Ultrafast energy-electron transfer cascade in a multichromophoric light-harvesting molecular square

A molecular square with dimensions of about 4 nm, incorporating sixteen pyrene chromophores attached to four ditopic bay-functionalized perylene bisimide chromophores, has been synthesized by coordination to four Pt(II) phosphine corner units and fully characterized via NMR spectroscopy and ESI-FTICR mass spectrometry. Steady-state and time-resolved emission as well as femtosecond transient absorption studies reveal the presence of a highly efficient (>90%) and fast photoinduced energy transfer (k(en) approximately equal to 5.0 x 10(9) s(-1)) from the pyrene to the perylene bisimide chromophores and a very fast and efficient electron transfer (>94%, k(et) approximately equal to 5 x 10(11) up to 43 x 10(11) s(-1)). Spectrotemporal parametrization indicates upper excited-state electron-transfer processes, various energy and electron-transfer pathways, and chromophoric heterogeneity. Temperature-dependent time-resolved emission spectroscopy has shown that the acceptor emission lifetime increases with decreasing temperature from which an electron-transfer barrier is obtained. The extremely fast electron-transfer processes (substantially faster and more efficient than in the free ligand) that are normally only observed in solid materials, together with the closely packed structure of 20 chromophoric units, indicate that we can consider the molecular square as a monodisperse nanoaggregate: a molecularly defined ensemble of chromophores that partly behaves like a solid material.     

Direct observation of broken time-reversal symmetry on the surface of a magnetically doped topological insulator

We study interference patterns of a magnetically doped topological insulator Bi(2-x)Fe(x)Te(3+d) by using Fourier transform scanning tunneling spectroscopy and observe several new scattering channels. A comparison with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy allows us to unambiguously ascertain the momentum-space origin of distinct dispersing channels along high-symmetry directions and identify those originating from time-reversal symmetry breaking. Our analysis also reveals that the surface state survives far above the energy where angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy finds the onset of continuum bulk bands.     

Experimental studies of the jamming behaviour of triblock copolymer solutions and triblock copolymer-anionic surfactant mixtures

Photon correlation spectroscopy and rheological measurements are performed to investigate the microscopic dynamics and mechanical responses of aqueous solutions of triblock copolymers and aqueous mixtures of triblock copolymers and anionic surfactants. Increasing the concentration of triblock copolymers results in a sharp increase in the magnitude of the complex moduli characterising the samples. This is understood in terms of the changes in the aggregation and packing behaviours of the copolymers and the constraints imposed upon their dynamics due to increased close packing. The addition of suitable quantities of an anionic surfactant to a strongly elastic copolymer solution results in a decrease in the complex moduli of the samples by several decades. It is argued that the shape anisotropy and size polydispersity of the micelles comprising mixtures cause dramatic changes in the packing behaviour, resulting in sample unjamming and the observed decrease in complex moduli. Finally, a phase diagram is constructed in the temperature-surfactant concentration plane to summarise the jamming-unjamming behaviour of aggregates constituting triblock copolymer-anionic surfactant mixtures.     

Bifurcation analysis of the Zhukovskii-Volterra system via bi-Hamiltonian approach

The main goal of this paper consists of bifurcation analysis of classical integrable Zhukovskii-Volterra system. We use the fact that the ZV system is bi-Hamiltonian and apply new techniques [1] for analysis of singularities of bi-Hamiltonian systems, which can be formulated as follows: the structure of singularities of a bi-Hamiltonian system is determined by that of the corresponding compatible Poisson brackets.     

Study on the structure functions of electrons and the energy flow in the soft component of cosmic-ray extensive air showers

Summary Cosmic-ray air shower structure functions for the distance dependence of electron density in cosmic-ray air showers in the size range 10⁴⋎10⁸ have been computed for their intercomparison and comparison with Monte Carlo simulation results and measurements from recent experiments. The analysis has yielded the present status of theoretical structure functionsvis à vis experimental results and Monte Carlo simulation distributions. The effect of core location error on the lateral distribution of electrons is also discussed from the point of view of different theoretical and experimental results. The energy flow in the soft component of air showers of size ∼4·10⁵ has been evaluated within a ring of radius 10m about the axis of the showers.     

Spectroscopy of 62Ni with the 61Ni(d, p) reaction

Differential cross sections, vector and tensor analysing powers have been measured for the ⁶¹Ni(d, p) reaction at a deuteron energy of 12.3 MeV. Most of the 30 transitions observed below 8.5 MeV excitation are dominated by a single j-value, which was determined from behaviour of the analysing power data. For a number of transitions it was possible to make unambiguous j-assignment relying on the established j-dependence of the T₂₂ tensor analysing power. The deduced spectroscopic factors indicate that the full strength of neutron transfer to the ($\text{2p, 1f}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>5</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$) and $\text{1}\text{g}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>9</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$ orbits was found and seven $\text{5}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{+}}$ transitions were located above 5.3 MeV. The separated strengths of the $\text{3}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{,}\text{1}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}\text{and}\text{5}\text{2}{}^{\mathrm{?}}$ transitions are compared with shell-model calculations for the low-lying states of ⁶²Ni.