Functionalized polynorbornene dielectric polymers: Adhesion and mechanical properties

Within the microelectronics industry, there is an ongoing trend toward miniaturization coupled with higher performance. High glass-transition temperature polynorbornenes exhibit many of the key performance criteria necessary for these demanding applications. However, homopolynorbornene exhibits poor adhesion to common substrate materials, including silicon, silicon dioxide, aluminum, gold, and copper. In addition, this homopolymer is extremely brittle, yielding less than 1% elongation-to-break values. To address these issues, the homopolymer was functionalized to improve adhesive and mechanical properties. Attaching triethoxysilyl groups to the polymer backbone substantially improved the adhesion, but at the cost of increasing the dielectric constant because of the polarity of the functional group. Alkyl groups were also added to the backbone, which decreased the rigidity of the system, and resulted in significantly higher elongation-to-break values and a decrease in residual stress. The addition of an alkyl group slightly decreased the dielectric constant of the polymer as a result of an increase in molar volume. The coefficient of thermal expansion and modulus are also reported for the polynorbornene functionalized with triethoxysilyl groups using a multiple substrate approach. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 37: 3003–3010, 1999     

An experimental study into the effect of injector pressure loss on self-sustained combustion instabilities in a swirled spray burner

Combustion instabilities depend on a variety of parameters and operating conditions. It is known, especially in the field of liquid rocket propulsion, that the pressure loss of an injector has an effect on its dynamics and on the coupling between the combustion chamber and the fuel manifold. However, its influence is not well documented in the technical literature dealing with gas turbine combustion dynamics. Effects of changes in this key design parameter are investigated in the present article by testing different swirlers at constant thermal power on a broad range of injection velocities in a well controlled laboratory scale single injector swirled combustor using liquid fuel. The objective is to study the impact of injection pressure losses on the occurrence and level of combustion instabilities by making use of a set of injectors having nearly the same outlet velocity profiles, the same swirl number and that establish flames that are essentially identical in shape. It is found that combustion oscillations appear on a wider range of operating conditions for injectors with the highest pressure loss, but that the pressure fluctuations caused by thermoacoustic oscillations are greatest when the injector head loss is low. Four types of instabilities coupled by two modes may be distinguished: the first group features a lower frequency, arises when the injector pressure loss is low and corresponds to a weakly coupled chamber-plenum mode. The second group appears in the form of a constant amplitude limit cycle, or as bursts at a slightly higher frequency and is coupled by a chamber mode. Spontaneous switching between these two types of instabilities is also observed in a narrow domain.     

An Evaluation of Primer Preseating in Small Caliber Cartridge Production

This work presents the findings of a study to quantify the relative effectiveness of the primer preseating operation in small caliber cartridge production. In theory, primer preseating would enable cartridge stamping tools to achieve deeper stamping penetration depths and subsequently, greater primer retention forces. This is because, with preseating incorporated in the existing small caliber cartridge production process, a cartridge stamping tool would be fully dedicated to performing the case stamping operation (rather than the simultaneous primer seating and case stamping operations it currently performs). The findings presented in this work include measured percentages of total stamping tool force dedicated to primer seating, stamping tool penetration depths with and without primer preseating and primer retention forces with and without primer preseating. These findings and their underlying principles were produced through a static force equilibrium analysis and finite element modeling and simulation studies.     

Cosmological Plebanski theory

We consider the cosmological symmetry reduction of the Plebanski action as a toy-model to explore, in this simple framework, some issues related to loop quantum gravity and spin-foam models. We make the classical analysis of the model and perform both path integral and canonical quantizations. As for the full theory, the reduced model admits two disjoint types of classical solutions: topological and gravitational ones. The quantization mixes these two solutions, which prevents the model from being equivalent to standard quantum cosmology. Furthermore, the topological solution dominates at the classical limit. We also study the effect of an Immirzi parameter in the model.     

Electronic structure of V in NaMgAl(ox)3·9H2O probed by Fourier transform spectroscopy

High-resolution Fourier transform absorption and luminescence spectroscopy reveal axial and rhombic zero-field splittings of the spin-forbidden electronic origins of V³⁺ in NaMgAl(ox)₃·9H₂O (ox=oxalate) single crystals below 25 K. The temperature dependence of the integrated absorption of the split features display behavior consistent with a Boltzmann distribution within the zero-field split ³Â₂ ground state of V³⁺. Weak luminescence is observed in the near-IR from the lowest energy spin-forbidden transition with a luminescence lifetime of less than 0.5 μs at 11 K and an estimated quantum efficiency of the order of 10⁻⁵.     

