Superb hydroxyl radical-mediated biocidal effect induced antibacterial activity of tuned ZnO/chitosan type II heterostructure under dark

Journal of Nanoparticle Research - With the widespread use of titanium dioxide (TiO2) human exposure is inevitable, but the exposure data on TiO2 are still limited. This study adopted off-line...     

Stacking of multilayer InAs quantum dots with combination capping of InAlGaAs and high temperature grown GaAs

We are reporting the growth of multilayer stacks of quantum dots (10 periods) with a combination capping of In_0.21Al_0.21Ga_0.58As (30 Å) and GaAs (70–180 Å) grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) has been used for the insitu monitoring of quantum dot (QD) formation in heterostructure samples. The samples were also characterized by other exsitu techniques like cross sectional transmission electron microscopy (XTEM) and photoluminescence measurements (PL). For a heterostructure sample with thin barrier thickness (<100 Å), an XTEM image showed the stacking of QDs only up to the 5th layer and in the upper layers there was hardly any formation of dots. We presume the stoppage of dot formation is due to the uneven surface of the InAlGaAs alloy overgrown on the InAs QDs, as a result of the local compositional deviations of the Group-III atoms. Samples grown with thicker barriers (>100 Å of GaAs) showed good stacking of islands until the tenth layer. The thick GaAs layer overgrown on the InAlGaAs at 590 ^°C is believed to remove the surface modifications of the quaternary layer thereby creating a smoother surface front for the growth of subsequent QD layers.     

A Nanoscale Molecular Switch Triggered by Thermal,Light, and Guest Perturbation

Bottoms up! A discrete metallo‐supramolecular nanoball (see picture), synthesized by using “bottom‐up” methodologies, uniquely undergoes a solvent‐sensitive, physically addressable electronic spin switching. The switching occurs by thermal, light, or solvent perturbation, where importantly it can be switched “on” or “off” by green or red laser irradiation, respectively.

     

Inside Cover: A Nanoscale Molecular Switch Triggered by Thermal,Light, and Guest Perturbation (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 14/2009)

Continuous switching between high‐spin and low‐spin magnetic states can be accomplished by irradiation with red and green laser light, respectively. In their Communication on page 2549 ff., S. R. Batten and co‐workers report a metallo‐supramolecule that undergoes spin crossover (SCO) switching induced by temperature change or light irradiation. The SCO behavior is also dependent on the presence and nature of intercalated solvent molecules within the porous crystal structure.

     

Development of Computational Algorithms for Evaluating Option Prices Associated with Square-Root Volatility Processes

The stochastic volatility model of Heston (Rev Financ Stud 6:327–343, 1993) has been accepted by many practitioners for pricing various financial derivatives, because of its capability to explain the smile curve of the implied volatility. While analytical results are available for pricing plain Vanilla European options based on the Heston model, there hardly exist any closed form solutions for exotic options. The purpose of this paper is to develop computational algorithms for evaluating the prices of such exotic options based on a bivariate birth-death approximation approach. Given the underlying price process S _t , the logarithmic process U _t  = logS _t is first approximated by a birth-death process B^U_tB^U_t via moment matching. A second birth-death process B^V_tB^V_t is then constructed for approximating the stochastic volatility process V _t through infinitesimal generator matching. Efficient numerical procedures are developed for capturing the dynamic behavior of { B^U_t , B^V_t }\{ B^U_t , B^V_t \} . Consequently, the prices of any exotic options based on the Heston model can be computed as long as such prices are expressed in terms of the joint distribution of { S _t ,V _t } and the associated first passage times. As an example, the prices of down-and-out call options are evaluated explicitly, demonstrating speed and fair accuracy of the proposed algorithms.     

Strange quark star with Tolman IV background

In this paper, using the optical emission spectroscopy (OES) technique, the optical characteristics of a radiofrequency (RF) plasma jet are examined. The \(\hbox {Ar}/\hbox {O}_{2}\) mixture is taken as the operational gas and, the Ar percentage in the \(\hbox {Ar}/\hbox {O}_{2}\) mixture is varied from 70% to 95%. Using the optical emission spectrum analysis of the RF plasma jet, the excitation temperature is determined based on the Boltzmann plot method. The electron density in the plasma medium of the RF plasma jet is obtained by the Stark broadening of the hydrogen Balmer \(H_{\beta }\). It is mostly seen that, the radiation intensity of Ar 4p\(\rightarrow \)4s transitions at higher argon contributions in \(\hbox {Ar}/\hbox {O}_{2}\) mixture is higher. It is found that, at higher Ar percentages, the emission intensities from atomic oxygen (O) are higher and, the line intensities from the argon atoms and ions including O atoms linearly increase. It is observed that the quenching of \(\hbox {Ar}^{*}\) with \(\hbox {O}_{2}\) results in higher O species with respect to \(\hbox {O}_{2}\) molecules. In addition, at higher percentages of Ar in the \(\hbox {Ar}/\hbox {O}_{2}\) mixture, while the excitation temperature is decreased, the electron density is increased.     

Double and triple ionization of silver clusters by electron impact

The production of silver cluster cations Ag(n)(2+) (for several selected sizes in the range n = 39-119) and Ag(n)(3+) (for n = 58, 61, 67) by electron impact ionization of neutral precursors has been studied. The scaling of appearance energies with cluster radius follows the metallic droplet model but, curiously, with a slope which is estimated to be quite different from the literature values for single ionization, Ag(n)(+), as well as for the appearance of smaller Ag(n)(2+) ions. It is also found that as the electron energy increases, the yield of high-charge cations grows faster than that of singly-charged Ag(n)(+). This behavior is consistent with the power-law dependence of post-threshold ionization. The mechanisms involved in multiple ionization phenomena in clusters of noble metals are not yet fully understood and call for further experimental and theoretical examination.