Rapid and efficient sonochemical formation of gold nanoparticles under ambient conditions using functional alkoxysilane

Gold nanoparticles (NPs) are rapidly and efficiently formed under ambient conditions with a novel and highly-efficient sonochemical promoter. Despite of the presence of free oxygen, 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) showed remarkable efficiency in promoting the reduction rate of Au (III) than that of conventional promoters (primary alcohols). This is likely attributed to the formation of a variety of radical scavengers, which are alcoholic products from sonochemical hydrolysis of the epoxide group and methoxysilane moieties of GPTMS under weakly acidic conditions. Interestingly, the promotion is quenched by amine- or thiol-functionalized alkoxysilane, thereby producing marginal amounts of gold NPs. Furthermore, products of hydrolyzed GPTMS were confirmed to attach on the surface of gold NPs by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. However, according to transmission electron microscopy images, gold NPs that were produced in the presence of GPTMS tend to fuse with each other as condensation of silanols occurs, forming worm- or nugget-like gold nanostructures. The use of long chain surfactants (i.e. polyethylene glycol terminated with hydroxyl or carboxyl) inhibited the fusion, leading to mono-dispersed gold NPs. Additionally, the fact that this approach requires neither an ultrasound source with high frequency nor anaerobic conditions provides a huge advantage. These findings could potentially open an avenue for rapid and large-scale green-synthesis of gold NPs in future work.     

Improvement of performance of tetraphenylporphyrin-based red organic light emitting diodes using WO3 and C60 buffer layers

One of the porphyrin derivatives, meso-tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP), has been synthesized and examined as an emitter material (EM) for efficient fluorescent red organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). By inserting a tungsten oxide (WO₃) layer into the interface of anode (ITO) and hole transport layer N,N′-Di-[(1-napthyl)-N,N′-diphenyl]-(1,1′-biphenyl)-4,4′-diamine (NPB) and by using fullerene (C₆₀) in contact with a LiF/Al cathode, the performance of devices was markedly improved. The current density–voltage–luminance (J–V–L) characterizations of the samples show that red OLEDs with both WO₃ and C₆₀ as buffer layers have a lower driving voltage and higher luminance compared with the devices without buffer layers. The red OLED with the configuration ITO/WO₃ (3 nm)/NPB (50 nm)/TPP (60 nm)/BPhen (30 nm)/C₆₀ (5 nm)/LiF (0.8 nm)/Al (100 nm) achieved the high luminance of 6359 cd/m² at the low driving voltage of 8 V. At a current density of 20 mA/cm², a pure red emission with CIE coordinates of (0.65; 0.35) is observed for this device. Moreover, a power efficiency of 2.07 lm/W and a current efficiency of 5.17 cd/A at 20 mA/cm² were obtained for the fabricated devices. The study of the energy level diagram of the devices revealed that the improvement in performance of the devices with buffer layers could be attributed to lowering of carrier-injecting barrier and more balanced charge injection and transport properties.     

Determination of H2S,COS, CS2 and SO2 by an aluminium nitride nanocluster: DFT studies

ABSTRACT

Density functional theory calculations were used to investigate the potential application of an AlN nanocluster in the detection of H₂S, COS, CS₂ and SO₂ gases. In overall, the order of strength of interaction of these gases with the nanocluster is as follows: SO₂ (E_ad?=??17.6?kcal/mol)?>?H₂S (E_ad?=??14.0?kcal/mol)?>?COS (E_ad?=??8.4?kcal/mol)?>?CS₂ (E_ad?=??4.5?kcal/mol). This indicates that by increasing the electric dipole moment, the adsorption energy becomes more negative. We found that the Al₁₂N₁₂ nanocluster may be a promising work function-type sensor for SO₂ gas among the studied gases. Also, it is an electronic sensor for both SO₂ and CS₂ gases but selectively acts between them because of their different effects on the electrical conductivity. It is neither work function-type nor electronic sensor for H₂S and COS gases. The AlN nanocluster benefits from a short recovery time about 7.7?s and 18.0?ms for desorption of SO₂ and CS₂ gases from its surface at room temperature, respectively. It is also concluded that this cluster can work at a humid environment.     

FFT-based convolution algorithm for fast and precise numerical evaluating diffracted field by photon sieve

FFT-based convolution is proposed to numerical solve Fresnel–Kirchhoff integral in Fresnel regime carefully and in a very shorter time in comparison to direct solving convolution. To show its capability, the algorithm was implemented to evaluate amplitude of a diffracted plane wave at the focal plane of photon sieves with different focal lengths. The calculated amplitudes are completely the same calculated via convolving operation but has advantageous of taking very very shorter time. The calculation was also repeated using single-FFT algorithm that produce same result for all ranges either below or upper the sampling criteria and different results in comparison to the other two methods.     