Finite-Time Destruction of Entanglement and Non-Locality by Environmental Influences

Entanglement and non-locality are non-classical global characteristics of quantum states important to the foundations of quantum mechanics. Recent investigations have shown that environmental noise, even when it is entirely local in influence, can destroy both of these properties in finite time despite giving rise to full quantum state decoherence only in the infinite time limit. These investigations, which have been carried out in a range of theoretical and experimental situations, are reviewed here.     

Buffer Standards for pH Measurement of N-(2-Hydroxyethyl)piperazine-N′-2-ethanesulfonic Acid (HEPES) for I=0.16 mol⋅kg−1 from 5 to 55 °C

The values of the second dissociation constant, pK ₂, of N-(2-hydroxyethyl) piperazine-N′-2-ethanesulfonic acid (HEPES) have been reported at twelve temperatures over the temperature range 5 to 55 °C, including 37 °C. This paper reports the results for the pa _H of eight isotonic saline buffer solutions with an I=0.16 mol⋅kg⁻¹ including compositions: (a) HEPES (0.01 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.01 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.15 mol⋅kg⁻¹); (b) HEPES (0.02 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.02 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.14 mol⋅kg⁻¹); (c) HEPES (0.03 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.03 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.13 mol⋅kg⁻¹); (d) HEPES (0.04 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.04 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.12 mol⋅kg⁻¹); (e) HEPES (0.05 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.05 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.11 mol⋅kg⁻¹); (f) HEPES (0.06 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.06 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.10 mol⋅kg⁻¹); (g) HEPES (0.07 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.07 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.09 mol⋅kg⁻¹); and (h) HEPES (0.08 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaHEPES (0.08 mol⋅kg⁻¹) + NaCl (0.08 mol⋅kg⁻¹). Conventional pa _H values, for all eight buffer solutions from 5 to 55 °C, have been calculated. The operational pH values with liquid junction corrections, at 25 and 37 °C have been determined based on the NBS/NIST standard between the physiological phosphate standard and four buffer solutions. These are recommended as pH standards for physiological fluids in the range of pH = 7.3 to 7.5 at I=0.16 mol⋅kg⁻¹.     

Facile and practical synthesis of a cannabinoid-1 antagonist via regio- and stereoselective ring-opening of an aziridinium ion

A scalable synthetic strategy of a chiral, trisubstituted imidazolidinone (1), a novel cannabinoid-1 antagonist, starting from a commercially available mandelic acid (5) is described. The key step involves a regio- and stereoselective ring-opening of an aziridinium ion by an aniline nucleophile (3). A mechanistic study revealed the insight into rate amplification at a lower temperature for vicinal diamine 12 formation via a aziridinium ion 14. Although most intermediates are not isolable by crystallization due to their intrinsic physical properties (oil or foamy solid), the reported synthesis furnished pure 1 without any chromatography purification throughout the entire synthesis. Employing green chemistry principles, this novel synthesis appears to be highly efficient for the manufacturing of multi-kilogram quantities of an optically-pure active pharmaceutical ingredient.     

Characterization of sealed radioactive sources: uncertainty analysis to improve detection methods

A radioactive ¹³⁷Cs source has been analyzed for the radioactive parent ¹³⁷Cs and stable decay daughter ¹³⁷Ba. The ratio of the daughter to parent atoms is used to estimate the date when Cs was purified prior to source encapsulation (an “age” since purification). The isotopes were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) after chemical separation. In addition, Ba was analyzed by isotope dilution ICP-MS (ID-ICP-MS). A detailed error analysis of the mass spectrometric work has been undertaken to identify areas of improvement, as well as quantifying the effect the errors have on the “age” determined. This paper reports an uncertainty analysis to identifying areas of improvement and alternative techniques that may reduce the uncertainties. In particular, work on isotope dilution using ICP-MS for the “age” determination of sealed sources is presented. The results will be compared to the original work done using external standards to calibrate the ICP-MS instrument.