Toward functional pi-conjugated organophosphorus materials: design of phosphole-based oligomers for electroluminescent devices

The photophysical, electrochemical, and optoelectronic properties of conjugated systems incorporating dibenzophosphole or phosphole moieties are described. Dibenzophosphole derivatives are not suitable materials for OLEDs due to their weak photoluminescence (PL) in the solid state and the instability of the devices. Variation of the substitution pattern of phospholes and chemical modification of their P atoms afford thermally stable derivatives, which are photo- and electroluminescent. Comparison of the optical properties of solution and thin film of thioxophospholes shows that these compounds do not form aggregates in the solid state. This property, which is also supported by an X-ray diffraction study of three novel derivatives, results in an enhancement of the fluorescence quantum yields in the solid state. In contrast, (phosphole)gold(I) complexes exhibit a broad emission in thin film, which is due to the formation of aggregates. Single- and multilayer OLEDs using these P derivatives as the emissive layer have been fabricated. The emission color of these devices and their performances vary with the nature of the P material. Interestingly, di(2-thienyl)thiooxophosphole is an efficient host for the red dopant DCJTB, and devices using the gold complexes have broad emission spectra.     

Mesophase properties of N-glycidyl(ityl)-amides

Galactose, glucose, xylose and corresponding itol derivatives with the general formula Su—ZR in which Z is an amido group either NHCO (type I) or NR'CO (type II) were synthetized and their mesophasic behaviour studied. It was shown that the thermotropic and lyotropic phase transition temperatures are influenced by the following structural parameters: alkyl or perfluoroalkyl chain length, Z junction, free OH group number, cyclic or acyclic Su structure.This revised version was published online in November 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Drug Delivery by Soft Matter: Matrix and Vesicular Carriers

The increasing need for drug delivery systems that improve specificity and activity and at the same time reduce toxicity to ensure maximum treatment safety has led to the development of a great variety of drug vectors. Carriers based on soft matter have particularly interesting characteristics. Herein we present the current standing of the research in this area, and focus on two main families, namely matrix systems and vesicles. We outline the structure, properties, and potential applications of these vectors, and discuss their main advantages and drawbacks in their synthesis.     

Iron-catalyzed allylation of ketones

Allylation of ketones has been efficiently performed using iron-complex catalysis and led to homoallylic alcohols in high yields.     

Preparation of 6-Fluoro-8-quinolinol and Related 6-Fluoroquinolines

 6-Fluoro-8-quinolinol was prepared from 2-amino-5-fluorophenol by a Skraup synthesis. No synergism was observed between 5-fluoro- and 6-fluoro-8-quinolinols or between 6-fluoro- and 7-fluoro-8-quinolinols against any of the six fungi in our test system (Aspergillus niger, A. oryzae, Myrothecium verrucaria, Trichoderma viride, Mucor cirinelloides, and Trichophyton mentagrophytes) in Sabouraud dextrose broth. Unlike the fluoro-8-quinolinols, the 8-quinolinols comparably substituted with chlorine or bromine did form synergistic mixtures. This is attributed to steric factors.     

Conserved Forms derived from Symmetries

For first order scalar ordinary differential equations, a well–known result of Sophus Lie states that a Lie point symmetry can be used to construct an integrating factor and conversely. However, there exist higher order equations without Lie point symmetries that admit integrating factors or that are exact. We present a method based on λ-symmetries to calculate integrating factors. An example of a second order equation without Lie point symmetries illustrates how the method works in practice and how the computations that appear in other methods may be simplified. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Non-crossing matchings of points with geometric objects

Given an ordered set of points and an ordered set of geometric objects in the plane, we are interested in finding a non-crossing matching between point–object pairs. In this paper, we address the algorithmic problem of determining whether a non-crossing matching exists between a given point–object pair. We show that when the objects we match the points to are finite point sets, the problem is NP-complete in general, and polynomial when the objects are on a line or when their size is at most 2. When the objects are line segments, we show that the problem is NP-complete in general, and polynomial when the segments form a convex polygon or are all on a line. Finally, for objects that are straight lines, we show that the problem of finding a min-max non-crossing matching is NP-complete.