Thermoresponsive coatings strongly adhering to (semi)conducting surfaces

Thermoresponsive brushes have been efficiently grafted onto (semi)conductive surfaces by a two-step process. In the first step, poly(N-succinimidyl acrylate) chains have been chemisorbed onto silicon or stainless steel by the electrografting method. Then, these modified electrodes were immersed in isopropylamine in order to transform the grafted chains to the thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide). The thermal response of these brushes has been shown by AFM. This straightforward grafting process is quite attractive for surface modification in confined media and is thus promising for microfludics application.     

A generalization of an integral of Ramanujan

This paper considers a generalization of an integral introduced by S. Ramanujan in his third notebook. Ramanujan’s integral is itself a version of the dilogarithm,

Conservative Velocity Interpolation for PDF Methods

In many particle methods the accurate interpolation of a velocity field represented on a computational grid to arbitrary positions is crucial [2, 5]. Here, the importance of mass conservation and order of the interpolation scheme were analyzed. Initially equally distributed particles were tracked in a stationary, incompressible 2d flow field using different interpolation schemes. It could be demonstrated that especially mass conservation is of great importance, in particular in the case of complex flow patterns. The ideas presented in this paper are more general and the methods can be extended for unsteady, compressible 3d flow problems. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The asymmetric single-impurity Anderson model – the modified perturbation theory

We investigate the single-impurity Anderson model by means of the recently introduced modified perturbation theory. This approximation scheme yields reasonable results away from the symmetric case. The agreement with exactly known results for the symmetric case is checked, and results for the non-symmetric case are presented. With decreasing conduction band occupation, the breakdown of the screening of the local moment is observed. In the crossover regime between Kondo limit and mixed-valence regime, an enhanced zero-temperature susceptibility is found.     

TeV γ-ray astronomy

The TeV γ-ray sky displays at this time 9 sources comprising 6 supernova remnants (SNR) and 3 active galactic nuclei (AGN). They have been discovered with AIR ERENKOV TELESCOPES since 1989, and more sources are sure to be found. They are related to violent astrophysical events and promise to be used as unique tools for cosmological questions like the universal infrared photon field and the intergalactic magnetic field strength.     

Molecular dynamics in comb-like ionene as studied by NMR

Proton and fluorine second moment and spin-lattice relaxation timesT ₁ andT _lρ have been employed to study molecular dynamics in the comb-like I-6,6-16-Me-BF₄ ionene in the temperature range from 110 up to 300 K. The existence of motions of methyl groups, trans-gauche isomerization, and/or rotation of the main- and side-chain méthylene groups, as well as isotropic reorientation of tetrafluoroborate ions were established. The observed relaxation behaviors are explained by motional models which assume Davidson-Cole asymmetrical distribution of correlation times. The best-fit motional parameters are given.     

A chirp-compensated, injection-seeded alexandrite laser

A Q-switched alexandrite laser suitable for high-resolution spectroscopy is described which produces pulses of 35 mJ energy in a 10 MHz bandwidth, with a high-purity TEM₀₀ mode. The laser can be synchronised to external event to within 100 ns. The output pulse length is 120 ns and the repetition rate 25 Hz. The laser is injection-seeded by a Ti:sapphire laser operating around 730 nm. To preserve single-mode seeding under external triggering conditions, and to obtain small time-jitter, active cavity length control was used. In order to achieve the 10 MHz output bandwidth, intra-cavity electro-optic modulators were used to compensate for the frequency chirp. The refractive index of alexandrite was found to vary linearly with inversion density with a constant of proportionality equal to 1.6᎒^-24 cm³. In pulsed operation at 730 nm, the index change due to this effect is only partially compensated by changes due to ground state phonon relaxation.