Adsorption-induced bending of polypyrrole films and its application to a chemomechanical rotor

We have discovered that polypyrrole films undergo rapid and intensive bending in the solid state. Bending was induced by the reversible and anisotropic adsorption of various substances in the vapor state. The speed and direction of bending largely depended on the adsorbate used. By using this phenomenon, we have devised an experimental “chemomechanical rotor” capable of transducing a chemical free energy change directly into a continuous rotation. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Strained Lattice Organic Thin Film Growth by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Abstract

Strained lattice organic thin film which possessed distinct lattice structure from the bulk crystal was formed by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). In situ infrared (IR) spectroscopic characterization was carried out to clarify the as-grown film structure under several growth conditions. The growth condition for parallel orientation of the flat molecules was discussed under the interrelation between the molecule-substrate interactions and the intermolecular interactions.     

Characteristics of Wavelength Tunable Femtosecond Soliton Pulse Generation Using Femtosecond Pump Laser and Polarization Maintaining Fiber

We have investigated both experimentally and numerically the characteristics of wavelength tunable femtosecond soliton pulse generation using a pulse width variable fiber laser and two different types of polarization maintaining fibers. The generated soliton shows the feature of the pulsewidth becoming almost constant at - 250 fs under any conditions of the pump pulse for 220m fiber. High conversion efficiency from pump pulse to a generated soliton pulse accounting for as much as 73% can be obtained. This efficiency decreases with increase in the input power or wavelength shift. A superior conversion efficiency and broad wavelength shift can be obtained by using a more shortened pump pulse. In the numerical calculations, it is predicted that under a condition of constant power of pump pulse, the maximum wavelength shift is achieved when the soliton number N is -1.4. The difference of mode field diameter and the group velocity dispersion (GVD) coefficient β₂ affect the wavelength shift and conversion efficiency. Using the fiber with small mode field diameter and small absolute value of GVD coefficient β₂, a high conversion efficiency and large wavelength shift can be obtained.     

Automatic F positron source supply system for a monoenergetic positron beam

A system which supplies an intense ¹⁸F (half life 110 min) positron source produced by an AVF cyclotron through ¹⁸O(p,n)¹⁸F reaction has been constructed. Produced ¹⁸F is transferred to a low background experiment hall through a capillary. It is electro-deposited on a graphite rod and used for a source of a slow positron beam. In the meantime the next batch of target ¹⁸O water is loaded and proton irradiation proceeds. This system makes it possible to perform continuous positron beam experiments using the ¹⁸F positron source.     

Direct observation of surfactant aggregate behavior on a mica surface using high-speed atomic force microscopy

The processes of dynamic aggregate transformations of micelles at a mica surface were observed using high-speed atomic force microscopy. We showed that salt concentration affects not only the equilibrium state adsorbed structure but also the time required to reach the equilibrium state on the mica surface.     

Nonparametric Density Estimation for a Long-Range Dependent Linear Process

We estimate the marginal density function of a long-range dependent linear process by the kernel estimator. We assume the innovations are i.i.d. Then it is known that the term of the sample mean is dominant in the MISE of the kernel density estimator when the dependence is beyond some level which depends on the bandwidth and that the MISE has asymptotically the same form as for i.i.d. observations when the dependence is below the level. We call the latter the case where the dependence is not very strong and focus on it in this paper. We show that the asymptotic distribution of the kernel density estimator is the same as for i.i.d. observations and the effect of long-range dependence does not appear. In addition we describe some results for weakly dependent linear processes.     

Nanoscience of single polymer chains revealed by nanofishing

The invention of atomic force microscopy (AFM) enabled us to study the statistical properties of single polymer chains by a method called "nanofishing," which stretches a single polymer chain adsorbed on a substrate with its one end by picking it at the other end. A force-extension curve obtained for a single polystyrene chain in a Theta solvent (cyclohexane) shows good agreement with a worm-like chain model and, therefore, gives microscopic information about entropic elasticity. Furthermore, the nanofishing technique can be used for dynamic viscoelastic measurement of single polymer chains. An AFM cantilever is mechanically oscillated at its resonant frequency during the stretching process. This technique enables the estimation of quantitative and simultaneous elongation-dependent changes of stiffness and viscosity of a single chain with the use of a phenomenological model. In this study, the effect of solvent on viscosity in low extension regions reveals that the viscosity is attributed to monomer-solvent friction. Thus, static and dynamic nanofishing techniques are shown to give powerful experimental proofs for several basic questions in polymer physics. The techniques are expected to reveal hidden properties of polymer chains or polymer solutions by any types of macroscopic measurements in the future.     

Constructing self-organized structures on silicon and sapphire surfaces

We investigated methods to fabricate distinctive structures on silicon and sapphire substrates to grow a carbon nanotube (CNT) network using a solution from the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. The BZ reaction is a chemical system where chemical reactions and material diffusion coexist in a nonequilibrium state and generate spatiotemporal patterns in a petri dish. Precipitates from the reaction should also produce distinctive structures after being piled on the substrates. The structures have metal particles that act as catalysts for growing CNTs or quantum dots of nanodot devices. Therefore, such structures should be suitable to fabricate three-dimensional CNT networks or nanodot devices. To confirm this, we investigated the fabrication of distinctive structure using a BZ reaction solution. Results indicated that the BZ reaction solution produced interesting structures on the substrates. Moreover, we confirmed that the shape of the structure changed when the substrate used was changed. We believe that the developed methods are suitable to fabricate nanodevices, especially CNT network devices.     

Cationic Grafting of Vinyl Polymers onto a Carbon Whisker,Initiated by Acylium Perchlorate Groups Introduced onto the Surface

Abstract

The cationic graft polymerization of vinyl monomers onto a carbon whisker, vapor-grown carbon fiber, initiated by acylium perchlorate groups introduced onto the surface, was investigated. The introduction of acylium perchlorate groups onto a carbon whisker was achieved by the treatment of a carbon whisker having acyl chloride groups, which were introduced by the reaction of surface carboxyl groups with thionyl chloride, with silver perchlorate in nitrobenzene. It was found that the cationic polymerization of vinyl monomers, such as styrene, indene, N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone, and n-butyl vinyl ether, is initiated by acylium perchlorate groups on a carbon whisker. In the polymerization, the corresponding vinyl polymers were grafted onto a carbon-whisker surface based on the propagation of polymer from the surface: the percentage of grafting of polystyrene and polyindene reached 42.5 and 100.3%, respectively. The percentage of polystyrene grafting decreased with increasing polymerization temperature because of preferential chain transfer reactions at higher temperatures. Polymer-grafted carbon whisker gave a stable colloidal dispersion in a good solvent for grafted polymer.     

Extensions of the conjugate prior through the Kullback-Leibler separators

The conjugate prior for the exponential family, referred to also as the natural conjugate prior, is represented in terms of the Kullback-Leibler separator. This representation permits us to extend the conjugate prior to that for a general family of sampling distributions. Further, by replacing the Kullback-Leibler separator with its dual form, we define another form of a prior, which will be called the mean conjugate prior. Various results on duality between the two conjugate priors are shown. Implications of this approach include richer families of prior distributions induced by a sampling distribution and the empirical Bayes estimation of a high-dimensional mean parameter.