Multilayer laser printing for Organic Thin Film Transistors

Functional laser printed Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFTs) have been achieved from multilayer substrates composed with semiconductor and electrodes. The p-type copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) was used to form the active layer. Different kinds of metallic materials were used for source and drain electrodes. Multilayer donor substrates were prepared by the successive depositions of materials by either thermal evaporation under vacuum or laser printing. The materials were transferred together in a single step onto a receiver substrate by laser pulses in the picosecond regime. The latter substrate formed the gate and the dielectric of the transistor. The results are compared with the step-by-step laser printing process, where electrodes and organic layer were successively printed from two different donor substrates. The multilayer laser printing reveals an improvement of the performances of the OTFT devices.     

Long‐Lived Circularly Polarized Phosphorescence in Helicene‐NHC Rhenium(I) Complexes: The Influence of Helicene,Halogen, and Stereochemistry on Emission Properties

The first enantiopure chiral‐at‐rhenium complexes of the form fac‐ReX(CO)₃(:C^N) have been prepared, where :C^N is a helicene‐N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand and X=Cl or I. These have complexes show strong changes in the emission characteristics, notably strongly enhanced phosphorescence lifetimes (reaching 0.7 ms) and increased circularly polarized emission (CPL) activity, as compared to their parent chiral models lacking the helicene unit. The halogen along with its position within the dissymmetric stereochemical environment strongly affect the photophysics of the complexes, particularly the phosphorescence quantum yield and lifetime. These results give fresh insight into fine tuning of photophysical and chiroptical properties of Re‐NHC systems.     

Thiazole‐Based γ‐Building Blocks as Reverse‐Turn Mimetic to Design a Gramicidin S Analogue: Conformational and Biological Evaluation

This paper describes the ability of a new class of heterocyclic γ‐amino acids named ATCs (4‐amino(methyl)‐1,3‐thiazole‐5‐carboxylic acids) to induce turns when included in a tetrapeptide template. Both hybrid Ac‐Val‐(R or S)‐ATC‐Ile‐Ala‐NH₂ sequences were synthesized and their conformations were studied by circular dichroism, NMR spectroscopy, MD simulations, and DFT calculations. It was demonstrated that the ATCs induced highly stable C₉ pseudocycles in both compounds promoting a twist turn and a reverse turn conformation depending on their absolute configurations. As a proof of concept, a bioactive analogue of gramicidin S was successfully designed using an ATC building block as a turn inducer. The NMR solution structure of the analogue adopted an antiparallel β‐pleated sheet conformation similar to that of the natural compound. The hybrid α,γ‐cyclopeptide exhibited significant reduced haemotoxicity compared to gramicidin S, while maintaining strong antibacterial activity.     

Imaging of lipids in rat heart by MALDI-MS with silver nanoparticles

Lipids are a major component of heart tissue and perform several important functions such as energy storage, signaling, and as building blocks of biological membranes. The heart lipidome is quite diverse consisting of glycerophospholipids such as phosphatidylcholines (PCs), phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs), phosphatidylinositols (PIs), phosphatidylglycerols (PGs), cardiolipins (CLs), and glycerolipids, mainly triacylglycerols (TAGs). In this study, mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) enabled by matrix implantation of ionized silver nanoparticles (AgNP) was used to map several classes of lipids in heart tissue. The use of AgNP matrix implantation was motivated by our previous work showing that implantation doses of only 10¹⁴/cm² of 2 nm gold nanoparticulates into the first 10 nm of the near surface of the tissue enabled detection of most brain lipids (including neutral lipid species such as cerebrosides) more efficiently than traditional organic MALDI matrices. Herein, a similar implantation of 500 eV AgNP^? across the entire heart tissue section results in a quick, reproducible, solvent-free, uniform matrix concentration of 6 nm AgNP residing near the tissue surface. MALDI-MSI analysis of either positive or negative ions produce high-quality images of several heart lipid species. In negative ion mode, 24 lipid species [16 PEs, 4 PIs, 1 PG, 1 CL, 2 sphingomyelins (SMs)] were imaged. Positive ion images were also obtained from 29 lipid species (10 PCs, 5 PEs, 5 SMs, 9 TAGs) with the TAG species being heavily concentrated in vascular regions of the heart.     

Theory of degenerate four-wave mixing in three-level atoms

We derive a theoretical model for phase conjugation in three level atoms. The atoms are assumed to be at rest and the intensities I₁ and I₂ of the pump beams can take arbitrary large values. We calculate the lineshape for a thin optical medium in the case of plane waves and of gaussian beams. In the case of a thick optical medium, we show that the gain saturates if I₁ ≠ I₂.     

Uniaxial deformation behavior of different polypropylene cast films at temperatures near the melting point

A new apparatus for stretching polypropylenes at elevated temperatures below the melting point at high deformation speeds (up to 750 mm/s) is described. In the temperature range of 140-160 °C the tensile behavior of polypropylene undergoes a shift from the ductile to the quasi-rubber-like deformation behavior. Furthermore, the deformation behavior is strongly affected by the strain rate. The homogeneity of sample deformation increases with the deformation rate. Furthermore, the influence of the cast film morphology on the uniaxial deformation behavior is investigated and discussed in terms of the degree of crystallinity and crystallite size. The degree of the residual crystallinity plays a decisive role for the deformation behavior. At similar degree of crystallinity, the yield stress is significantly influenced by the crystallite size in a way that the larger the crystallite size the higher the yield stress.     

Range of the gradient of a smooth bump function in finite dimensions

This paper proves the semi-closedness of the range of the gradient for sufficiently smooth bumps in the Euclidean space.

     

Influence Des Dislocations Sur La Conductibilite Thermique De GaAs

The dislocation-phonon interaction has been experimentally studied on GaAs:Te single crystals and discussed using the Klemens' theory. A controlled heat treatment allows to distinguish this specific mechanism even for non-stoichiometric material.     

Exonuclease activity of proofreading DNA polymerases is at the origin of artifacts in molecular profiling studies

CE fingerprint methods are commonly used in microbial ecology. We have previously noticed that the position and number of peaks in CE-SSCP (single-strand conformation polymorphism) profiles depend on the DNA polymerase used in PCR [1]. Here, we studied the fragments produced by Taq polymerase as well as four commercially available proofreading polymerases, using the V3 region of the Escherichia coli rss gene as a marker. PCR products rendered multiple peaks in denaturing CE; Taq polymerase was observed to produce the longest fragments. Incubation of the fragments with T4 DNA polymerase indicated that the 3'-ends of the proofreading polymerase amplicons were recessed, while the Taq amplicon was partially +A tailed. Treatment of the PCR product with proofreading DNA polymerase rendered trimmed fragments. This was due to the 3'-5' exonuclease activity of these enzymes, which is essential for proofreading. The nuclease activity was reduced by increasing the concentration of dNTP. The Platinum Pfx DNA polymerase generated very few artifacts and could produce 85% of blunted PCR products. Nevertheless, despite the higher error rate, we recommend the use of Taq polymerase rather than proofreading in the framework for molecular fingerprint studies. They are more cost-effective and therefore ideally suited for high-throughput analysis; the +A tail artifact rate can be controlled by modifying the PCR primers and the reaction conditions.