Asymmetric total synthesis of dendrobatid alkaloid 251F

The dendrobatid alkaloid (-)-251F was synthesized. The key steps of the synthesis were (1) an asymmetric Diels-Alder reaction to establish four of the necessary stereocenters in the target, (2) a ring-opening/ring-closing metathesis reaction to establish a key [3.3.0] bicyclic intermediate, and (3) an intramolecular Schmidt reaction.     

Enhancement by polydispersity of the biaxial nematic phase in a mixture of hard rods and plates

The phase diagram of a polydisperse mixture of uniaxial rodlike and platelike hard parallelepipeds is determined for aspect ratios kappa=5 and 15. All particles have equal volume, and polydispersity is introduced in a highly symmetric way. The corresponding binary mixture is known to have a biaxial phase for kappa=15, but to be unstable against demixing into two uniaxial nematics for kappa=5. The phase diagram for kappa=15 is qualitatively similar to that of the binary mixture, regardless of the amount of polydispersity, while for kappa=5 a sufficient amount of polydispersity stabilizes the biaxial phase. This provides clues for designing an experiment to observe this long searched biaxial phase.     

Polarization control of the nonlinear emission of semiconductor microcavities

The degree of circular polarization ( Weierstrass p ) of the nonlinear emission in semiconductor microcavities is controlled by changing the exciton-cavity detuning. The polariton relaxation towards K approximately 0 cavitylike states is governed by final-state stimulated scattering. The helicity of the emission is selected due to the lifting of the degeneracy of the +/-1 spin levels at K approximately 0. At short times after a pulsed excitation Weierstrass p reaches very large values, either positive or negative, as a result of stimulated scattering to the spin level of lowest energy (+1/-1 spin for positive/negative detuning).     

Microphase separation in Pr0.67Ca0.33MnO3 by small-angle neutron scattering

We have evidenced by small-angle neutron scattering at low temperature the coexistence of ferromagnetism (F) and antiferromagnetism (AF) in Pr0.67Ca0.33MnO3. The results are compared to those obtained in Pr0.80Ca0.20MnO3 and Pr0.63Ca0.37MnO3, which are F and AF, respectively. Quantitative analysis shows that the small-angle scattering is not due to a mesoscopic mixing but to a nanoscopic electronic and magnetic "red cabbage" structure, in which the ferromagnetic phase exists in the form of thin layers in the AF matrix (stripes or 2D "sheets").     

Spin disorder scattering in magnetic metallic alloys

Anomalous behavior of the resistivity at or just below the Néel temperature in antiferromagnetic metals is usually attributed to the formation of superzone gaps. However, we find that RMn12-xFex alloys which have no such gaps exhibit a similarly anomalous resistivity. We show that electron scattering by substitutional spin disorder can account for such behavior of itinerant magnets. This mechanism, which has not been studied before, leads to a relaxation rate that is proportional to x(12-x)m(2), where m is the staggered magnetization. Together with spin fluctuations, phonon, and impurity scattering, it accounts well for the resistivity data we obtain for HoMn12-xFex, for 0< or =x< or =9, in the temperature range of 4 to 400 K.     

Longitudinal focusing and cooling of a molecular beam

A neutral polar molecule experiences a force in an inhomogeneous electric field. This electric field can be designed such that a beam of polar molecules is exposed to a harmonic potential in the forward direction. In this potential the longitudinal phase-space distribution of the ensemble of molecules is rotated uniformly. This property is used to longitudinally focus a pulsed beam of ammonia molecules and to produce a beam with a longitudinal velocity spread of 0.76 m/s, corresponding to a temperature of 250 mu K.     

Light filaments in air for ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths

The propagation of femtosecond UV laser pulses in air is numerically shown to form intense light filaments over several tenths of Rayleigh lengths. We compare UV filamentation with IR filamentation and show that the balance of the physical processes supporting the filaments is identical in both cases. For IR and UV wavelengths, it is shown that the intensity in the filament and the density of the electron plasma created by ionization of air molecules reach similar values as high as 10(14) W/cm(2) and 10(17) cm(-3). Spectral data exhibit a large broadening in the IR filament and a limited one for UV, which justifies the white-light generation associated with IR filamentation only.     

Specific and nonspecific collapse in protein folding funnels

Experiments with fast folding proteins are beginning to address the relationship between collapse and folding. We investigate how different scenarios for folding can arise depending on whether the folding and collapse transitions are concurrent or whether a nonspecific collapse precedes folding. Many earlier studies have focused on the limit in which collapse is fast compared to the folding time; in this work we focus on the opposite limit where, at the folding temperature, collapse and folding occur simultaneously. Real proteins exist in both of these limits. The folding mechanism varies substantially in these two regimes. In the regime of concurrent folding and collapse, nonspecific collapse now occurs at a temperature below the folding temperature (but slightly above the glass transition temperature).     

Influence of attenuation on the behavior of refracted elastic waves at the interface between anisotropic media

During the ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation of complex materials, like multilayer or composite materials, the behavior of the ultrasonic waves at the interface of samples is strongly dependent upon the anisotropy as well as the attenuation characteristics of the propagation media. In the generally arbitrary case, the incident wave is assumed to be inhomogeneous. Therefore the application of the Snell-Descartes laws requires to consider the real as well as the imaginary parts of all the quantities encountered during the study. In that aim, we use a representation of the complex slowness curves so-called slowness interface curves which point out the evolution of the interaction of the waves at the interface with the inhomogeneity factors, i.e. the imaginary part of the slowness vectors. The continuous distortion of the curves with the inhomogeneity factor increasing is an interesting approach of these complicated phenomena.     

Intensity and polarization self-pulsations in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We implement a dynamic model that describes the polarization behavior in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers that contain an absorbing region surrounding the active zone. We find four regions of qualitatively different behavior: stable linearly polarized operation, intensity pulsations of a linearly polarized component, pulsations of both total-intensity and polarization components, and polarization self-pulsation with constant total intensity. We characterize the four regions by computing the polarization-resolved optical and power spectra. The predicted behavior agrees with recent experimental results.