Synthesis of Soluble,Alkyne‐Substituted Trideca‐ and Hexadeca‐Starphenes

Two literature‐known TIPS‐ethynyl‐dibromoacenes were prepared and employed to synthesize cyclotrimers by using Yamamoto coupling conditions. Two large, well‐soluble starphenes were isolated in good yields. Crystallographic characterization verifies the triangular shape and shows significant differences in crystal packing.     

Modification of the surface state of rough substrates by two different varnishes and influence on the reflected light

Modification of the visual appearance when a rough surface is covered by a varnish is mostly attributed to the levelling of the substrate surface, which depends on the molecular weight of the varnish. The topography of varnished surfaces, however, has never been measured directly. Surfaces of varnishes applied over glass substrates of varying roughness were studied, therefore, using mechanical profilometry. Two different varnishes made with a low and a high molecular weight resin were studied. Both varnishes lower the r.m.s. roughness of the substrates and filter the high spatial frequencies. These results are amplified for the varnish containing the low molecular weight resin. The light reflected by the varnished samples is modelled from these topographical data. Its angular distribution, calculated from the probability density of slopes is presented, taking into account separately the air/varnish and the varnish/substrate interfaces. These analyses are presented in a back-scattering configuration. They show that varnishing significantly reduces the angular width of the reflected light and that this effect is magnified for the low molecular weight resin. Modelling furthermore shows that the influence of the roughness of the varnish/substrate interface is negligible in the total reflected light.     

Obtaining certificates for complete synchronisation of coupled oscillators

In this paper, we provide a novel reformulation of sufficient conditions that guarantee global complete synchronisation of coupled identical oscillators to make them computationally implementable. To this end, we use semidefinite programming techniques. For the first time, we can efficiently search for and obtain certificates for synchronisability and, additionally, also optimise associated cost functions. In this paper, a Lyapunov-like function (certificate) is used to certify that all trajectories of a networked system consisting of coupled dynamical systems will eventually converge towards a common one, which implies synchronisation. Moreover, we establish new conditions for complete synchronisation, which are based on the so called Bendixson’s Criterion for higher dimensional systems. This leads to major improvements on the lower bound of the coupling constant that guarantees global complete synchronisation. Importantly, the certificates are obtained by analysing the connection network and the model representing an individual system only. In order to illustrate the strength of our method we apply it to a system of coupled identical Lorenz oscillators and to coupled van der Pol oscillators.     

Oxidation kinetics of thin copper films and wetting behaviour of copper and Organic Solderability Preservatives (OSP) with lead-free solder

The oxide formation on thin copper films deposited on Si wafer was studied by XPS, SEM and Sequential Electrochemical Reduction Analysis SERA. The surfaces were oxidized in air with a reflow oven as used in electronic assembly at temperatures of 100 °C, 155 °C, 200 °C, 230 °C and 260 °C. The SERA analyses detected only the formation of Cu₂O but the XPS analysis done for the calibration of the SERA equipment proved also the presence of a CuO layer smaller than 2 nm above the Cu₂O oxide. The oxide growth follows a power-law dependence on time within this temperature range and an activation energy of 33.1 kJ/mol was obtained. The wettability of these surfaces was also determined by measuring the contact angle between solder and copper substrate after the soldering process. A correlation between oxide thickness and wetting angle was established. It was found that the wetting is acceptable only when the oxide thickness is smaller than 16 nm. An activation energy of 27 kJ/mol was acquired for the spreading of lead free solder on oxidized copper surfaces.From wetting tests on copper surfaces protected by Organic Solderability Preservatives (OSP), it was possible to calculate the activation energy for the thermal decomposition of these protective layers.     

A topological investigation of the Quantum Adiabatic Phase

Using algebraic topology, the appearance of the Quantum Adiabatic Phase over various parameter manifolds is investigated. The relation with nontrivial gauge bundles (both abelian and non-abelian) is studied and it is shown that the phase appears as a result of homotopically non-trivial mappings, induced by the Hamiltonian in the space of wave-functions. The cohomological picture is developed and some topological considerations concerning field theory anomalies in the Hamiltonian picture are presented. A proof of the Nielsen-Ninomiya theorem is given inspired from the notion of the adiabatic phase.Work supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DEAC 03-81-ER 40050     

Equivalence of Ensembles,Condensation and Glassy Dynamics in the Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonian

Journal of Statistical Physics - We study mathematically the equilibrium properties of the Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonian in the limit of a vanishing hopping amplitude. This system conserves the...     

Unexpected Hole Doping of Graphene by Osmium Adatoms

The electronic transport of monolayer graphene devices is studied before and after in situ deposition of a sub-monolayer coating of osmium adatoms. Unexpectedly, and unlike all other metallic adatoms studied to date, osmium adatoms shift the charge neutrality point to more positive gate voltages. This indicates that osmium adatoms act as electron acceptors and thus leave the graphene hole-doped. Analysis of transport data suggest that Os adatoms behave as charged impurity scatterers, albeit with a surprisingly low charge-doping efficiency. The charge neutrality point of graphene is found to vary non-monotonically with gate voltage as the sample is warmed to room temperature, suggesting that osmium diffuses on the surface but is not completely removed.