Laser-induced back-side wet etching of fused silica with an aqueous solution containing organic molecules

The laser-induced back-side wet etching of fused silica with aqueous solutions of pyranine (8-hydroxy-1,3,6-pyrenetrisulfonic acid trisodium salt) is reported. KrF and XeF excimer lasers were employed as light sources. Well-defined line-and-space and grid micropatterns, free of debris and microcracks, were obtained. Compared with other organic solutions, the aqueous pyranine etching medium etches more slowly but produces a higher quality etched surface. With the KrF laser, the etch rate ranged from 0.02 to 0.12 nm pulse^-1, depending on the dye concentration and the fluence of the laser. The etch rate decreased dramatically when the XeF laser was employed, which was partially attributed to the lower absorption efficiency of the aqueous pyranine solution at the XeF laser wavelength. Received: 20 November 2001 / Accepted: 21 November 2001 / Published online: 2 May 2002     

Charmed exotics in heavy ion collisions

Based on the color–spin interaction in diquarks, we argue that charmed multiquark hadrons are likely to exist. Because of the appreciable number of charm quarks produced in central nucleus–nucleus collisions at ultrarelativistic energies, the production of charmed multiquark hadrons is expected to be enhanced in these collisions. Using both the quark coalescence model and the statistical hadronization model, we estimate the yield of charmed tetraquark mesons, T_cc, and pentaquark baryons, Θ_cs, in heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. We further discuss the decay modes of these charmed exotic hadrons in order to facilitate their detections in experiments. PACS 25.75.Dw; 14.20.Lq; 14.40.Lb     

Effect of particle addition on sonochemical reaction

Enhancement of chemical reaction with a photocatalyst of titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) by ultrasonic irradiation is studied through the absorbance measurements for liberation of iodine from a KI aqueous solution as an index of oxidation reaction. It is well known as a synergetic effect that the addition of TiO(2) fine particles under UV has an ability to enhance the yield in chemical reaction with OH-radical from hot spot at violent collapse of cavitation bubbles with intense ultrasound. In this study, the absorbance is measured after simultaneous irradiation of ultrasound and UV with the addition of TiO(2) much less than the usual concentration by two orders of content. It is shown that, even in case of quite a little TiO(2) addition where the photocatalytic effect is less, the yield is enhanced obviously in comparison with the summation in yield of independent procedure of ultrasound without TiO(2) and UV with TiO(2). The absorbance-peak deviation to the shorter wavelength implies the generation of titanium peroxide (TiO(3)). The effect of particle addition is due to the chemically activated particle surface on the TiO(2) and probably to the increase in the cavitation bubbles that results in promoting a transfer of OH-radical and other oxidants to bulk liquid region at the collapse.     

Separability of Dirac equation in higher dimensional Kerr–NUT–de Sitter spacetime

It is shown that the Dirac equations in general higher dimensional Kerr–NUT–de Sitter spacetimes are separated into ordinary differential equations.     

Oral administration of Bis(aspirinato)zinc(II) complex ameliorates hyperglycemia and metabolic syndrome-like disorders in spontaneously diabetic KK-A(y) mice: structure-activity relationship on zinc-salicylate complexes

In recent years, the number of patients suffering from diseases, such as cancer, apoplexy, osteoporosis, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes mellitus is increasing worldwide. Type 2 diabetes, a lifestyle-related disease, is recognized as a serious disease. Various types of pharmaceutics for diabetes have been used. Since the relationship between diabetes and biometals such as vanadium, copper, and zinc ions has been recognized for many years, we have been developing the anti-diabetic metal complexes as new candidates. We found that several zinc(II) (Zn) complexes exhibit glucose-lowering activity for treating type 2 diabetes. High doses of salicylates have been known to reverse hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia in type 2 diabetic patients. These findings strongly suggest that the combined use of Zn and salicylates achieves the synergism in treating type 2 diabetes. Because aspirin, acetyl salicylic acid, has a chelating ability, we used it as a ligand to Zn. Several Zn-salicylate complexes were prepared and their biological activities were examined in this study. The complexes with an electron-withdrawing group in the ligand exhibited higher in vitro insulinomimetic activity than those of Zn complexes with an electron-donating group in the ligand. When bis(aspirinato)Zn (Zn(asp)?) complex was orally administered on KK-A(y) mice with hereditary type 2 diabetes, the diabetic state was improved. In addition, this complex exhibited normalizing effects on serum adiponectin level and high blood pressure in metabolic syndrome. In conclusion, Zn(asp)? complex is newly proposed as a potent anti-diabetic and anti-metabolic syndrome agent.     

Identifying multiquark hadrons from heavy ion collisions

Identifying hadronic molecular states and/or hadrons with multiquark components either with or without exotic quantum numbers is a long-standing challenge in hadronic physics. We suggest that studying the production of these hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions offers a promising resolution to this problem as yields of exotic hadrons are expected to be strongly affected by their structures. Using the coalescence model for hadron production, we find that, compared to the case of a nonexotic hadron with normal quark numbers, the yield of an exotic hadron is typically an order of magnitude smaller when it is a compact multiquark state and a factor of 2 or more larger when it is a loosely bound hadronic molecule. We further find that some of the newly proposed heavy exotic states could be produced and realistically measured in these experiments.     

Non-Gaussian fluctuations resulting from power-law trapping in a lipid bilayer

Anomalous diffusion in lipid bilayers is usually attributed to viscoelastic behavior. We compute the scaling exponent of relative fluctuations of the time-averaged mean square displacement in a lipid bilayer, by using a molecular dynamics simulation. According to the continuous time random walk theory, this exponent indicates non-Gaussian behavior caused by a power-law trapping time. Our results provide the first evidence that a lipid bilayer has not only viscoelastic properties but also trapping times distributed according to a power law.     

Confocal microscopic evaluation of mixing performance for three-dimensional microfluidic mixer

We developed a confocal microscopic method for a quantitative evaluation of the mixing performance of a three-dimensional microfluidic mixer. We fabricated a microfluidic baker's transformation (MBT) mixer as a three-dimensional passive-type mixer for the efficient mixing of solutions. Although the MBT mixer is one type of ideal mixers, it is hard to evaluate its mixing performance, since the MBT mixer is based on several cycles of complicated three-dimensional microchannel structures. We applied the method developed here to evaluate the mixing of water and a fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC; diffusion coefficient, 4.9 × 10(-10) m(2) s(-1)) solution by the MBT mixer. This method enables us to capture vertical section images for the fluid distributions of FITC and water at different three-dimensional microchannel structures of the MBT device. These images are in good agreement with those of mixing images based on numerical simulations. The mixing ratio could be calculated by the fluorescence intensity at each pixel of the vertical section image; complete mixing is recognized by a mixing ratio of more than 90%. The mixing ratios are measured at different cycles of the MBT mixer by changing the flow rate; the mixing performance is evaluated by comparisons with the mixing ratio of the straight microchannel without the MBT mixer.