Persistence of nematic liquid crystalline phase in a polyfluorene‐based organic semiconductor: A high pressure study

The role of high pressure on a low molecular weight nematic liquid crystalline organic semiconductor, ethyl‐hexyl substituted polyfluorene (PF2/6) is investigated using photoluminescence (PL), Raman scattering, and X‐ray scattering studies at pressures from 1 to 8 GPa. The PL and the Raman data under pressure are consistent with each other with no abrupt changes in the pressure coefficients of PL or Raman peaks. The PL energies redshift and broaden, consistent with both enhanced intra‐ and interchain interactions. The Raman peak positions yield pressure coefficients similar to other phenyl based π‐conjugated polymers. The broadening of a doublet peak in the 1135 cm^?1 region indicates a more planar backbone conformation with increasing pressure. X‐ray scattering indicates that the torsion angle between adjacent repeats reduces with increasing pressure and reverts back with decompression. The intermolecular structure is weakly ordered (frozen nematic) and essentially maintained with increasing pressure, in contrast to a high molecular weight PF2/6. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2014 , 52, 1014–1023     

Supramolecular ion channels from a transmembrane bischolic acid derivative showing two discrete conductances

Bischolic acid derivative 1 linked by m-xylylene dicarbamate at the 3,3'-position was synthesized and the single ion channel properties were examined. Compound 1 showed two clearly distinct conductances, 9.5 (type A) and 25.3 pS (type B), under 500 mM KCl symmetric salt conditions, whereas various conductances, ranging from 5-20 pS, were observed in the tetramethylether analogue reported previously. Results indicate that the replacement of four methylether groups with hydroxyls at the 7, 7', 12, and 12' positions in the bischolic acid framework influences the stability of aggregated (supramolecular) ion channel structures. Ion permeability ratios (potassium/chloride and potassium/sodium) for each type of channel were also determined.     

Influence of intramolecular vibrations in charge redistribution at the pentacene-graphite interface

We have investigated the relation between the intramolecular vibrational modes of pentacene and the charge redistribution at the pentacene-graphite interface by using high-resolution electron-energy-loss-spectroscopy. The three main vibrational peaks shift to lower energies as the pentacene film thickness decreases. In order to discuss this energy shift, we have calculated the vibrational energies of a free pentacene molecule by changing its charge state. We have also calculated the vibrational energies of a pentacene molecule adsorbed on a graphite sheet by changing the pentacene-graphite distance. Taking the experimental and calculation results into account, we conclude that the observed energy shifts result from an intramolecular charge redistribution. The present results indicate that the effect of an intramolecular charge redistribution is essential to discuss the origin of an energy shift observed in a vibrational study of an organic molecule/substrate interface.     

13C isotope effects on 1H chemical shifts: NMR spectral analysis of 13C‐labelled D‐glucose and some 13C‐labelled amino acids

The one‐ and two‐bond ¹³C isotope shifts, typically ?1.5 to ?2.5 ppb and ?0.7 ppb respectively, in non‐cyclic aliphatic systems and up to ?4.4 ppb and ?1.0 ppb in glucose cause effects that need to be taken into account in the adaptive NMR spectral library‐based quantification of the isotopomer mixtures. In this work, NMR spectral analyses of some ¹³C‐labelled amino acids, D ‐glucose and other small compounds were performed in order to obtain rules for prediction of the ¹³C isotope effects on ¹H chemical shifts. It is proposed that using the additivity rules, the isotope effects can be predicted with a sufficient accuracy for amino acid isotopomer applications. For glucose the effects were found strongly non‐additive. The complete spectral analysis of fully ¹³C‐labelled D ‐glucose made it also possible to assign the exocyclic proton signals of the glucose. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Harmonic analysis from quasi-periodic domains

Harmonic analysis is applied in a quasi-periodic context to get rigidity results in orbit equivalence theory. This paper has been written while the author was visiting the University of Tokyo under a JSPS Fellowship for European researchers.     

Water stability of a cheap sol-gel-based adhesive

The humidity and water tolerance of a sol-gel derived binder prepared using a cheap, multicomponent precursor has been studied. The sol was prepared by dissolving the precursor in water under acidic conditions using either formic acid or a mixture of formic acid and citric acid for pH adjustments. It is shown that a post-treatment temperature of 400 °C or higher is needed in order to achieve full binder stability under excess water conditions, as thermal decomposition of metal carboxylates leads to a pronounced decrease in water solubility of the gels. The mesoporous gel can be made hydrophobic by post-treatments with either a silane or an organophosphonate, showing that both silica and metal oxides are exposed on the surface of the binder. Surface functionalization is especially effective for gels heat-treated at higher temperatures where the metal carboxylates have decomposed to the corresponding oxides or carbonates. The results are expected to be of great importance for the use of this cheap binder in large scale industrial applications. Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article () contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.