Annealing and measurement temperature dependence of W2B5-based rectifying contacts to n-GaN

The thermal stability and measurement temperature dependence of Schottky contact characteristics on n-GaN using a W₂B₅/Ti/Au metallization scheme was studied using current-voltage (I-V), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) measurements. The elemental profile obtained from samples annealed at 350 °C showed some titanium diffusion into the gold layer but little other difference from the as-deposited wafer. Annealing at 700 °C produced significant diffusion of titanium. The Schottky barrier height increased with anneal temperature up to 200 °C, reaching a maximum value of 0.65 eV, but decreased at higher annealing temperatures. The reverse breakdown voltage from diodes fabricated using the W₂B₅-based contacts showed a similar dependence. The reverse current magnitude was larger than predicted by thermionic emission alone. The barrier height showed only minor changes with measurement temperature up to 150 °C.     

Head-group-influenced mixed micellization of sodium deoxycholate with conventional hydrocarbon surfactants of identical hydrocarbon tails

Conductivity, viscosity, turbidity, and NMR measurements were performed over most of the mole fraction range for sodium deoxycholate (SDC) with hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HTAB), hexadecylpyridinium bromide (HPyBr), and hexadecylpyridinium chloride (HPyCl). All studies demonstrate that the mixed-micelle formation is more favorable in SDC plus HTAB rather than SDC plus HPyBr or SDC plus HPyCl mixtures. The results showed that the bulky pyridinium head groups of HPyBr or HPyCl create steric incompatibility with rigid SDC monomers in the mixed state.     

Efficient transesterification/acylation reactions mediated by N-heterocyclic carbene catalysts

Imidazol-2-ylidenes, a family of N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHC), are efficient catalysts in the transesterification involving numerous esters and alcohols. Low catalyst loadings of aryl- or alkyl-substituted NHC catalysts mediate the acylation of alcohols with enol acetates in short reaction times at room temperature. Commercially available and more difficult to cleave methyl esters react with primary alcohols in the presence of alkyl-substituted NHC to efficiently form the corresponding esters. While primary alcohols are selectively acylated over secondary alcohols with use of enol esters as acylating agents, methyl and ethyl esters can be employed as protective agents for secondary alcohols in the presence of the more active alkyl-substituted NHC catalysts. The NHC-catalyzed transesterification protocol was simplified by generating the imidazol-2-ylidene catalysts in situ.     

On-chip electrochromatography using sol-gel immobilized stationary phase with UV absorbance detection

A chromatography column on a chip was fabricated by immobilizing reversed-phase stationary phase particles (5 microm, C4) using sol-gel technology. Channels were fabricated in quartz using photolithography and wet etching. Localization of the stationary phase was achieved by immobilizing the stationary phase at the desired location in the separation channel prior to bonding of the cover plate. Cross channel design was employed for gated injection. An optical fiber setup was developed for carrying out on-chip UV absorbance detection. The effective optical path length was theoretically determined for the trapezoidal shaped channel and the result was shown to match closely with the experimentally determined value. The effect of applied voltage on velocity was evaluated using thiourea as an unretained marker. Separation performance of the stationary phase was demonstrated by separation of three peptides (Trp-Ala, Leu-Trp and Trp-Trp) under isocratic chromatographic conditions.     

Bounds for the generalized Marcum function of the second kind

The Ramanujan Journal - This paper provides elementary proofs for several types of congruences involving multipartitions and self-convolutions of the divisor function. Our computations use...     

Favorable interactions of amine- and ester-terminated PAMAM with cationic surfactants: photophysical and transport studies

Conductivity (kappa), turbidity (tau), and fluorescence (I1/I3) studies of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HTAB), hexadecylpyridinium bromide (HPyBr), and hexadecylpyridinium chloride (HPyCl) in aqueous poly(amido amine) (PAMAM) dendrimers of generations 0 to 2.5 G have been carried out. The complexation of surfactant monomers with the PAMAM surface groups is demonstrated by the critical aggregation concentration (cac), which is two to three orders of magnitude less than the micellization of cationic surfactants in aqueous PAMAM and denoted by critical micelle concentration (cmc*). In the presence of aqueous amine-terminated PAMAM, the cmc* value for each surfactant was much lower than the cmc in pure water, while they remain close to each other in the presence of aqueous ester-terminated PAMAM for each surfactant. The fluorescence studies demonstrated that both amine- and ester-terminated PAMAM interact with the cationic surfactants, though the mode of interaction varied due to the different nature of surface groups.     

Rapid identification of trimethyl and triethyl amines using sulphonic acidic ionic liquids: A time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry study of fragmentation reactions

The time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) has emerged as a powerful tool for the unswerving detection of biomolecules, in particular, proteins and peptides. To date, there is very little information available on the direct determination of trimethyl/triethyl amines using TOF-SIMS. One major hurdle in this regard is an ultrahigh vacuum system, usually needed in TOF-SIMS, which hampers its usability to trimethyl/triethyl amines owing to their high evaporation rate. We designed an efficient and sensitive protocol for rapid identification and sensitive determination of tertiaryalkyl amines using TOF-SIMS. The amines were derivatized by reaction with 1,4-butane sultone and sulphuric acid sequentially to afford the corresponding sulphonic acidic ionic liquids (ILs). The TOF-SIMS analysis of these task-specific ILs (TSILs) was carried out in both positive and negative polarity. The positive ion mass spectra of TSILs showed sharp fragmented peaks for tertiaryalkyl amines at typical level and up to 10 ppm. The possible mechanism for different fragmentation pathways in positive polarity was discussed.     

Common fixed point theorems under a new continuity condition

The aim of the present paper is to generalize the notion of reciprocal continuity and obtain common fixed point theorems in diverse settings as an application of the new notion. The new notion unifies the approaches of three well known notions- reciprocal continuity, subsequential continuity and conditional commutativity. Our results generalize and extend several fixed point theorems. We also demonstrate that the new notion is a necessary condition for the existence of common fixed points.