Alumina-supported Cu(II), a versatile and recyclable catalyst for regioselective ring opening of aziridines and epoxides and subsequent cyclization to functionalized 1,4-benzoxazines and 1,4-benzodioxanes

An easily accessible catalyst, alumina-supported copper(II), efficiently catalyzes the ring opening of aziridines and epoxides followed by cyclization of the corresponding intermediate to produce a variety of functionalized 1,4-benzoxazines and 1,4-benzodioxanes, respectively, in one pot without any ligand in high yields. The ring cleavages of aziridines and epoxides are highly regioselective. The catalyst is inexpensive, non-air-sensitive, environmentally friendly, and recyclable. The function of the catalyst and the reaction pathway are postulated. This protocol is successfully utilized for the formation of three carbon-heteroatom bonds, namely, C-O, C-N, and C-S, in one pot.     

On static spherically symmetric solutions of the vacuum Brans-Dicke theory

It is shown that among the four classes of the static spherically symmetric solutions of the vacuum Brans-Dicke theory of gravity only two are really independent. Further, by matching exterior and interior (due to physically reasonable spherically symmetric matter source) scalar fields it is found that only the Brans class I solution with a certain restriction on the solution parameters may represent an exterior metric for a nonsingular massive object. The physical viability of the black hole nature of the solution is investigated. It is concluded that no physical black hole solution different from the Schwarzschild black hole is available in the Brans-Dicke theory.     

Engineering bands of extended electronic states in a class of topologically disordered and quasiperiodic lattices

We show that a discrete tight-binding model representing either a random or a quasiperiodic array of bonds can have the entire energy spectrum or a substantial part of it absolutely continuous, populated by extended eigenfunctions only, when atomic sites are coupled to the lattice locally, or non-locally from one side. The event can be fine-tuned by controlling only the host–adatom coupling in one case, while in two other cases cited here an additional external magnetic field is necessary. The delocalization of electronic states for the group of systems presented here is sensitive to a subtle correlation between the numerical values of the Hamiltonian parameters – a fact that is not common in the conventional cases of Anderson localization. Our results are analytically exact, and supported by numerical evaluation of the density of states and electronic transmission coefficient.     

Synthesis of PVDF/BiFeO3 nanocomposite and observation of enhanced electrical conductivity and low‐loss dielectric permittivity at percolation threshold

A novel two‐phase polymer nanocomposite film comprising of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and nanocrystalline (～90 nm) semiconducting multiferroic BiFeO₃ (BFO) have been fabricated by hot‐molding technique. Such flexible thick nanocomposite films, semicrystalline in nature, exhibited extraordinarily high effective dielectric permittivity ε_eff ～ 10³ (compared with that of pure PVDF) near the low percolation threshold (f_c = 0.12) at room temperature (RT) and the films also possessed low dielectric loss (～0.18). The polarization‐electric field (P‐E) hysteresis loops are displayed at RT, which indicate ferroelectric like behavior of PVDF still persists in the percolative nanocomposite. There is also large increase of remanent polarization of BFO in the composite indicating improvement of the multiferroic behavior of BFO embedded in the PVDF polymer. The sample also indicates good fatigue endurance. Formation of microcapacitors and percolative behavior are correlated to explain the obtained results based on the special geometry of the BFO nanofillers. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012