Crystallization behavior and thermal stability of poly(trimethylene terephthalate)/clay nanocomposites

Poly(trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT)/montmorillonite (MMT) nanocomposites were prepared by the solution intercalation method. Two different kinds of clay were organomodified with an intercalation agent of cetyltrimetylammonium chloride (CMC). X‐ray diffraction (XRD) indicated that the layers of MMT were intercalated by CMC, and interlayer spacing was a function of the cationic exchange capacity of clay. The XRD studies demonstrated that the interlayer spacing of organoclay in the nanocomposites depends on the amount of organoclay. From the results of differential scanning calorimetric analysis, it was found that clay behaves as a nucleating agent and enhances the crystallization rate of PTT. The maximum enhancement of the crystallization rate for the nanocomposites was observed in nanocomposites containing about 1 wt % organoclay with a range of 1–15 wt %. From thermogravimetric analysis, we found that the thermal stability of the nanocomposites was enhanced by the addition of 1–10 wt % organoclay. According to transmission electron microscopy, the organoclay particle was highly dispersed in the PTT matrix without a large agglomeration of particles for a low organoclay content (5 wt %). However, an agglomerated structure did form in the PTT matrix at a 15 wt % organoclay content. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 2902–2910, 2003     

Monolithic two-dimensional surface emitting arrays of GaAs/AlGaAs lasers

Surface emitting lasers are of interest for various applications such as monolithic two-dimensional arrays and optical interconnects for integrated optics. Moreover, surface emitting lasers offer the advantage of wafer processing and testing. Several approaches for achieving surface emission are described. In addition, TRW s fabrication of a large monolithic two dimensional array of GaAs/AlGaAs surface emitting lasers which contains a total of 100 lasers is reported.     

Near- and mid-infrared spectroscopy of sol–gel derived ormosils: vinyl and phenyl silicates

The suitability of ormosils as photonic materials was investigated. Vinyl and phenyl silicates were synthesised below 100°C. A detailed assignment of mid-infrared vibrational absorption bands is given. This allowed assignment of overtone and combination bands in the near-infrared region and an assessment of residual water contamination, which is low and can be expelled by evacuation. These ormosils have low intrinsic and extrinsic optical absorption in the visible spectral region and at useful wavelengths in the near-infrared.     

Conversion of furans into gamma-hydroxybutenolides: use of sodium chlorite

3,4-disubstituted furans are converted into gamma-hydroxy-butenolides by treatment with NaClO(2) in aqueous EtOH containing NaH(2)PO(4).     

Spanning Trails Connecting Given Edges

Suppose that is the set of connected graphs such that a graph G if and only if G satisfies both (F1) if X is an edge cut of G with |X|3, then there exists a vertex v of degree |X| such that X consists of all the edges incident with v in G, and (F2) for every v of degree 3, v lies in a k-cycle of G, where 2k3.In this paper, we show that if G and (G)3, then for every pair of edges e,fE(G), G has a trail with initial edge e and final edge f which contains all vertices of G. This result extends several former results.     

High quality InAlN/GaN heterostructures grown on sapphire by pulsed metal organic chemical vapor deposition

High quality InAlN/GaN heterostructures are successfully grown on the (0 0 0 1) sapphire substrate by pulsed metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The InAlN barrier layer with an indium composition of 17% is observed to be nearly lattice matched to GaN layer, and a smooth surface morphology can be obtained with root mean square roughness of 0.3 nm and without indium droplets and phase separation. The 50 mm InAlN/GaN heterostructure wafer exhibits a mobility of 1402 cm²/V s with a sheet carrier density of 2.01×10¹³  cm^?2, and a low average sheet resistance of 234 Ω/cm² with a sheet resistance nonuniformity of 1.22%. Compared with the conventional continual growth method, PMOCVD reduces the growth temperature of the InAlN layer and the Al related prereaction in the gas phase, and consequently enhances the surface migration, and improves the crystallization quality. Furthermore, indium concentration of InAlN layer can be controlled by adjusting the pulse time ratio of TMIn to TMAl in a unit cycle, the growth temperature and pressure, as well as the InAlN layer thickness by the number of unit cycle repeats.     

A Classification of Horizontally Homothetic Submersions from Space Forms of Nonnegative Curvature

In this paper, it is proved that for n 2, any horizontallyhomothetic submersion : Rⁿ⁺¹ (Nⁿ, h) is a Riemannian submersionup to a homothety. It is also shown that if : Sⁿ⁺¹ (Nⁿ, h)is a horizontally homothetic submersion, then n = 2m, (Nⁿ, h)is isometric to CP^m and, up to a homothety, is a standard Hopffibration S^2m+1 CP^m. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification53C20, 53C12.     

Ultra-low-loss inverted taper coupler for silicon-on-insulator ridge waveguide

An ultra-low-loss coupler for interfacing a silicon-on-insulator ridge waveguide and a single-mode fiber in both polarizations is presented. The inverted taper coupler, embedded in a polymer waveguide, is optimized for both the transverse-magnetic and transverse-electric modes through tapering the width of the silicon-on-insulator waveguide from 450 nm down to less than 15 nm applying a thermal oxidation process. Two inverted taper couplers are integrated with a 3-mm long silicon-on-insulator ridge waveguide in the fabricated sample. The measured coupling losses of the inverted taper coupler for transverse-magnetic and transverse-electric modes are ∼ 0.36 dB and ∼ 0.66 dB per connection, respectively.     

Multifold enhancement of quantum dot luminescence in plasmonic metamaterials

We report that hybridizing semiconductor quantum dots with plasmonic metamaterial leads to a multifold intensity increase and narrowing of their photoluminescence spectrum. The luminescence enhancement is a clear manifestation of the cavity quantum electrodynamics Purcell effect and can be controlled by the metamaterial's design. This observation is an essential step towards understanding loss compensation in plasmonic metamaterials with gain media and for developing metamaterial-enhanced gain media.     

Classification of solutions for an integral equation

Let n be a positive integer and let 0 < α < n. Consider the integral equation We prove that every positive regular solution u(x) is radially symmetric and monotone about some point and therefore assumes the form with some constant c = c(n, α) and for some t > 0 and x₀ ? ?ⁿ. This solves an open problem posed by Lieb 12 . The technique we use is the method of moving planes in an integral form, which is quite different from those for differential equations. From the point of view of general methodology, this is another interesting part of the paper. Moreover, we show that the family of well‐known semilinear partial differential equations is equivalent to our integral equation (0.1), and we thus classify all the solutions of the PDEs. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.