Current pulse measurement of capacitance during molten salt electrochemical experiments

In earlier work in our laboratories, a current pulse method was developed that allows in situ (dynamic) measurements of electrode capacitance. The present work describes the successful application of the technique to the study of electrode properties in molten salt electrolytes. As expected, the electrode capacitance increases as the electrode surface area exposed to a molten salt bath increases. Furthermore, creep of the bath along the surface of a conductive ceramic anode and subsequent ingress into the anode pores is observed as an increase in capacitance. The pulse technique also gives an indication of phase changes that occur during the reduction of a solid titanium dioxide cathode and a highly sensitive measure of the temperature at which initial freezing of the calcium chloride electrolyte begins. These observations provide useful in situ information about changes in electrode properties in molten salt electrolytes that are difficult to obtain from other techniques. For consideration in the Special Edition: Oldham Festchrift Dedicated to our dear friend Keith B. Oldham on the occasion of his 80th birthday.     

Electrochemical study of insulin at the polarized liquid-liquid interface

This paper reports on the electrochemical behavior of bovine insulin at the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES). The voltammetric ion-transfer response obtained in the presence of insulin was dependent on the aqueous phase pH conditions and on the nature of the organic phase electrolyte employed in experiments. Optimal detection was obtained at acidic pH below the isoelectric point of insulin where it was positively charged. A shift in transfer potentials to lower potential values was observed with decreasing hydrophobicity of the anion of the organic phase electrolyte. No ion-transfer response was observed at pH values of the aqueous phase above the isoelectric point, where insulin was negatively charged. These results suggest that the voltammetric response is due to ion-pairing interactions at the ITIES between positively charged insulin and the hydrophobic anion of the organic phase electrolyte, together with adsorption of the ion-pair at the interface. The voltammetric response was obtained for insulin at concentrations down to 1 muM. These results show that electrochemistry is useful in studying the behavior of this important protein molecule at the polarized water-1,2-DCE interface and provides an alternative detection mode for bioanalytical applications.     

Entanglement generation by Fock-state filtration

We demonstrate a Fock-state filter which is capable of preferentially blocking single photons over photon pairs. The large conditional nonlinearities are based on higher-order quantum interference, using linear optics, an ancilla photon, and measurement. We demonstrate that the filter acts coherently by using it to convert unentangled photon pairs to a path-entangled state. We quantify the degree of entanglement by transforming the path information to polarization information; applying quantum state tomography we measure a tangle of T=(20+/-9)%.     

Ion-transfer voltammetry at silicon membrane-based arrays of micro-liquid-liquid interfaces

Microporous silicon membranes, fabricated by lithographic patterning and wet and dry silicon etching processes, were used to create arrays of micro-scale interfaces between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (muITIES) for ion-transfer voltammetry. These membranes served the dual functions of interface stabilization and enhancement of the rate of mass-transport to the interface. The pore radii were 6.5 microm, 12.8 microm and 26.6 microm; the pore-pore separations were ca. 20- to 40-times the pore radii and the membrane thickness was 100 microm. Deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) was used for pore drilling through the silicon, which had been previously selectively thinned by potassium hydroxide etching. DRIE produces hydrophobic fluorocarbon-coated internal pore walls. The small pore sizes and large pore-pore separations used resulted in steady-state voltammograms for the transfer of tetramethylammonium cation (TMA(+)) from the aqueous to the organic phase, whereas the reverse voltammetric sweeps were peak-shaped. These asymmetric voltammograms are consistent with the location of the ITIES at the aqueous side of the silicon membrane such that the organic phase fills the micropores. Comparison of the experimental currents to calculated currents for an inlaid disc micro-interface revealed that the interfaces were slightly recessed, up to 10 microm (or 10% of the pore length) in one case. Facilitated ion transfer, with an organic-phase ionophore, confirmed the location of the organic phase within the pores. These microporous silicon membranes offer opportunities for various analytical operations, including enhancing the rate of mass transport to ITIES-based sensing devices and stabilization of the ITIES for hydrodynamic applications.     

The kinetic limitation of anti-stokes luminescence of Er3+ and Yb3+ doped infrared upconversion materials

Infrared-to-visible wave-length conversion in the Yb³⁺−Er³⁺ doped phosphors system has been described by a simple three level model based on two ions mechanism. The excitation in the range of 900–1000 nm of an IR-photon is first absorbed by Yb³⁺ ion as a sensitizer attributed to the resonant energy transition in Er³⁺ ion from ⁴ I _3/2 → ⁴ S _15/2 and ¹ F _9/2 → ⁴ I _15/2, respectively for green and red emission. The essential energy transfer processes in this system i.e. upconversion from ⁴ I _11/2 and ¹ I _13/2, cross-relaxation from ⁴ S _3/2 and ¹ F _9/2 are taken into account. The limitations of the rate-equation approach are examined with a focus on the underlying dynamics of this rare-earth system.     

APPLICATION OF GENETIC ALGORITHM IN PARTICLE SIZE ANALYSIS BY MULTISPECTRAL EXTINCTION MEASUREMENTS

Both dependent and independent model algorithms are designed with genetic algorithm (GA) to retrieve aerosol size data from multispectral extinction measurements. Compared with the traditional dependent model algorithm, e.g., simplex, GA can locate the global optimized solution instead of local ones. As an independent model algonthm, when combined with B-splines, GA gives consistent results with Chahine and Phillip-Twomey-NNLS algorithms. Numerical simulations also show that GA has high stability and good resistance to relatively higher error levels. For a population size of 50 in the present paper, the feasible ranges for genetic operators Pc and pm are found to be [0.01, 0.5] and [0.01, 0.15], respectively, and the generation number Gen_Max should be larger than 250.     

Weighted moments for a supercritical branching process in a varying or random environment

Let W be the limit of the normalized population size of a supercritical branching process in a varying or random environment. By an elementary method, we find sufficient conditions under which W has finite weighted moments of the form EWpl(W), where p > 1, l 0 is a concave or slowly varying function.     

Magnetoresistance in amorphous germanium

The magnetoresistance of evaporated amorphous germanium films ranging in thickness from 200 Å to several microns has been measured in the temperature range 77 K < T < 300 K for magnetic fields ranging from 5 G to 100 kG. The results are in general agreement with those of Mell and Stuke. Various models which attempt to account for the magnetoresistance are discussed, but it is concluded that the origins of this effect are not understood at this time. The magnetoresistance measured at 77 K in the presence of a high electric field (45 000 V/cm) shows the same behavior as obtained for low electric fields.     

Manipulating biphotonic qutrits

Quantum information carriers with higher dimension than the canonical qubit offer significant advantages. However, manipulating such systems is extremely difficult. We show how measurement-induced nonlinearities can dramatically extend the range of possible transforms on biphotonic qutrits-three-level quantum systems formed by the polarization of two photons in the same spatiotemporal mode. We fully characterize the biphoton-photon entanglement that underpins our technique, thereby realizing the first instance of qubit-qutrit entanglement. We discuss an extension of our technique to generate qutrit-qutrit entanglement and to manipulate any bosonic encoding of quantum information.