High quality a-Si film produced by horizontal plasma furnace

A series of investigation on the a-Si film quality in a p-i-n junction has been made by employing the separated three chamber system of horizontal plasma mode. A clear improvement of film quality has been experimentally verified in a-Si films prepared by this system as compared with those by the single chamber system. On the basis of these investigation, a-SiC/a-Si/μc-Si heterojunction solar cells having more than 9% conversion efficiency have been developed.     

A novel double-pulse laser plasma spectroscopic technique for H analysis in metal samples utilizing transversely excited atmospheric-pressure CO2 laser-induced metastable He atoms

The analysis of hydrogen in a metal sample (zircaloy-4), which is usually difficult to perform using conventional laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) techniques, has been achieved using a double-pulse technique under He gas at atmospheric pressure. In this technique, a transversely excited atmospheric-pressure (TEA) CO₂ laser (1.5 J, 200 ns) was focused onto the metal surface to induce a strong He gas plasma whilst simultaneously focussing a Nd-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser (120 mJ, 8 ns), synchronized with the TEA CO2 laser, onto the metal to ablate atoms into the resulting He gas plasma. The emission spectrum obtained shows a narrow H linewidth with low background intensity and long lifetime emission, thereby indicating that excitation takes place via metastable He atoms. The H emission from H₂O can be suppressed by a careful pretreatment involving heating the sample in a vacuum chamber.     

Hydriodic Acid‐Mediated Cyclization of α‐Substituted Secondary 2‐Ethenylbenzamides: Synthesis of 2‐Substituted 2,3‐Dihydro‐3,3‐dimethyl‐1H‐isoindol‐1‐ones and 3,3‐Disubstituted (E)‐1‐(Arylimino)‐1,3‐dihydroisobenzofurans

A new and facile method for the preparation of 2‐substituted 2,3‐dihydro‐3,3‐dimethyl‐1H‐isoindol‐1‐ones 3 and 3,3‐disubstituted (E)‐1‐(arylimino)‐1,3‐dihydroisobenzofurans 6 has been developed. Thus, treatment of N‐alkyl(or aryl)‐2‐(1‐methylethen‐1‐yl)benzamides 2 with concentrated hydriodic acid (HI) in MeCN at room temperature afforded 3 . Similar treatment of N‐aryl‐2‐(1‐phenylethen‐1‐yl)benzamide 5 with concentrated HI at 0° afforded 6 .     

Rhodium-catalyzed reaction of terminal alkynes with allylamine leading to (E)-3-alkylidene N-heterocycles

Terminal alkynes react with allylamine in the presence of a RhCl(PPh3)3 catalyst to give (E)-3-alkylidene-3,4-dihydro-2H-pyrroles. The products consist of two molecules of alkyne and one molecule of allylamine. Although dimers, trimers, and oligomers of alkynes are also obtained as byproducts, the addition of various ammonium salts to the reaction suppresses such oligomerization, resulting in an increase in product.     

Novel seed for batch cold seeding production of GdBaCuO bulks

A batch process for fabrication of GdBa₂Cu₃O_y pellets in air was developed. The samples were melt-processed using the cold-seeding method and as seeds Nd-123 thin films grown on MgO crystals. We used a self-made Gd-123 and Gd-211 powders mixed with 0.1 wt.% of Pt. Up to 1–1.5 kg of melt-grown Gd-123 bulks can be prepared in one process. XRD results confirmed that all the bulks are c-axis oriented. The superconducting and magnetic performance of the pellets is checked on several small test samples cut out at various standard positions within the bulk. The values are quite uniform and performance is similar to the oxygen-controlled melt-grown Gd-123 samples. The average trapped field at 77 K in the 24 mm diameter samples batch lies between 0.8 and 0.9 T. The maximum trapped field of 1 T at the sample surface was the highest value reported so far for Gd-123 single grains processed in air. The present results prove that a high-performance good-quality LREBa₂Cu₃O_y material can scale up from laboratory conditions to industrial production.