Lithium-iodine solid electrolyte galvanic cells using iodine adducts of nylon-6 as active materials of positive electrodes

Iodine and nylon-6 form adducts containing 70–90 wt-% of iodine on heating at 115–145°C. The adducts have electrical conductivities ranging from 10^?7 to 10^?3 S cm^?1 at 25°C, and the electrical conductivity increases with increasing content of iodine of the adduct. The activation energies of the electrical conduction for the adducts prepared at 115°C and containing 69.2, 81.8, 87.1, and 90.0 wt-% of iodine are 94.6, 67.0, 52.9, and 46.1 kJ/mol, respectively. Polyamides other than nylon-6 also form similar semiconducting adducts with iodine. IR and NMR spectroscopic analyses of the iodine—nylon-6 adducts indicate profound changes in the structure of nylon-6 on adduct formation and suggest the formation of a ?CN⁺H species. The iodine-nylon-6 adducts prepared at 115°C and containing more than 82 wt-% of iodine serve as good active materials of positive electrodes in lithium-iodine solid electrolyte galvanic cells (outer diameter = 11.6 mm; outer thickness = 2.0 mm). The current efficiencies of the galvanic cells at 500 kΩ load are about 50% based on the iodine added. Discharge at 100 kΩ load gives lower current efficiencies. The galvanic cell has an internal resistance of about 5 kΩ at 25°C before discharge, and the internal resistance increases to about 100 kΩ at about 40% discharge. The dependence of the internal resistance during discharge have been determined.     

Conjugate additions of the crown-potassium enolate complexes

Achiral and chiral crowns complexed with potassium bases catalyze the Michael additions of enolates to cycloalkenones.     

1.5 μm emission from InAs quantum dots with InGaAsSb strain-reducing layer grown on GaAs substrates

InGaAsSb strain-reducing layers (SRLs) are applied to cover InAs quantum dots (QDs) grown on GaAs substrates. The compressive strain induced in InAs QDs from the GaAs is reduced due to the tensile strain induced by the InGaAsSb SRL, because the lattice constant of InGaAsSb is closer to InAs lattice constant than that of GaAs, resulting in a significant red shift of photoluminescence peaks of the InAs QDs. The emission wavelength from InAs QDs can be controlled by changing the Sb composition of the InGaAsSb SRL. The 1.5 μm band emissions were achieved in the sample with an InGaAsSb SRL whose Sb compositions were above 0.3. The calculation of the electron and the hole wave functions using the transfer matrix method indicates that the electron and the hole were localized around InAs QDs and InGaAsSb SRL.     

Physical properties of nitrogenated RFe11Ti intermetallic compounds (R=Ce, Pr and Nd) with ThMn12-type structure

Iron-rich ternary intermetallics RFe₁₁Ti (R=Ce, Pr and Nd) with a ThMn₁₂-type structure and their nitrides RFe₁₁TiN_x (x≈1.5) were carefully prepared. After characterizing them by metallographic and microscopic analyses, we studied structural and magnetic properties of the mother compounds and their nitrides. The lattice expansion due to nitrogenation is mainly along the c-axis for the Pr and Nd systems, while that is mainly along the a-axis for the Y system. The lattice expansion of the Ce system is isotropic but the volume expansion is the largest, indicating that the Ce-4f electron state dramatically changes upon nitrogen uptake. The Curie temperature, T_C, increases by 200 K reaching T_C≈720 K for the Pr and Nd system. The saturation magnetization, M_S, increases ≈ 10% by nitrogenation and reaches 1.8–1.9 T at 4.2 K and 1.5 T at 300 K for Pr and Nd systems. The anisotropy field, υ₀H_A is estimated to be more than 20 T at 4.2 K and 7 T at 300 K. The improvement of magnetic properties upon nitrogenation is briefly discussed in terms of the calculated band structure. The results obtained at 300 K indicate that the Pr and Nd nitrides are promising as permanent magnetic application.     

Electron-lattice interaction and the CDW state of 1T-TiSe2

The electronic band structure in the CDW state (superlattice structure) of 1T-TiSe₂ is calculated on the basis of the band-type Jahn-Teller model by extending our theory of lattice instability in the normal phase. A strong coupling between the hole-band (Se p states) around the Λ point and the electron-bands (Ti d states) around the Λ points is caused by the electron-lattice interaction. Reflecting such a strong coupling remarkable changes appear in the dispersion curves near the Fermi energy and the largest CDW gap is obtained to be 0.2 eV. We have also calculated a change of the density of states near the Fermi energy due to the superlattice formation. The result is consistent with that observed by angle-integrated photoemmision by Margaritondo et al. It is also shown that the magnitude of the lattice distortion observed at low temperatures can be explained in a way consistent with the lattice dynamics in the normal phase.