Eigenpairs of a coupled rectangular cavity and its fundamental properties

This paper deals with the eigenvalue problem of a coupled rectangular cavity comprising five rigid walls and one flexible panel frequently employed in much literature. It is the purpose of this paper to derive explicitly the eigenpairs of the coupled cavity, which are yet to be found. First, the coupling orthogonality conditions the eigenpairs need to satisfy are derived, thereby enabling the verification of the eigenpairs newly sought or already existent. Using the coupling orthogonality conditions, the modal equation of the coupled cavity system is then obtained, permitting one to deal with a forced response of the coupled cavity. It is shown that the eigenfunctions governing the dynamics of the sound field are expressed as the infinite sum of degenerate eigenfunctions. The characteristic matrix equation is then derived, specifying the eigenpairs of the coupled cavity. In order to investigate the fundamental properties of the eigenpairs derived, a numerical analysis is conducted, revealing the presence of evanescent modes in addition to the conventional standing wave modes. Finally, an experiment is carried out, verifying the validity of the eigenpairs derived in the article.     

Melting point depression of ionic liquids confined in nanospaces

A new physical method was proposed to control the liquid properties of room temperature ionic liquids (RT-ILs) in combination with nanoporous materials; the melting point of ILs confined in nanopores remarkably decreases in proportion to the inverse of the pore size.     

AFM observation of immobilized self-oscillating polymer

Various types of nanocomponents have been developed to construct a nanodevice or nanomachine. Here, we add a new nanocomponent that has the function of self-oscillation. A thermoresponsive polymer carrying a Ru complex, a catalyst of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, was synthesized and immobilized on a glass plate. Periodic turbidity changes in the aqueous solution of the polymer were observed, and nanoscale self-oscillation of the immobilized polymer was observed by a scanning probe microscope.     

The body-centered cubic structure of methyllithium tetramer crystal: staggered methyl conformation by electrostatic stabilization via intratetramer multipolarization

The methyllithium tetramer (CH3Li)4 structure in the bcc crystal has been theoretically optimized with the use of density functional theory calculations under the periodic boundary condition. The X-ray structure shows that the methyl-group conformation in tetramer in crystal takes the staggered form rather than the eclipsed form that is taken in the isolated tetramer, i.e., the crystal packing effect, and this has been reproduced for the first time. It is concluded that the staggered form is advantageous in crystal, as a whole, due to the larger electrostatic stabilization via the induced intratetramer multipolarization, although it should cause, simultaneously, smaller destabilization in intratetramer electronic energy.     

Effects of halogenated WNA derivatives on sequence dependency for expansion of recognition sequences in non-natural-type triplexes

Triplex-forming oligonucleotides (TFOs) are sequence-specific DNA-binding agents, but their target duplexes are limited to homopurine/homopyrimidine sequences because of interruption of the pyrimidines bases in the purine region. This problem has not been fully solved despite a wide variety of studies. Recently, we have developed a bicyclic system as a novel scaffold for nucleoside analogues (WNA, W-shaped nucleoside analogues) and determined two useful compounds, WNA-betaT (2) and WNA-betaC (5), for highly stable and selective triplex formation at a TA and a CG interrupting site, respectively. However, subsequent investigations have shown that the triplex formation using WNA is dependent on the neighboring bases of the TFOs. In this study, we have synthesized new WNA derivatives having halogenated recognition bases or benzene rings and evaluated the effects of the modifications on the triplex stability as well as selectivity. It has been found that the WNA-betaT analogues holding 5-halogenated pyrimidine bases (WNA-beta(Br)U (3) and WNA-beta(F)U (4)) exhibit high CG-selectivity. On the other hand, the WNA-betaT derivatives having the bromo-substituted benzene ring (mBr-WNA-betaT (10) and oBr-WNA-betaT (11)) have shown high selectivity to a TA interrupting site with high stability in the sequences to which the original WNA-betaT do not bind. Thus, sequence-dependency has been overcome by the sequence-dependent use of WNA-betaT, mBr-WNA-betaT, and oBr-WNA-betaT.     

2,2′-Biphenyldiol-bridged bis(free base porphyrin): synthesis and chiroptical probing of asymmetric amino alcohols

A new type of bis(free base porphyrin) 1, in which two porphyrin units are attached to the 5,5′-positions of the 2,2′-biphenyldiol group, has been synthesized. It exhibits exciton-coupled bisignate circular dichroism (CD) spectra upon interaction with chiral amino alcohols. The chiral information from the stereogenic center of amino alcohols is introduced as a twist of the porphyrin units in 1 via hydrogen bonding interactions, detectable by the signal in the CD spectrum. Based on these findings, it is proposed that 1 should serve as a reporter unit of chiral sensor systems.     

Preparation and some properties of organically modified layered alkali titanates with alkylmethoxysilanes

The silylation of K2Ti4O9 x nH2O with organosilanes (methyl, n-butyl, n-octyl, n-dodecyl, n-octadecyltrimethoxysilanes and n-octadecyldimethylmethoxysilane) was conducted using the octylammonium-exchanged form as the intermediate. The surface coverage of the octadecylsilylated derivative was controlled by changing the employing amounts of octadecyltrimethoxysilane. The swelling behaviors of the octyl, dodecyl, and octadecylsilylated derivatives in organic solvents were investigated to show that the degree of the swelling varies depending on the kind of solvents, the alkyl chain length of the attached alkylsilyl groups, and the surface coverage. The octadecylsilylated derivative with the largest surface coverage was converted to film with a thickness of ca. 500 nm by casting the chloroform suspension on a substrate. The octadecylsilylated derivative showed a reversible thermoresponsive change of the basal spacing by ca. 0.5 nm in the temperature range between 15 and 60 degrees C.     

Development of modulated rf sequences for decoupling and recoupling of nuclear-spin interactions in sample-spinning solid-state NMR: application to chemical-shift anisotropy determination

An approach to design modulated rf sequences under sample spinning which decouple/recouple a specific nuclear-spin interaction in solid-state NMR is presented. The Euler angles of the spin rotation caused by a general rf field are forced to fulfill the symmetry principle theory for selecting an interaction of interest. Then, modulated rf sequences are directly obtained from the Euler angles with a large degree of freedom. rf sequences with high performance can be selected from them by numerically optimizing rf sequence parameters. As an example of this approach, an amplitude- and phase-modulated rf sequence to recouple chemical-shift anisotropy (CSA) is developed, which is robust with respect to rf inhomogeneity. Two-dimensional (2D) experiments with this rf sequence under on and off magic-angle spinning (MAS) provide one-dimensional and 2D powder patterns, respectively. The latter enables us to determine the CSA principal values more accurately even for overlapped signals in MAS spectra. The effectiveness of this modulated rf sequence is experimentally demonstrated on [(15)N]-N-acetyl-D,L-alanine for determination of the (15)N and (13)CO CSA principal values.     

Dynamical valence fluctuation at the charge-density-wave phase boundary in iodide-bridged Pt compound [Pt(chxn)2I]I2

We synthesized a novel iodo-bridged linear chain platinum compound, having the quasi-two-dimensional charge-density-wave (CDW) ground state and the smallest band gap. In this compound, we discovered an anomalous valence state in the boundary region at which the CDW phase alternates in the crystal by means of ESR, X-ray diffuse scattering, STM, and electrical resistivity. This anomalous state can be explained by the fast fluctuation between Pt(IV)-I...Pt(II) and Pt(II)...I-Pt(IV) in the double well potential. This is the first observation of the dynamical fluctuation of the CDW phase among the quasi one-dimensional halogen-bridged complexes.