Langmuir-Blodgett films of a clay mineral and ruthenium(II) complexes with a noncentrosymmetric structure

Mono- and multilayers of amphiphilic [Ru(phen)(2)(dcC12bpy)](2+) (phen = 1,10-phenanthroline, dcC12bpy = 4,4'-caboxyl-2,2'-bipyridyl didodecyl ester) hybridized with a clay mineral have been prepared by a modified Langmuir-Blodgett method, and their structures and properties have been investigated. Formation of a hybrid monolayer of the Ru(II) complex cations and the clay platelets at an air-clay suspension interface was confirmed by surface pressure-molecular area (pi-A) isotherm measurement and atomic force microscopic (AFM) observation. Multilayers were fabricated by depositing the hybrid monolayers onto glass substrates. The absorbance at 492 nm due to the Ru(II) complex cation in the multilayer increased linearly with the increase in the layer number, indicating layer-by-layer deposition of the hybrid monolayers. Because no increase in the second-harmonic generation (SHG) signal from the multilayers against the layer number was observed, the orientation of the Ru(II) complex cations in the layer would be disturbed. The hydrophilic surface of the transferred hybrid monolayer can be converted to a hydrophobic surface by dipping it in an aqueous solution of octadecylammonium chloride (ODAH(+)Cl(-)). The multilayers modified with ODAH(+) showed a quadratic relation between the SHG intensity and the layer number. This means that the Ru(II) complex cations in the multilayer are successfully oriented in a noncentrosymmetric way by the conversion of the surface property. Both a racemic mixture and an enantiomer of the Ru(II) complex cations were employed to examine the chiral effect on the film properties. The chiral contribution to the SHG signal was enhanced in the multilayer modified with ODAH(+).     

Terahertz radiation generation by beating of two spatial-Gaussian lasers

Terahertz radiation generation is proposed based on beating of two spatial-Gaussian lasers in a periodic density plasma, where a transverse component of current is realized that resonantly excites the radiation with efficiency ∼10⁻³. Importance of laser-beam-width, amplitude and periodicity of density structure is discussed for the efficient THz generation.     

Hybrid mesh generation with embedded surfaces using a multiple marching direction approach

This paper proposes a method for the creation of hybrid meshes with embedded surfaces for viscous flow simulations as an extension of the multiple marching direction approach (AIAA J. 2007; 45 (1):162–167). The multiple marching direction approach enables to place semi‐structured elements around singular points, where valid semi‐structured elements cannot be placed using conventional hybrid mesh generation methods. This feature is discussed first with a couple of examples. Elements sometimes need to be clustered inside a computational domain to obtain more accurate results. For example, solution features, such as shocks, vortex cores and wake regions, can be extracted during the process of adaptive mesh generation. These features can be represented as surface meshes embedded in a computational domain. Semi‐structured elements can be placed around the embedded surface meshes using the multiple marching direction approach with a pretreatment method. Tetrahedral elements can be placed easily instead. A couple of results are presented to demonstrate the capability of the mesh generation method. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A supplementary remark on finite temperature perturbation

The relativistic field equations of the axistationary vacuum are derived in Ernst coordinates in full detail. The derivation of the Kerr metric is given from the field equations.     

Low-frequency and high-frequency relaxations in dynamic electric birefringence of poly(γ-benzyl-L-glutamate) in m-cresol

The dc component Δn of the electric birefringence of poly(γ-benzyl-L -glutamate) in m-cresol is measured under an ac electric field at frequencies from 0.5 Hz to 200 kHz for solutions covering the dilute and semidilute regions. The dispersion curve indicates that at low frequencies Δn decreases with increasing frequency (low-frequency relaxation). For high-molecular-weight polymers at high concentration, Δn becomes negative at high frequency and its absolute value decreases with further increase in frequency (high-frequency relaxation). A unified theory for the two relaxations is developed on the basis of a model in which, in the semidilute regime, the rodlike polymer is confined in a cage formed by neighboring polymers and the lifetime of the cage lies between relaxation times of the two relaxations. The low-frequency relaxation is ascribed to end-over-end rotation of the polymer and the high-frequency relaxation to the rotation within a limited angle in the cage. The dependences of relaxation parameters on polymer concentration and molecular weight are reasonably explained by the theory.