Insight into lattice thermal impedance via equilibrium molecular dynamics: case study on Al

Using results of equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation in conjunction with the Green–Kubo formalism, we present a general treatment of thermal impedance of a crystal lattice with a monatomic unit cell. The treatment is based on an analytical expression for the heat current autocorrelation function which reveals, in a monatomic lattice, an energy gap between the origin of the phonon states and the beginning of the energy spectrum of the so-called acoustic short-range phonon modes. Although, we consider here the f.c.c. Al model as a case example, the analytical expression is shown to be consistent for different models of elemental f.c.c. crystals over a wide temperature range. Furthermore, we predict a frequency ‘window’ where the thermal waves can be generated in a monatomic lattice by an external periodic temperature perturbation.     

Phonon-mediated heat dissipation in a monatomic lattice: case study on Ni

The recently introduced analytical model for the heat current autocorrelation function of a crystal with a monatomic lattice [Evteev et al., Phil. Mag. 94 (2014) p. 731 and 94 (2014) p. 3992] is employed in conjunction with the Green–Kubo formalism to investigate in detail the results of an equilibrium molecular dynamics calculations of the temperature dependence of the lattice thermal conductivity and phonon dynamics in f.c.c. Ni. Only the contribution to the lattice thermal conductivity determined by the phonon–phonon scattering processes is considered, while the contribution due to phonon–electron scattering processes is intentionally ignored. Nonetheless, during comparison of our data with experiment an estimation of the second contribution is made. Furthermore, by comparing the results obtained for f.c.c. Ni model to those for other models of elemental crystals with the f.c.c. lattice, we give an estimation of the scaling relations of the lattice thermal conductivity with other lattice properties such as the coefficient of thermal expansion and the bulk modulus. Moreover, within the framework of linear response theory and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we extend our analysis in this paper into the frequency domain to predict the power spectra of equilibrium fluctuations associated with the phonon-mediated heat dissipation in a monatomic lattice. The practical importance of the analytical treatment lies in the fact that it has the potential to be used in the future to efficiently decode the generic information on the lattice thermal conductivity and phonon dynamics from a power spectrum of the acoustic excitations in a monatomic crystal measured by a spectroscopic technique in the frequency range of about 1–20 THz.     

Decomposition model for phonon thermal conductivity of a monatomic lattice

An analytical treatment of decomposition of the phonon thermal conductivity of a crystal with a monatomic unit cell is developed on the basis of a two-stage decay of the heat current autocorrelation function observed in molecular dynamics simulations. It is demonstrated that the contributions from the acoustic short- and long-range phonon modes to the total phonon thermal conductivity can be presented in the form of simple kinetic formulas, consisting of products of the heat capacity and the average relaxation time of the considered phonon modes as well as the square of the average phonon velocity. On the basis of molecular dynamics calculations of the heat current autocorrelation function, this treatment allows for a self-consistent numerical evaluation of the aforementioned variables. In addition, the presented analysis allows, within the Debye approximation, for the identification of the temperature range where classical molecular dynamics simulations can be employed for the prediction of phonon thermal transport properties. As a case example, Cu is considered.     

Ab initio investigation of the electronic and vibrational properties for the (CaLi)+ ionic molecule

A wide adiabatic study has been performed for numerous electronic states of CaLi⁺ molecular ion. The adiabatic potential energy curves and their spectroscopic constants (R_e, D_e, ω_e and T_e) have been calculated using an ab initio approach including a nonempirical pseudo-potential for the Ca and Li cores with the core polarisation potentials operator through full configuration interaction (FCI). Thereafter, the energies of vibrational levels and their spacing for all these states have been reported. In addition, the electric dipole moment curves have been investigated for the (1-19) Σ, (1-12) Π and (1-8) Δ electric states. Moreover it lets us check the extreme transition dipole moments (TDM). These behaviours of TDM are more accustomed to estimate the radiative lifetimes for all vibrational levels in 2¹Σ⁺ and 3¹Σ⁺ states. Also, the bound-bound and the bound-free contribution have been calculated precisely and by employing a Franck–Condon (FC) approximation.     

The effect of oxygen exposure on pentacene electronic structure

We use ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy to investigate the effect of oxygen and air exposure on the electronic structure of pentacene single crystals and thin films. It is found that O₂ and water do not react noticeably with pentacene, whereas singlet oxygen/ozone readily oxidize the organic compound. Also, we obtain no evidence for considerable p-type doping of pentacene by O₂ at low pressure. However, oxygen exposure lowers the hole injection barrier at the interface between Au and pentacene by 0.25 eV, presumably due to a modification of the Au surface properties.