Creating, detecting and locating ultracold molecules in a surface trap

Ultracold molecules have been produced by photoassociation of Cs atoms trapped in a mirror magneto-optical trap. The molecules were detected by resonantly enhanced multi-photon ionization followed by time-of-flight mass spectroscopy. The time-of-flight ofatomic and molecular ions was investigated in the presence of a dc bias voltageapplied to the conducting mirror. This technique provides a new tool for determining the distance between the cold molecules and the mirror surface. This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

Glass transitions and mixed phases in block SBS

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) does not allow for easy determination of the glass‐transition temperature (T_g) of the polystyrene (PS) block in styrene–butadiene–styrene (SBS) block copolymers. Modulated DSC (MDSC), which deconvolutes the standard DSC signal into reversing and nonreversing signals, was used to determine the (T_g) of both the polybutadiene (PB) and PS blocks in SBS. The T_g of the PB block was sharp, at ?92 °C, but that for the PS blocks was extremely broad, from ?60 to 125 °C with a maximum at 68 °C because of blending with PB. PS blocks were found only to exist in a mixed PS–PB phase. This concurred with the results from dynamic mechanical analysis. Annealing did not allow for a segregation of the PS blocks into a pure phase, but allowed for the segregation of the mixed phase into two mixed phases, one that was PB‐rich and the other that was PS‐rich. It is concluded that three phases coexist in SBS: PB, PB‐rich, and PS‐rich phases. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 43: 276–279, 2005     

Optimization of in-vacuo template-stripped Pt surfaces via UHV STM

A recently demonstrated [1] in-vacuo template-stripping process is applied to the study of platinum films stripped from ultra-flat silicon-oxide surfaces. Template-stripped (TS) Pt surfaces, prepared with a range of post-deposition annealing times prior to being stripped from the templating surface in an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) environment, are examined by UHV scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). These studies reveal that without post-deposition annealing, TS Pt surfaces are largely made up of poorly-ordered, granular nanostructures undesirable for many applications. The post-deposition annealing treatments explored in the study result in the emergence and continuous growth of large smooth crystallites. Issues with crystallite orientation relative to the TS surface and artefacts arising as a result of the epoxy used in the template-stripping process are presented and discussed in relation to optimizing the template-stripping procedure for specific applications such as self-assembled monolayer (SAM) formation for molecular electronics. PACS 68.37.Ef; 68.47.De; 68.55.Jk; 81.05.Bx; 81.15.Ef     

Pressure effects in a plastic columnar discotic triphenylene

The effect of hydrostatic pressure on the structure of a plastic columnar discotic triphenylene has been investigated. The goal was to determine whether pressure can be used to modify electronic properties via changes in structural properties of columnar discotics to any significant extent. The findings are that (i) the intra- and inter-columnar distances are reduced in a nearly isotropic fashion, (ii) that the crystal sizes are reduced and (iii) that a transition takes place from a more highly ordered plastic columnar to a less ordered hexagonal columnar state with increasing pressure. The induced decrease of the molecular distances, amounting to 6% for pressures up to 17 kbar, are clearly too small to induce an appreciable modification of the electronic structure and thus opto-electronic properties.     

Unified approach to photo-and electro-production of mesons with arbitrary spins

A new approach to identify the independent amplitudes along with their partial wave multipole expansions, for photo-and electro-production is suggested, which is generally applicable to mesons with arbitrary spin-parity. These amplitudes facilitate direct identification of different resonance contributions.      

Faddeev-Noble Versus Sasakawa-Sawada Equations for the Nuclear Three-Body Coulomb Problem

We compare the efficiency of two Faddeev-type approaches for the nuclear three-body Coulomb problem. The first one is a modification of Noble’s approach, the second one is due to Sasakawa and Sawada. In an integral-equation formulation both of these methods rely on the same Green’s operators and driving terms. The differences lie in the treatment of the long-range Coulomb potentials. Numerical examples show that the modified Faddeev-Noble approach provides for faster convergence.     

Application of N,N‐bis(diphenylphosphino)aniline palladium(II) complexes as pre‐catalysts in Heck coupling reactions

Palladium(II) complexes with N,N‐bis(diphenylphosphino)aniline ligands catalyse the Heck reaction between styrene and aryl bromides, affording stilbenes in good yield. The structures of two of the complexes used as pre‐catalysts have been determined by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Lower Bound for the Differences of Powers of Linear Operators

Let T be a bounded linear operator in a Banach space, with σ（T）={1}. In 1983, Esterle-Berkani＇ s conjecture was proposed for the decay of differences （I - T） T^n as follows： Eitheror lim inf （n→∞（n＋1）｜｜（I-T）T^n｜｜≥1/e or T = I. We prove this claim and discuss some of its consequences.     

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF STOCHASTIC PROCESSES BASED ON MEASURED DATA, II: APPLICATIONS TO EXPERIMENTAL DATA

Analysis of stochastic processes governed by the Langevin equation is discussed. The analysis is based on a general method for non-parametric estimation of deterministic and random terms of the Langevin equation directly from given data. Separate estimation of the terms corresponds to the decomposition of process dynamics into deterministic and random components. Part I of the paper presented several possibilities for qualitative and quantitative analysis of process dynamics based on such decomposition. In Part II, some of these analysis possibilities are applied to experimental datasets from metal cutting and laser-beam welding.     

Needle Variations and Almost Lower Semicontinuous Differential Inclusions

It is shown that the construction of needle variations can be carried out for almost lower semicontinuous differential inclusions rather than for the case of ordinary single-valued continuously differentiable vector fields usually considered in the literature. The construction leads to needle variations whose flows are in general set-valued but still have good differentiability properties. The variations are constructed by using single-valued selections that are not necessarily continuous with respect to the state variable, but have instead a much weaker 'integral continuity' property, somewhat more general that the 'directional continuity' considered in previous work by A. Cambini and S. Querci, A. Pucci, and A. Bressan. The existence of many such selections is proved by slightly adapting an argument due to Bressan, extending it from the lower semicontinuous to the almost lower semicontinuous case, and strengthening it to yield not only directional continuity at all points but also full continuity at a specified point.