121Sb Mössbauer spectroscopic study of a series of organoantimony(III) compounds

A systematic study of organoantimony(III) compounds, SbR₃, was attempted in view of the effect on Mössbauer parameters of the substituent on the aromatic ring. The Mössbauer parameters obtained in frozen organic solutions reflected the electronic effect caused by the characteristics of the substituents, electron donative or attractive, at the para position on the aromatic ring.     

Spin-oriented projectile fragments: The first application tog-factor measurements

Ejectile nuclei in the fragmentation of intermediate-energy heavy-ion projectiles were found to be largely spin polarized. The observed polarization as a function of the outgoing momentum was nicely explained by a simple kinematical argument based on the participant-spectator model of projectile fragmentation. The measurements extended to cover several different targets, incident energies, exit channels, and emission angles revealed that substantial polarization shows up widely in projectile fragmentation reactions. Furthermore, this polarization exhibits an interesting behavior which may be interpreted as a manifestation of a gradual change in the deflection angle from positive to negative values as the energy increases and/or the target-Z decreases. The present polarization results also suggests various applications of spin polarized radioactive beams. As the first example of such an application, we present a recent result on theg-factor measurements on neutron-rich nuclei.     

Barrier height to inversion of aliphatic carbonyl compounds in the S1(n,π*) state; ab initio study of formaldehyde

Recently the double-minimum potentials for the pyramidal distortion in the S₁(n,π*) state of a number of aliphatic carbonyl compounds like acetaldehyde, acetone and cyclic ketones have been determined using the supersonic nozzle beam technique We have found a good correlation between the barrier height to inversion and the angle between the two bonds adjacent to the carbonyl carbon atom. In order to elucidate the correlation in more detail, we performed ab initio calculations for the S₁ state of formaldehyde with the HCH angle as a parameter. The SCFCI calculation verified the observed correlation. It is postulated that the barrier height can be correlated with a single geometric parameter, the HCH angle.     

A ring opening reaction of oxetanes with lithium acetylides promoted by boron trifluoride etherate

Several substituted oxetanes were treated with lithium acetylides in the presence of boron trifluoride etherate to give f-hydroxyacetylenes. The reaction conditions were varied and several synthetic features of the present reaction were revealed.     

The mechanism of the reaction of elementary astatine with organic solvents

The mechanism of the reaction of elementary astatine with benzene, toluene and monochlorobenzene were studied by means of radiogaschromatography. The reaction proceeds in two steps with benzene and toluene. In Step 1 the chemical bond of At₂ is cleaved by the disintegration of either astatine and the remained astatine reacts immediately with solvent. At Step 2 the compound produced at Step 1 is started to decompose by the decay of astatine. But this mechanism could not be applied to the astatine-monochlorobenzene system.     

Performance characteristics of narrow linewidth fiber laser pumped mid-IR difference frequency mixing light source for methane detection.

A high-power, narrow-linewidth Yb fiber laser with a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) pumped difference frequency generation (DFG) in a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal was investigated in detail. A mid-IR power of approximately 2.3 microW at 3.3 micrometers with a slope efficiency of 0.85 mW/W2 was achieved. A Doppler-broadened absorption spectrum of CH4 at 3038.497 cm-1 (3.2911 micrometers) was obtained with a 0.1-m long-gas cell at a pressure of 133 Pa. The linewidth of the DFG source was evaluated to be less than 96 MHz from the observed spectral linewidth. Real-time monitoring of CH4 (approximately 1.78 ppm) in ambient air in a multipass cell which has an optical path length of 10 m was also demonstrated.     

Theoretical response to the discovery of deeply bound pionic states in208Pb(d,3He) reactions

Recently, deeply bound pionic states were found experimentally in (d,³He) reactions on²⁰⁸Pb. They found an isolated peak structure in the bound region below the pion production threshold. We study theoretically these excitation functions in (d,³He) reactions on²⁰⁸Pb at T _d =600 MeV. We found very good agreement with the (d,³He) excitation functions and could identify the underlying structures of the pionic states. We study the energy dependence of the (d,³He) reactions and the change of the excitation functions with the incident energy.     

Magnetic and mechanical properties of amorphous Fe-Y alloys

The magnetic and mechanical properties of amorphous Fe_100−xY_x alloys (20 ≤ x ≤ 60) fabricated by rapid quenching have been measured. The dependence of the density, Young's modulus and magnetic moment per Fe atom on x shows a break point between x = 30 and 40, accompanied by a drastic change in the X-ray diffraction pattern. The spontaneous volume magnetostriction as well as the forced volume magnetostriction are a maximum at x = 20 and decrease rapidly with increasing x. The variation of the magnetic and mechanical properties with x is explained by a change of the local atomic arrangement in the amorphous state, reflecting the structure of corresponding crystalline compounds.     

Appearance of magnetic long range order in the spin ladder compound LaCuO2.5

We report here the two current topics in the ladder compounds. 1. The new ladder compound LaCuO_2.5 recently discovered by Hiroi and Takano shows a clear sign of magnetic long range order at around 125 K observed by μ⁺SR technique. This result demonstrates that the ground state of LaCuO_2.5 is not a spin liquid state, but a magnetically ordered state. 2. Superconductivity has been found in the ladder material (Sr,Ca)₁₄Cu₂₄O₄₁ under high pressure between 3 GPa and 4.5 GPa. The superconducting transition temperatures T_c (onset) are 12 K and 9 K at 3 GPa and 4.5 GPa, respectively. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.