Hydrophobicity-induced drying transition in alkanethiol self-assembled monolayer—water interface

During the course of our investigation of the electron transfer properties of some redox species through highly hydrophobic long chain alkanethiol molecules on gold in aqueous and non-aqueous solvents, we obtained some intriguing results such as unusually low interfacial capacitance, very high values of impedance and film resistance, all of which pointed to the possible existence of a nanometer size interfacial gap between the hydrophobic monolayer and aqueous electrolyte. We explain this phenomenon by a model for the alkanethiol monolayer—aqueous electrolyte interface, in which the extremely hydrophobic alkanethiol film repels water molecules adjacent to it and in the process creates a shield between the monolayer film and water. This effectively increases the overall thickness of the dielectric layer that is manifested as an abnormally low value of interfacial capacitance. This behaviour is very much akin to the ‘drying transition’ proposed by Lum, Chandler and Weeks in their theory of length scale dependent hydrophobicity. For small hydrophobic units consisting of apolar solutes, the water molecules can reorganize around them without sacrificing their hydrogen bonds. Since for an extended hydrophobic unit, the existence of hydrogen bonded water structure close to it is geometrically unfavourable, there is a net depletion of water molecules in the vicinity leading to the possible creation of a hydrophobic interfacial gap.     

Rietveld refinement of CdSe phases annealed under argon atmosphere

Hexagonal and cubic cadmium selenide were prepared from a chemical route by using cadmium chloride and potassium selenium hydride obtained from reaction of selenium powder and potassium boron hydride. The product obtained was thermally treated under argon flux at 300, 500 and 600 °C for 2 h and characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The X-ray diffraction data were refined by Rietveld method and the structural parameters were determined for the phases of each annealed samples. At 300 °C five phases were identified: Cubic and hexagonal cadmium selenides and the contaminants: Potassium chloride, boron oxide and cadmium boron oxide. At 500 and 600 °C only the hexagonal cadmium selenide phase was identified besides the other above mentioned contaminant.     

Lattice vibrations of armchair carbon nanotubes: phonons,soliton deformations and lattice discreteness effects

Small and large-amplitude elastic deformations of the armchair structure of single-walled carbon nanotubes are investigated with emphasis on the cylindrical geometry. As starting model, we consider a discrete one-dimensional lattice of atoms interacting via a Lennard-Jones type two-body potential. In an expansion scheme using cylindrical coordinates where radial displacements are assumed negligible compared to the angular motions, a sine-lattice Hamiltonian is derived. In the limit of small-amplitude angular displacements, the dispersion spectrum of acoustic phonons is derived and the associate characteristic frequency is given as a function of parameters of the model. In the large-amplitude regime, lattice vibrations give rise to kink-type deformations which move undergoing lattice dispersion and lattice discreteness effects. The dispersion law of the kink motion is obtained and shown to lower the effect of lattice discreteness, giving rise to a vanishing Peierls stress for kink sizes of the order of a few lattice spacings. Implications of the coupling of two armchair structures on the stability of vibrational modes of an individual armchair nanotube are also discussed. A gap of forbidden modes is predicted in the phonon spectrum while the energy needed to create a kink deformation in individual nanotubes is shifted in the presence of a wall-to-wall interaction.Received: 2 August 2004, Published online: 14 December 2004PACS: 81.07.De Nanotubes - 62.30. + d Mechanical and elastic waves-vibrations - 63.22. + m Phonons in low-dimensional nanoscale materials - 63.20.Ry Anharmonic lattices modes     

Quantum diffusion

Basic ideas and results which characterize quantum diffusion of defects in quantum crystals like solid helium as a new phenomenon are presented. Quantum effects in such media lead to a delocalization of point defects (vacancies, impurities etc.) and they turn into quasiparticles of a new type—defectons, which are characterized not by their position in the crystal lattice but by their quasimomentum and dispersion law. Defecton-defecton and defecton-phonon scattering are considered and an interpolation formula for the diffusion coefficient valid in all interesting temperature and concentration regions is presented. A comparison with the experimental data is made. Some alternative points of view are discussed in detail and the inconsistency of the Kisvarsanyi-Sullivan theory is shown.     

Compulsorily Phase Locked Interferometer Using Orthogonally Polarized Light Source of a Modulated LD with High Extinction Ratio

This paper describes a compulsorily phase locked differential interferometer using an orthogonally polarized light source of a modulated LD with high extinction ratio to reduce non-linearity of the interferometer caused by polarization cross-talk. The current modulated LD is used as a light source to make the interferometer compact and for the scanning phase of the interferometer. The interferometer is operated compulsorily at the maximum inclination point of the fringe intensity curve by fringe scanning and an electric system. A Wollaston prism of high extinction ratio (50 dB) is used to combine the polarizing beams and to make the polarization cross-talk very small. In one light source the polarized output beams are on the same propagation axis; in the other they have a small crossing angle (2.5 mrad ∼ 10 mrad) to completely exclude non-linearity of the interferometer causded by polarization cross-talk. Using jets of a gas mixture of nitrogen and ethylene, this interferometer was demonstrated to be useful in detecting the photothermal effect of a photothermal velocimeter under phase fluctuation in a turbulent flow.     

Unavoidable Traces Of Set Systems

Sauer, Shelah, Vapnik and Chervonenkis proved that if a set system on n vertices contains many sets, then the set system has full trace on a large set. Although the restriction on the size of the groundset cannot be lifted, Frankl and Pach found a trace structure that is guaranteed to occur in uniform set systems even if we do not bound the size of the groundset. In this note we shall give three sequences of structures such that every set system consisting of sufficiently many sets contains at least one of these structures with many sets.     

Representations of Positive Projections II

In this paper we obtain a number of Maharam-type slice integral representations, with respect to scalar measures, for positive projections in Dedekind complete vector lattices and f-algebras. AMS Classification: 47B65, 46A40, 06F25     

On the non existence of monotone linear schema for some linear parabolic equations

In this Note, we present a result concerning the non existence of linear monotone schema with fixed stencil on regular meshes for some linear parabolic equation in two dimensions. The parabolic equations of interest arise from non isotropic diffusion modelling. A corollary is that no linear monotone 9 points-schemes can be designed for the one-dimensional heat equation emerged in the plane with an arbitrary direction of diffusion. Some applications of this result are provided: for the Fokker–Planck–Lorentz model for electrons in the context of plasma physics; all linear monotone scheme for the one-dimensional hyperbolic heat equation treated as a two-dimensional problem are not consistent in the diffusion limit for an arbitrary direction of propagation. We also examine the case of the Landau equation. To cite this article: C. Buet, S. Cordier, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 340 (2005).