High sensitivity detection of trace impurities in the presence of other impurity species: The shallow thermal donors in Cz-Silicon

The combination of the techniques of Fourier transform spectroscopy (FTS) with the highly sensitive method of photothermal ionization spectroscopy (PTIS) opens up new possibilities for the investigation of trace impurities in semiconductors. The interpretation of the PTIS spectra when many donor species contribute to the photoconductivity is discussed with reference to the case of the shallow thermal donors in silicon.     

The influence of background power on the performance of an ideal bolometer

The effects of radiant power loading on the performance of an ideal bolometer are analysed. The operation of the bolometer is characterized in terms of dimensionless parameters which correspond to the temperature sensitivity of the thermometric material, the electrical bias point and the amount of optical power loading. Expressions are derived for the zero frequency NEP and responsivity. Examples are given for the case of a bolometer cooled to 100 mK and used for ground-based astronomical photometry at submillimetre wavelengths.     

Solution-state dynamic nuclear polarization at high magnetic field

The goal of dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is to enhance NMR signals by transferring electron spin polarization to the nuclei. Although mechanisms such as the solid effect and thermal mixing can be used for DNP in the solid state, currently, the only practical mechanism in solutions is the Overhauser effect (OE), which usually arises due to dipolar relaxation between electrons and the nuclei. At magnetic fields greater than approximately 1 T, dipolar relaxation does not result in a useful enhancement and therefore the conventional wisdom is that DNP should not work in solutions at high magnetic fields. However, scalar relaxation due to time-dependent scalar couplings has a different magnetic field dependence and can lead to substantial OE enhancements. At room temperature and at a magnetic field of 5 T (211 MHz for protons, 140 GHz for electrons), we have observed that scalar relaxation between electrons and nuclei results in NMR signal enhancements of 180, 42, -36, and 8, for 31P, 13C, 15N, and 19F, respectively.     

Electron solvation in water clusters following charge transfer from iodide

The dynamics following charge transfer to solvent from iodide to a water cluster are studied using time-resolved photoelectron imaging of I-(H2O)n and I-(D2O)n clusters with n< or =28. The results show spontaneous conversion, on a time scale of approximately 1 ps, from water cluster anions with surface-bound electrons to structures in which the excess electron is more strongly bound and possibly more internalized within the solvent network. The resulting dynamics provide valuable insight into the electron solvation dynamics in water clusters and the relative stabilities between recently observed isomers of water cluster anions.     

3D TEDOR NMR experiments for the simultaneous measurement of multiple carbon-nitrogen distances in uniformly (13)C,(15)N-labeled solids

We describe three-dimensional magic-angle-spinning NMR experiments for the simultaneous measurement of multiple carbon-nitrogen distances in uniformly (13)C,(15)N-labeled solids. The approaches employ transferred echo double resonance (TEDOR) for (13)C-(15)N coherence transfer and (15)N and (13)C frequency labeling for site-specific resolution, and build on several previous 3D TEDOR techniques. The novel feature of the 3D TEDOR pulse sequences presented here is that they are specifically designed to circumvent the detrimental effects of homonuclear (13)C-(13)C J-couplings on the measurement of weak (13)C-(15)N dipolar couplings. In particular, homonuclear J-couplings lead to two undesirable effects: (i) they generate anti-phase and multiple-quantum (MQ) spin coherences, which lead to spurious cross-peaks and phase-twisted lines in the 2D (15)N-(13)C correlation spectra, and thus degrade the spectral resolution and prohibit the extraction of reliable cross-peak intensities, and (ii) they significantly reduce cross-peak intensities for strongly J-coupled (13)C sites (e.g., CO and C(alpha)). The first experiment employs z-filter periods to suppress the anti-phase and MQ coherences and generates 2D spectra with purely absorptive peaks for all TEDOR mixing times. The second approach uses band-selective (13)C pulses to refocus J-couplings between (13)C spins within the selective pulse bandwidth and (13)C spins outside the bandwidth. The internuclear distances are extracted by using a simple analytical model, which accounts explicitly for multiple spin-spin couplings contributing to cross-peak buildup. The experiments are demonstrated in two U-(13)C,(15)N-labeled peptides, N-acetyl-L-Val-L-Leu (N-ac-VL) and N-formyl-L-Met-L-Leu-L-Phe (N-f-MLF), where 20 and 26 (13)C-(15)N distances up to approximately 5-6 A were measured, respectively. Of the measured distances, 10 in N-ac-VL and 13 in N-f-MLF are greater than 3 A and provide valuable structural constraints.     

A gas-jet system for the study of short-lived,light fission products

A selective method for the solvent extraction and spectrophotometric determination of uranium(VI) is described. Uranium can be extracted into chloroform at pH 6.0 with N-m-chlorophenyl-2-theno-hydroxamic acid (N-m-CPTHA) and determined by spectrophotometry using 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol (PAN). The molar absorptivity is 1.50·10⁴ 1·mol^–1·cm^–1 at 560 nm. The system obeys Beer's law within the range 0.95–20.00 ppm of uranium. Alternatively, a back-extraction procedure was also developed in which uranium is back-extracted by nitric acid and estimated spectrophotometrically using Arsenazo III. The molar absorptivity is 2.0·10⁴ 1·mol^–1·cm^–1 at 665 nm. The parameters concerning the optimum conditions for the analytical method are discussed. The proposed method is applied precisely for the determination of uranium in rock and sea water samples.