High-speed mixture fraction imaging

Advances in high-speed laser and camera technology have made scientific kHz repetition rate combustion and flow laser diagnostics feasible. While quantitative flow-field results have been shown to be possible via PIV, measuring scalars relevant to combustion such as mixture fraction, temperature and species concentrations is still a significant challenge. Tracer-LIF has proven to be a useful tool for imaging of mixture fraction. This paper highlights recent success at extending this technique for use at 9.5 kHz acquisition rate. The measurements are taken near the exit of an isothermal round jet seeded with acetone. Results taken at both maximum possible signal and a practical configuration for reacting flows are contrasted. Data are fully quantified and corrected for not only absorption, optical uniformity and laser pulse variation, but also for individual CMOS pixel offset and sensitivity.     

Time-resolved conditional flow field statistics in extinguishing turbulent opposed jet flames using simultaneous highspeed PIV/OH-PLIF

Time-resolved particle image velocimetry (PIV) and planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF), both at 5 kHz, were applied simultaneously on extinguishing turbulent opposed jet flames. This repetition rate allowed tracking of transient extinction events in turbulent combustion. The additional information acquired about time history enabled a study of the evolution of vortex-flame interactions leading to extinction from individual events. A newly introduced multidimensional conditioning technique to avoid spatial- and temporal-smearing of important flow field information was developed in order to compare individual extinction events in a meaningful, statistical manner. The conditional statistics show that vortices tend to align around the flame and generate regions of high strain in the region where the flame is about to extinguish.     

Detection of telomerase activity in high concentration of cell lysates using primer-modified gold nanoparticles

Although the telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) has served as a powerful assay for detecting telomerase activity, its use has been significantly limited when performed directly in complex, interferant-laced samples. In this work, we report a modification of the TRAP assay that allows the detection of high-fidelity amplification of telomerase products directly from concentrated cell lysates. Briefly, we covalently attached 12 nm gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to the telomere strand (TS) primer, which is used as a substrate for telomerase elongation. These TS-modified AuNPs significantly reduce polymerase chain reaction (PCR) artifacts (such as primer dimers) and improve the yield of amplified telomerase products relative to the traditional TRAP assay when amplification is performed in concentrated cell lysates. Specifically, because the TS-modified AuNPs eliminate most of the primer-dimer artifacts normally visible at the same position as the shortest amplified telomerase PCR product apparent on agarose gels, the AuNP-modified TRAP assay exhibits excellent sensitivity. Consequently, we observed a 10-fold increase in sensitivity for cancer cells diluted 1000-fold with somatic cells. It thus appears that the use of AuNP-modified primers significantly improves the sensitivity and specificity of the traditional TRAP assay and may be an effective method by which PCR can be performed directly in concentrated cell lysates.     

Red electrophosphorescence from a soluble binaphthol derivative as host and iridium complex as guest

The investigation of the optical properties, carrier injection, and transport into a soluble small molecule, 6,6'-dicarbazolyl-2,2'-dihexyloxy-1,1'-binaphthol (BA), was reported. The results demonstrated that BA is a blue-emitting molecule, which can be used as a host for the fabrication of electrophosphorescent light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The single-layer electrophosphorescent LEDs fabricated from toluene solution containing BA with tris[2,5-bis-2'-(9',9'-dihexylfluorene)pyridine-kappa(2)NC(3)(')]iridium(III) [Ir(HFP)(3)] emitted red light from Ir(HFP)(3) triplet emission. The results from photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) demonstrated that the dominated operational mechanism in EL was charge trapping rather than F?rster transfer, which was the dominated mechanism in PL. The single-layer OLEDs with 1wt % of Ir(HFP)(3) have a luminance (L) of 1000 cd/m(2) at 22 V and a luminous efficiency (LE) of 0.88 cd/A at 11 mA/cm(2). Double-layer electrophosphorescent LEDs fabricated by casting the emitting layer from a solution of BA blended with Ir(HFP)(3) and subsequently thermally depositing tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq(3)) film as an electron injection and transport layer yielded L = 1830 cd/m(2) at 30 V and LE = 2.47 cd/A at 18 mA/cm(2). These results demonstrated that electrophosphorescent LEDs can be fabricated from BA via solution processing and that L and LE can be enhanced by changing the device architecture with the goal of better balancing the electron and hole currents.     

Search for the invisible decay of neutrons with KamLAND

The Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector is used in a search for single neutron or two-neutron intranuclear disappearance that would produce holes in the -shell energy level of (12)C nuclei. Such holes could be created as a result of nucleon decay into invisible modes (inv), e.g., n--> 3v or nn--> 2v. The deexcitation of the corresponding daughter nucleus results in a sequence of space and time-correlated events observable in the liquid scintillator detector. We report on new limits for one- and two-neutron disappearance: tau(n--> inv) > 5.8 x 10(29) years and tau (nn--> inv) > 1.4 x 10(30) years at 90% C.L. These results represent an improvement of factors of approximately 3 and >10(4) and over previous experiments.     

Heteroanalogues of PCBM: N‐Bridged Imino‐PCBMs for Organic Field‐Effect Transistors

Crossing the bridge : Two isomeric iminofullerenes, [5,6]‐open azafulleroid 1 and [6,6]‐closed aziridinofullerene 2 , were prepared by cycloaddition of an organic azide to C₆₀. These “azalogues” enable the study of the effects of the bridging atom in a fullerene cage, that is, C₆₀‐like (5,6‐open) versus PCBM‐like (6,6‐closed), as a function of their π systems (PCBM=[6,6]‐phenyl‐C₆₁‐butyric acid methyl ester).

     

Low temperature specific heat of (TTF) (TCNQ)

Low temperature specific heat measurements on (TTF) (TCNQ) are reported. The Debye temperature is 89.5 K. No term linear in temperature is observed, and comparison with other data indicates the low temperature phase is that of a small band gap non-magnetic semiconductor.     

Photo-excitation of single crystals of La2CuO4+δ near the metal-insulator transition

Transient photoconductivity (σ_ph) experiments have been carried out in single crystals of insulating La₂CuO_4+δ near the metal-insulator transition (δ≈ 1–2%). The time evolution of the σ_ph changes dramatically with light intensity (I_L). At low I_L, σ_ph is characterized by power law time decay, t⁻, in the nanosecond time regime, and the exponent, , decreases significantly with increasing I_L. As I_L increases to 5 × 10¹⁵ photons/cm₂, σ_ph reaches 15 S/cm, and the lifetime of the conducting state is enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude: σ_ph exhibits a delayed peak centered at approximately 30 ns. followed by exponential decay with time constant of 360 ns. The data reveal a continuous distribution of localized electronic states above the (hole) mobility edge; the M-I transition is achieved when the Fermi level is shifted away from the localized states and across the mobility edge either by chemical dopiing or by photo-excitation. The time of σ_ph at high I_L implies the formation of metastable metallic droplets after photo-excitation.     

Temperature dependent microwave dielectric constant of TTF-TCNQ and related one-dimensional conductors

The results of an experimental study of the low temperature (4.2–40 K) complex dielectric constant of the organic conductors (TTF)(TCNQ), (TMTTF)(TCNQ), (DSeDTF)(TCNQ), (TSeF)(TCNQ), and the alloy (TTF)_0.97(TSeF)_0.03(TCNQ) are described. The similar features observed in these different systems suggest that a common mechanism is involved.