Optical Spectroscopy and Excited-State Dynamics of Eu3+-Doped Bismuth Borate Glasses Containing CuO

Bismuth borate glasses containing phosphors and luminescent rare-earths are of interest for applications in light-emitting devices. Herein, the influence of CuO impurities on red-emitting Eu³⁺-doped bismuth borate glasses of the 25Bi₂O₃-15BaO-10Li₂O-50B₂O₃ type was investigated by various spectroscopic methods. The glasses were prepared by the melt-quench technique and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, UV/Vis optical absorption (OA), and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy including decay kinetics assessment. The XRD data confirmed the amorphous nature of the glasses whereas FT-IR spectra indicated the basic structural features of trigonal BO₃ units and BO₄ tetrahedra. The OA analysis showed that addition of CuO up to 0.5 mol% results in significant growth of the visible Cu²⁺ absorption band around 715 nm, with slight decrease in the optical band gap energies assessed through Tauc plots. A drastic PL quenching of Eu³⁺ ions emission was evidenced concurring with the detrimental effect of Cu²⁺. The assessment of the Eu³⁺ emission decay curves revealed significant lifetime decrease of the ⁵D₀ emitting state with increasing CuO concentration. An analysis of quenching constants was finally performed comparing results from integrated PL data with the emission decay rates. It is argued that the bismuth borate glass system supports an effective Eu³⁺→Cu²⁺ energy transfer (more so than phosphates) in connection with a strong spectral overlap between Eu³⁺ emission and Cu²⁺ absorption.     

A reverse-flow injection analysis method for the determination of dissolved oxygen in fresh and marine waters

A reverse flow injection method (rFIA) based on the Winkler titration chemistry, is reported for the determination of dissolved oxygen (DO) in natural waters. Manganese(II) sulfate is injected into a continuously flowing stream of sample and subsequently merges with a reagent stream of sodium hydroxide and sodium iodide. Manganese(II) hydroxide that is formed reacts with DO in the sample to form an oxidized manganese hydroxyoxide floc. Addition of 10% sulfuric acid dissolves this floc, and under acidic conditions, the triiodide ion formed is detected by photometry in a flow through cell at a wavelength of 440 nm. The method is rapid (48 measurements per h), repeatable (R.S.D. ca. 3%, n=3), and has a calculated detection limit of 0.25 mg l⁻¹ (P=0.001). No interference from nitrite or ferrous ions was observed at concentrations typically found in natural waters. The method has been successfully applied to on-line measurement of DO in sediment respiration reactors.     

Synthesis and evaluation of a new non-fluorescent quencher in fluorogenic oligonucleotide probes for real-time PCR

A non-fluorescent quencher, based on the diaminoanthraquinone Disperse Blue 3, has been incorporated into oligonucleotides at the 5'-end, the 3'-end and internally as a thymidine derivative. Fluorimetry and fluorogenic real-time PCR experiments demonstrate that the quencher is effective with a wide range of fluorescent dyes. The anthraquinone moiety increases the melting temperature of DNA duplexes, thus allowing shorter, more discriminatory probes to be used. The quencher has been used in Scorpion primers and TaqMan probes for human DNA sequence recognition and mutation detection.     

Optically tunable chromatic dispersion controller with coupled-cavity etalon structure

We propose and demonstrate a novel optically tunable dynamic dispersion-compensation device with coupled-cavity etalon structure. Experimentally, it was achieved with an all-fiber coupled-cavity etalon made in an Er/Yb codoped fiber pumped by a 980-nm laser diode. The dispersion was tuned from -300 to +400 ps/nm in the experiment. The potential advantages of such optically tunable dispersion compensators include fast response time and remotely controllable operation.     

Mechanisms determining the salience of coloration in echoed sound: influence of interaural time and level differences

This study investigates whether the salience of the pitch associated with a single reflection of a broadband sound, such as noise, is determined by the monaural information mediated by the stimuli at the two ears, or by the relative locations of the primary sound and the reflection. Pitch strength was measured as a function of the reflection delay and the lateral displacement between the primary sound and the reflection. Thereby, lateral displacement was produced by means of interaural time differences (ITDs) in experiment 1 and interaural level differences (ILDs) in experiment 3. The results from both experiments are in accordance with the assumption that the strength of the pitch associated with a reflection is based on a central average of the internal representations of the stimuli at the two ears. This notion was corroborated by experiment 2, which showed that the results from experiment 1 could be mimicked by simply adding the stimuli from the two ears and presenting the merged stimulus identically to both ears.     

Nuclear magnetic resonance study of self-diffusion in liquid crystals

A simple and accurate pulsed-gradient nuclear magnetic resonance technique for measuring coefficients of self-diffusion in liquid crystals is described. It is based on exciting sharp response signals with long weak pulses. The method uses an extremely weak radio-frequency field, which eliminates the problem of radio-frequency heating of the sample. The temperature dependencies of coefficients of self-diffusion for two liquid crystals, 5CB (4-pentyl-4(')-cyanobiphenyl) and EBBA (N-(4-ethoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline), are presented.     

Transmissive in-fiber Fabry-Perot etalons as tunable dispersion compensators and dispersion-slope compensators

We report for what is believed to be the first time the use of transmissive fiber Bragg grating-based Fabry-Perot etalons for tunable dispersion compensation and dispersion-slope compensation. The resulting device has a number of advantages, such as low cost, ease of fabrication, full optical fiber compatibility, and simplicity.