Application and New Developments in Polymer‐Dispersed Liquid Crystal Simulation Studies

Polymer‐dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) represent an important new class of materials with electro‐optic applications such as flexible displays, large‐area devices projection displays, electrically switchable windows, etc. On considering such applications of these materials, many studies have been performed on the experimental side. Similarly, research on the simulation side for the PDLCs is of the fundamental interest too. The present article contains a short review on the present and past simulation studies of PDLCs. Various molecular simulation approaches applied to PDLC systems by different groups are reviewed here. In addition some new findings of the bulk phases are also extensively described.

     

Synthesis,characterization and study of antibacterial activity of enaminone complexes of zinc and iron

Complexes of enaminones; 4-N,N-diethylamine-pent-3-ene-2-one [HL¹], 4-N,N-di n-propylamine-pent-3-ene-2-one [HL²] and 4-N,N-dicyclohexylamine-pent-3-ene-2-one [HL³] with Fe(II) and Zn(II) ions were prepared by reacting the equimolar ethanolic solutions of the ligands (HL¹, HL² and HL³) with ethanolic metal solutions. The complexes formed, were characterized by infrared, ultraviolet and atomic absorption spectroscopy. Ligands and their metal complexes were tested against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria to assess their antibacterial action using disc diffusion method. Ligands were completely inactive against bacteria whereas the complex Zn (HL¹) has significant action on both bacteria, indicating that it has a good potential as bactericide. Other complexes have normal antiseptic character.     

Axiomatisability problems for S-acts, revisited

This paper discusses necessary and sufficient conditions on a monoid S, such that a class of left S-acts is first order axiomatisable. Such questions have previously been considered by Bulman-Fleming, Gould, Stepanova and others. Let $\mathcal{C}$ be a class of embeddings of right S-acts. A left S-act B is $\mathcal{C}$ -flat if tensoring with B preserves the embeddings in $\mathcal{C}$ . We find two sets (depending on a property of $\mathcal{C}$ ) of necessary and sufficient conditions on S such that the class of all $\mathcal{C}$ -flat left S-acts is axiomatisable. These results are similar to the ??replacement tossings?? results of Gould and Shaheen for S-posets. Further, we show how to axiomatise some classes using both replacement tossings and interpolation conditions, thus throwing some light on the former technique.     

Dynamics of Particles Around a Regular Black Hole with Nonlinear Electrodynamics

We investigate the dynamics of a charged particle being kicked off from its circular orbit around a regular black hole by an incoming massive particle in the presence of magnetic field. The resulting escape velocity, escape energy and the effective potential are analyzed. It is shown that the presence of even a very weak magnetic field helps the charged particles in escaping the gravitational field of the black hole. Moreover the effective force acting on the particle visibly reduces with distance. Thus particle near the black hole will experience higher effective force as compared to when it is far away.     

Evolution of a Schwarzschild black hole in phantom-like Chaplygin gas cosmologies

In the classical relativistic regime, the accretion of phantom energy onto a black hole reduces the mass of the black hole. In this context, we have investigated the evolution of a Schwarzschild black hole in the standard model of cosmology using the phantom-like modified variable Chaplygin gas and the viscous generalized Chaplygin gas. The corresponding expressions for accretion time scale and evolution of mass have been derived. Our results indicate that the mass of the black hole will decrease if the accreting phantom Chaplygin gas violates the dominant energy condition and will increase in the opposite case. Thus, our results are in agreement with the results of Babichev et al. who first proposed this scenario.     

Cardy-Verlinde Formula for an Axially Symmetric Dilaton-axion Black Hole

It is shown that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of an axially symmetric dilaton-axion black hole can be expressed as a Cardy-Verlinde formula. By utilizing first order correction in the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy we find the modified the expressions for the Casimir energy and pure extensive energy. The first order correction to the Cardy-Verlinde formula in the context of dilaton-axion black hole are obtained with the use of modified cosmic and pure extensive energies.     

