Preparation and properties of vesicles made of nonpolar/polar/nonpolar fullerene amphiphiles

Twenty potassium complexes of penta-[(4-substituted)phenyl][60]fullerene anions were synthesized and examined for their ability to form bilayer vesicles in water. The 4-substituents include alkyl groups ranging from methyl to icosanyl groups and perfluoromethyl, perfluorobutyl, and perfluorooctyl groups. The overall structure of the amphiphiles can be described as a nonpolar/polar/nonpolar (n-p-n') motif as opposed to the usual polar/nonpolar motif of lipid amphiphiles. Despite the hydrophobicity of the fullerene moiety (n-part) and alkyl/perfluoroalkyl chains (n'-part), all compounds except for the one with perfluoromethyl groups were soluble in water because of the centrally located fullerene cyclopentadienide (p-part) and spontaneously formed a vesicle of 25- to 60-nm diameter with a narrow unimodal size distribution. The vesicles are stable upon heating to 90 °C or standing over one year in air, as well as on a solid substrate in air or in vacuum, maintaining their spherical form. The vesicle membrane consists of an interdigitated bilayer of the amphiphile molecules, in which the fullerene n-part is inside and the n'-side is exposed to water. These vesicles, in particular the one bearing icosanyl chains, exhibit the smallest water permeability coefficient ever found for a self-assembled membrane in water.     

Adsorption of organic molecules by photochemical reaction on Cl:Si(1 1 1) and H:Si(1 1 1) evaluated by HREELS

The covalent attachment of alkyl groups to silicon surfaces, via carbon-silicon bond formation, has been attempted using gas-surface reactions starting from Cl-terminated Si(1 1 1) or H:Si(1 1 1) under ultraviolet light irradiation. The formation of Cl-terminated Si(1 1 1) and its resulting stability were examined prior to deposition of organic molecules. High-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS) was utilized for detecting surface-bound adsorbates. The detection of photo-deposited organic species on Cl:Si(1 1 1) from gas-phase CH₄ or CH₂CH₂ was not significant. On H:Si(1 1 1), it was evident that after the photoreaction with gas-phase C₂H₅Cl, C₂H₅ groups were chemically bonded to the surface Si atoms through single covalent bonds. The C₂H₅ groups were thermally stable at temperatures below 600 K. Alkyl monolayers prepared on silicon surfaces by dry process will lead to a new prospective technology of nanoscale fabrication and biochemical applications.     

MeV- and Sub-MeV-photon Sources Based on Compton Backscattering at Spring-8 and KPSI-JAEA

Recently we have constructed two facilities for generating photon beams in the MeV and sub-MeV energy regions by means of the Compton backscattering with a laser and an electron beam at SPring-8 and at Kansai Photon Science Institute of Japan Atomic Energy Agency(KPSIJAEA).The MeV-photon source at SPring-8 consists of a continuous-wave optically-pumped far infrared laser with a wavelength of 118.8 μm and an 8 GeV stored electron beam.Present MeV-photon flux is estimated to be 1.3×10~3 photons/s.On the other hand,the sub-MeV-photon source at KPSI-JAEA consists of a pulse Nd:YAG laser with a wavelength of 1 064 nm and a 150 MeV electron beam accelerated by microtron.In the first trial of the photon production in this source,backscattered photon flux is estimated to be 20 photons/pulse.Both the Compton backscattered photon sources have possibilities to be used for new tools in various fields such as nuclear physics,materials science,and astronomy.     

Volumetric q-space imaging by 3D diffusion-weighted MRI

High b-value diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enables us to detect far smaller architectures, by using q-space analysis, than the resolution in conventional MRI. Average displacement, one of the q-space parameters, quantitatively reflects architecture size and is very useful in observing small changes in microstructures in vivo (e.g., neurodegeneration, tumor heterogeneity, and others). Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is performed by a two-dimensional (2D) multislice method; however, due to finite slice thickness and slice gap, there is a partial-volume effect that makes it difficult to detect the net q-space signal. On the other hand, three-dimensional (3D) MRI, having the advantages of very thin slice thickness and no slice gap (contiguous slices), allows volumetric evaluation acquired in a small isotropic voxel, as compared to 2D multislice imaging. Little is known about the isotropic high-resolution 3D DWI application to q-space analysis. In this study, we have developed and implemented a high b-value 3D DWI sequence, applied q-space analysis to study the reliability of high b-value 3D DWI and obtained a microscopic analytical map with isotropic high resolution and less contamination.     

Photo-conversion and evolution of one-dimensional Cu nanoparticles under femtosecond laser irradiation

Metal nanowires with electric conductive properties can be useful for optical polarization control medium and electro-conductive nanomaterial. We report on metallic Cu nanowires with a length of 1.0 μm and a diameter of 85 nm which were successfully photo-converted from commercial scale-like Cu particles, dispersed in a methanol solution, by using femtosecond laser irradiation. The growth mechanism of Cu nanowires under laser irradiation was suggested to be a nucleation growth process.     

Fabrication of CoPt magnetic nanodot arrays by electrodeposition process

We attempted to fabricate patterned media using the electrochemical deposition process along with nanopatterned substrates prepared by the electron beam lithography (EBL), UV nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL), and spin-on-glass nanoimprint lithography (SOG-NIL) approaches. CoPt was electrodeposited into the nanopatterned substrates and chemical mechanical polishing was carried out to planarize the surface. It was clarified that CoPt nanodot arrays were successfully deposited into the patterned nanopores fabricated by UV-NIL and SOG-NIL as well as by EBL with high area selectivity and uniformity. The density of the CoPt nanodot arrays deposited into the nanopores fabricated by EBL was equal up to an areal recording density of 250 Gbit/in².     

N-substituent effect on the cis-trans geometry of nine-membered lactams

The cis-trans geometry of a nine-membered lactam significantly depends on the N-substituents; N-acyl-1-aza-2-cyclononanones (1a-c) exist as cis form; in contrast, N-Z- 1-aza-2-cyclononanone (1d) exists as trans form both in the crystal and in solution.     

On Finite Morphisms of Ruled Surfaces

We prove that a surjective morphism :XX between ruled surfaces is finite and it descends to a finite morphism :CC between base curves of X and X. When is restricted to the fibres of X, it has a constant degree, say a, and then deg=a deg. In addition, we have several properties on the inverse image of a minimal section and a fibre of X as well as on the direct images. We also investigate precisely the case when both C and C are elliptic and X is the fibre product C ×_C X especially.     

Fabrication and characteristics of thin-film optical switches using fluorinated silicon oxide deposited by a liquid-phase technique

Optical switching devices have been studied using thin-film optical waveguides with fluorinated silicon oxide (SiOF) films deposited by a liquid-phase deposition (LPD) technique. This report focuses on the structure of the thermo-optical (TO) switch and its optimization. TO devices with double-and triple-layer structures were fabricated using a material with an organic spin-on-glass (SOG) cladding layer and a liquid-phase deposited (LPD) SiOF core layer. The maximum extinction ratio of 15.97 dB was obtained for the double-layer structure TO devices at the half-wavelength power of 2.78 W, and at the heater area of 0.02 mm². The response time decreased with decrease in the heater area for both double-and triple-layer structures. The response time as short as 6.3 ms was obtained at the heater area of 0.02 mm² for the double-layer structure. For the triple-layer structure, an even shorter response time of 2ms was achieved at the heater area of 0.08 mm², and this was over one order of magnitude smaller than that for the double-layer structure at the same heater area (280 ms).