Small silver particles in glass surface layers produced by sodium-silver ion exchange — their concentration and size depth profile

Small spherical silver particles in a surface layer of commercial flat glass were produced by means of sodium-silver ion exchange. In each volume element of the layer there is a Gaussian distribution of the particle diameters. The mean diameter increases with penetration depth. Within one individual sample it can vary from 4.5 nm immediately at the glass surface up to more than 50 nm at the end of the layer. Due to a special preparation technique the results were gained by microspectrophotometric measurements as well as by investigations carried out with the transmission electron microscope and the electron-probe microanalyzer on one and the same sample always as function of the penetration depth.     

Achievement of laser fusion of biological cells using UV pulsed dye laser beams

This paper reports a successful achievement of laser-induced biological cell fusion using an excimer laser excited dye laser. To our knowledge, we examined for the first time the dependence of fusion rate on laser pulse energy, number of laser pulses, and laser wavelength. Maximum fusion rate of approximately 50% was obtained by this laser fusion technology.     

Quantum wire heterostructure for optoelectronic applications

Quantum wire (QWR) heterostructures suitable for optoelectronic applications should meet a number of requirements, including defect free interfaces, large subband separation, long carrier lifetime, efficient carrier capture. The structural and opticl properties of GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/GaAs quantum wire (QWR) heterostructures grown by organometallic chemical vapor deposition on nonplanr substrates, which satisfy many of these criteria, are described. These crescent-shaped QWRs are formed in situ during epitaxial growth resulting in virtually defect free interfaces. Effective wire widths as small as 10nm have been achieved, corresponding to electron subband separations greater than K_BT at room temperature. The enhanced density of states at the QWR subbands manifests itself in higher optical absorption and emission as visualized in photoluminescence (PL), PL excitation, amplified spontaneous emission and lasing spectra of these structures. Effective carrier capture into the wires via connected quantum well regions, which is important for enhancing the otherwise extremely small capture cross section of these wires, has also been observed. Room temperature operation of GaAs/AlGaAs and strained InGaAs/GaAs QWR lasers with threshold currents as low as 0.6mA has been demonstrated.     

The existence of equilibria in certain games,separation for families of convex functions and a theorem of Borsuk-Ulam type

The existence of a Nash equilibrium in the undiscounted repeated two-person game of incomplete information on one side is established. The proof depends on a new topological result resembling in some respect the Borsuk-Ulam theorem.     

Note on a conjecture of toft

A conjecture of Toft [17] asserts that any 4-critical graph (or equivalently, every 4-chromatic graph) contains a fully odd subdivision ofK ₄. We show that if a graphG has a degree three nodev such thatG-v is 3-colourable, then eitherG is 3-colourable or it contains a fully oddK ₄. This resolves Toft's conjecture in the special case where a 4-critical graph has a degree three node, which is in turn used to prove the conjecture for line-graphs. The proof is constructive and yields a polynomial algorithm which given a 3-degenerate graph either finds a 3-colouring or exhibits a subgraph that is a fully odd subdivision ofK ₄. (A graph is 3-degenerate if every subgraph has some node of degree at most three.)