first process results in appearance of the Pc fluorescence when the P-part is initially excited, and plays a dominant role in fast depopulation of the first excited singlet state of the P moiety. If the first excited singlet state of the Pc-part is populated (either directly or via EET), it undergoes fast depopulation by hole transfer (HT) to the charge-separated (CS) state. In polar DMF, the CS state is the lowest excited state, and the charge recombination occurs directly to the ground state. Using transient absorption spectroscopy, the lifetime of the CS state was estimated to be 30 and 20 ps for H2Tr and ZnTr, respectively. In nonpolar toluene, the energy gap between the first excited singlet state of the Pc-part and the CS state is very small, and back HT occurs in both triads, resulting in appearance of "delayed fluorescence" of the Pc-part with a decay time similar to the lifetime of the CS state (190 and 280 ps for H2Tr and ZnTr, respectively). Since the energy of the CS state of ZnTr in toluene is lower than that of H2Tr, the probability of back HT for ZnTr is lower. This was clearly proved by decay-associated fluorescence spectral measurements.     

Norm or Numerical Radius Attaining Multilinear Mappings and Polynomials

We study the denseness or norm of numerical radius attainingmultilinear mappings and polynomials between Banach spaces,and examine the relations between norms and numerical radiiof such mappings.     

Vortex pairing in an axisymmetric jet using two-frequency acoustic forcing at low to moderate strouhal numbers

 Hot-wire measurement and multi-smoke wire flow visualization method are employed to study vortex pairing in the jet column mode under two-frequency forcing with controlled initial phase differences. For the range of 0.3<St _D <0.6, vortex pairing can be easily controlled by means of the fundamental and its subharmonic forcing with varying initial phase differences. As stable vortex pairing dominates, the variation of the subharmonic component with the initial phase difference changes from a sine shape to a cusp-like shape. The harmonics of the subharmonic also show similar trends. The detuning induces the amplitude and phase modulations of the u-signal in the time trace and the sideband growth in the spectra. The u-signal reflects the subharmonic variation with the initial phase difference in its envelope. For 0.6<St _D <0.9, non-pairing advection of vortices due to improper phase difference is sometimes observed under single-frequency forcing. In this case, vortex pairing can be made to occur by the addition of a subharmonic with very small amplitude. As the initial level of this subharmonic is increased, the onset position of vortex pairing moves upstream. In this range, the initial phase difference is not an effective parameter in controlling vortex pairing. Received: 22 May 1997 / Accepted: 16 October 1997     

Evaluation of alumina slurry dispersion by nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation as a comparison to conventional dispersion evaluation methods

In this paper, we evaluated the particle dispersion degree of alumina slurry containing a dispersant by solvent nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation and compared it with conventional dispersion evaluation methods such as viscosity, particle size, and sedimentation height measurements. The dispersion of slurry was evaluated via numerical analysis of the transverse relaxation time (T₂). The effect of the changes in different parameters of the experiment in terms of milling time, solid loading, and dispersant amount was investigated by NMR relaxation as well as conventional methods. The results of NMR relaxation measurements revealed that T₂ correlates well with other dispersion evaluation methods; thus, it is an efficient technique to evaluate the dispersion of alumina slurry, specifically, when studying the effect of the change in milling time and dispersion amount.     

Structural and optical properties of In0.5Ga0.5As/GaAs quantum dots in an In0.1Ga0.9As well using repeated depositions of InAs/GaAs short-period superlattices for the application of optical communication

We report structural and optical properties of In_0.5Ga_0.5As/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) in a 100 Å-thick In_0.1Ga_0.9As well grown by repeated depositions of InAs/GaAs short-period superlattices with atomic force microscope, transmission electron microscope (TEM) and photoluminescence (PL) measurement. The QDs in an InGaAs well grown at 510 °C were studied as a function of n repeated deposition of 1 monolayer thick InAs and 1 monolayer thick GaAs for n=5–10. The heights, widths and densities of dots are in the range of 6–22.0 nm, 40–85 nm, and 1.6–1.1×10¹⁰/cm², respectively, as n changes from 5 to 10 with strong alignment along [1 −1 0] direction. Flat and pan-cake-like shape of the QDs in a well is found in TEM images. The bottoms of the QDs are located lower than the center of the InGaAs well. This reveals that there was intermixing—interdiffusion—of group III materials between the InGaAs QD and the InGaAs well during growth. All reported dots show strong 300 K-PL spectrum, and 1.276 μm (FWHM: 32.3 meV) of 300 K-PL peak was obtained in case of 7 periods of the QDs in a well, which is useful for the application to optical communications.     

Non-linear transport by solitons in nanofibers of polymers in high magnetic field

Nonlinear local excitations like solitons, polarons, and bipolarons are known to be responsible for physical properties of conducting polymers. Recent experiments on nano-fibers in high electric and magnetic fields provide a further insight by demonstrating an effect of vanishing magnetoconductance (MC) in the polyacetylene (PA)—in contrast to other polymers. Here we present new experimental data and describe the theoretical model based on notion of solitons—dimerization kinks which can carry either the spin or the charge; they are allowed only in the PA with its degenerate ground state. The solitons experience a confinement force due to the interchange coupling which is erased by the electric field and disappears above critical field strength. The unbinding by tunneling allows for the transport of individual solitons, which sweeps off the spins residing at electronic intragap states associated with polarons, hence the vanishing MC.     

Tenth order mock theta functions in Ramanujan's lost notebook (IV)

Ramanujan's lost notebook contains many results on mock theta functions. In particular, the lost notebook contains eight identities for tenth order mock theta functions. Previously the author proved the first six of Ramanujan's tenth order mock theta function identities. It is the purpose of this paper to prove the seventh and eighth identities of Ramanujan's tenth order mock theta function identities which are expressed by mock theta functions and a definite integral. L. J. Mordell's transformation formula for the definite integral plays a key role in the proofs of these identities. Also, the properties of modular forms are used for the proofs of theta function identities.