Effect of thermal annealing of high temperature growth [(GaAs)m(Fe)n]p composite films on GaAs(001) by molecular beam epitaxy

[(GaAs) _m (Fe) _n ] _p composite films on GaAs(001) substrates obtained by molecular beam deposition methods at T _s = 580°C have been thermally annealed, and magnetic/structural changes caused by the annealing have been measured to study the relation between room-temperature photo-magnetic effect and by-products in composite films. Annealing inhomogeneous [(GaAs)₈(Fe)₅]₂₀ film, prepared by alternate beam deposition of Fe and GaAs, results in an increase in saturation magnetization, whereas the room-temperature photo-enhanced magnetization (RT-PEM) vanishes. Metamagnetic Fe₃Ga₄ is suppressed with the formation of ferromagnetic Fe₃Ga_2−x As _x . Observed results suggest two important points: firstly, metamagnetic Fe₃Ga₄ compound is most likely meta-stable bi-product and may play a principle role for RT-PEM, and secondly, ferromagnetic Fe₃GaAs and its derivatives are the stable form in Ga-As-Fe ternary system.     

Ab-initio calculations of bandgap tuning of In1-xGaxY (Y = N,P) alloys for optoelectronic applications

The Ⅲ-V alloys and doping to tune the bandgap for solar cells and other optoelectronic devices has remained a hot topic of research for the last few decades. In the present article, the bandgap tuning and its influence on optical properties of In_1-xGa_xN/P, where (x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.0) alloys are comprehensively analyzed by density functional theory based on full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method (FP-LAPW) and modified Becke and Johnson potentials (TB-mBJ). The direct bandgaps turn from 0.7 eV to 3.44 eV, and 1.41 eV to 2.32 eV for In_1-xGa_xN/P alloys, which increases their potentials for optoelectronic devices. The optical properties are discussed such as dielectric constants, refraction, absorption, optical conductivity, and reflection. The light is polarized in the low energy region with minimum reflection. The absorption and optical conduction are maxima in the visible region, and they are shifted into the ultraviolet region by Ga doping. Moreover, static dielectric constant ε₁(0) is in line with the bandgap from Penn's model.     

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopic Investigation of the Binary and Ternary Cyanide Adducts of the Oxidized Horseradish Peroxidase: Identification of a Second Stretching Mode for the Carbon-Nitrogen Bond of the Bound Cyanide Ion

The binary and ternary cyanide adducts of the ferric horseradish peroxidase were investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The carbon-nitrogen bond of the bound cyanide ion in the binary ferric cyanohorseradish peroxidase exhibits two stretching vibrations at 2130 cm^?1 and 2127 cm^?1 with the latter mode being observed in this work for the first time. This finding supports the results of the resonance Raman study of cyanohorseradish peroxidase, which identified two iron-carbon-nitrogen bending vibrations and two iron-carbon stretching vibrations, proving the existence of two conformational states. The identification of the latter carbon-nitrogen stretching frequency allowed the assignment of all of the vibrational modes of the iron-carbon-nitrogen groups of the two conformational states of the ferric cyanohorseradish peroxidase. The first conformer is characterized by a carbon-nitrogen stretch at 2130 cm^?1, an iron-carbon stretch at 453 cm^?1, and an iron-carbon-nitrogen bending mode at 405 cm^?1. The second state has a carbon-nitrogen stretch at 2127 cm^?1, an iron-carbon stretch at 360 cm^?1, and an iron-carbon-nitrogen bending mode at 422 cm^?1. The iron-carbon stretching band is weakly sensitive to pH changes, but it is sensitive to H₂O/D₂O substitution, indicating that the bound cyanide ion in cyanohorseradish peroxidase is hydrogen bonded to the surrounding protein. The two states were attributed to variation in the extent of hydrogen bonding of the iron-carbon-nitrogen groups in the two states. The carbon-nitrogen stretching vibrations of the ternary complexes of cyanohorseradish peroxidase with ferulic acid, benzamide, and benzhydroxamic acid have been investigated for the first time. The binding of the substrate to cyanohorseradish peroxidase does not always lead to the vanishing of one of the conformational states as in the carbon monoxide adducts of the ferrous horseradish peroxidase, but can cause shifts in the νC-N frequency and in the relative population of both conformational states.     

The influence of annealing temperature on the structure,morphologies and optical properties of ZnO nanoparticles

ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully synthesized by the simple solution method at low temperature. The effects of annealing temperature on the structure and optical properties of ZnO NPs were investigated in detail by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. As the annealing temperature was increased above 180 ^°C the particles morphology evolved from spherical to hexagonal shape, indicating that the average particle size increased from 11 nm to 87 nm. The UV-vis and PL spectra showed a red-shift from 3.62 to 3.33 eV when the annealing temperature was increased.