Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticle‐Triplet Emitter Hybrids in Aqueous Dispersion: Fabrication and Fluorescence Quenching Behavior

Conjugated polymer nanoparticles based on poly[9,9‐bis(2‐ethylhexyl)fluorene] and poly[N‐(2,4,6‐trimethylphenyl)‐N,N‐diphenylamine)‐4,4′‐diyl] are fabricated using anionic surfactant sodium dodecylsulphate in water by miniemulsion technique. Average diameters of polyfluorene and polytriarylamine nanoparticles range from 70 to 100 and 100 to 140 nm, respectively. The surface of the nanoparticles is decorated with triplet emitting dye, tris(2,2′‐bipyridyl)ruthenium(II) chloride. Intriguing photophysics of aqueous dispersions of these hybrid nanoparticles is investigated. Nearly 50% quenching of fluorescence is observed in the case of dye‐coated polyfluorene nanoparticles; excitation energy transfer is found to be the dominant quenching mechanism. On the other hand, nearly complete quenching of emission is noticed in polytriarylamine nanoparticle‐dye hybrids. It is proposed that the excited state electron transfer from the electron‐rich polytriarylamine donor polymer to Ru complex leads to the complete quenching of emission of polytriarylamine nanoparticles. The current study offers promising avenues for developing aqueous solution processed‐electroluminescent devices involving a conjugated polymer nanoparticle host and Ru or Ir‐based triplet emitting dye as the guest.

     

Silver Nanoparticles in Polyacrylamide and Hyperbranched Polyamine Matrix

Silver nanoparticles have been prepared in a polyacrylamide (PA) matrix, as well as in the presence of a hyperbranched polyamine/polyacrylamide combined system (HB‐PA) by using a reductive technique. The stability of colloidal solution of silver nanoparticles is higher (5 months) in combined matrix compared to PA alone (4 months). The prepared silver nanoparticles were characterized by different spectroscopic and analytical techniques such as FTIR, UV‐visible, X‐ray diffraction, TEM etc. TEM and XRD studies confirmed the formation of well‐dispersed nanoparticles with an average size of 9.91 nm and 8.5 nm for PA and HB‐PA matrices, respectively. The antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticles in both the matrices was tested against Bacillus Subtilis bacteria by using the diffusion disc technique. The result shows that the antibacterial activity of the active agent, Ag(0) is a little higher in the case of HB‐PA system. The dielectric constant of the matrices decreases with an increase in frequency, but the values increase with an increase of concentration of silver nanoparticles in PA matrix.     

Dimethylthiocarbamate (DMTC): an alcohol protecting group

Dimethylthiocarbamates (DMTCs), prepared from the corresponding alcohols using commercial dimethylthiocarbamoyl chloride, are spectrally simple, achiral, and nonpolar. DMTCs are moderately to highly stable to a wide range of reagents and conditions including metal hydrides, hydroboration, ylides, NaOH, HCl, organolithiums, Grignards, DDQ, PCC, Swern, n-Bu(4)NF, CrCl(2), heat, and Lewis acids. They are readily removed by NaIO(4) or H(2)O(2) in the presence of other common alcohol protecting groups. [structure: see text]     

Free vibration analysis of functionally graded curved panels using a higher-order finite element formulation

Free vibration analysis of functionally graded curved panels is carried out using a higher-order formulation. A C⁰ finite element formulation is used to carry out the analysis. The element consists of nine degrees of freedom per node with higher-order terms in the Taylor's-series expansion, which represents the higher-order transverse cross-sectional deformation modes. The formulation includes Sanders’ approximation for doubly curved shells considering the effects of rotary inertia and transverse shear. A realistic parabolic distribution of transverse shear strains through the shell thickness is assumed and the use of shear correction factor is avoided. Material properties are assumed to be temperature independent and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. Heat conduction between ceramic and metal constituents is neglected. The accuracy of the formulation is validated by comparing the results with those available in the literature. Effects of panel geometry parameters and boundary conditions are studied.     

Thickness of the hydration layer of a protein from molecular dynamics simulation

Water molecules around a protein exhibit slow dynamics with respect to that of pure bulk water. One important issue in protein hydration is the thickness of the hydration layer (i.e., the distance from the protein surface up to which the water dynamics is influenced by the protein). Estimation of thickness is crucial to understand better the properties of "biological water" and the role that it plays in guiding the protein's function. We have performed an atomistic molecular dynamics simulation of an aqueous solution of the protein villin headpiece subdomain or HP-36 to estimate the thickness of its hydration water. In particular, several dynamical properties of water around different segments (three alpha-helices) of the protein have been calculated by varying the thickness of the hydration layers. It is found that in general the influence of the helices on water properties extends beyond the first hydration layer. However, the heterogeneous nature of water among the first hydration layers of the three helices diminishes as the thickness is increased. It indicates that, for a small protein such as HP-36, the thickness of "biological water" is uniform for different segments of the protein.     

Instabilities in free-surface electroosmotic flows

Instability of a thin electrolyte film undergoing a direct current electroosmotic flow has been investigated. The film with a compliant electrolyte–air interface is flowing over a rigid charged substrate. Unlike previous studies, inclusion of the Maxwell stresses in the formulation shows the presence of a new finite wavenumber shear-flow mode of instability, alongside the more frequently observed long-wave interfacial mode. The shear mode is found to be the dominant mode of instability when the electrolyte–solid and electrolyte–air interfaces are of opposite charge or of same charge but have very large zeta-potential at the electrolyte–air interface. The conditions for mode-switch (interfacial to shear) and the direction of the travelling waves are discussed through stability diagrams. Interestingly, the analysis shows that when the interfaces are of nearly same zeta potential, the ‘free’ electrolyte–air interface behaves more like a ‘stationary’ wall because of the ion transport in the reverse direction of the flow.     

The k-essence scalar field in the context of Supernova Ia observations

We study a framework where the hypothesis of a minimum length in space-time is complemented with the notion of reference frame invariance. It turns out natural to interpret the action of the obtained reference frame transformations in the context of doubly special relativity. As a consequence of this formalism we find interesting connections between the minimum length properties and the modified velocity-energy relation for ultra-relativistic particles. For example, we can predict the ratio between the minimum lengths in space and time using the results from OPERA on superluminal neutrinos.     

Sulfonation of metallocene‐based polyolefinic elastomers and its influence on physicomechanical properties: Effect of reaction parameters,styrene grafting,and pendant chain length

Direct sulfonation and styrene‐mediated sulfonation were carried out onto metallocene‐based poly(ethylene‐co‐octene) (POE) and poly(ethylene‐co‐butene) (PBE) elastomers to impart polarity on the completely nonpolar rubbery matrices and to prepare a new class of elastomer. The influence of styrene‐grafting and pendant chain length on the degree of sulfonation was also studied. The effects of sulfonation, styrene grafting and styrene‐mediated sulfonation at their optimized levels on various physicomechanical properties were thoroughly investigated, and the resultant properties were correlated with structures of the modified elastomers. Higher extent of sulfonic acid groups were introduced through direct sulfonation in comparison with the styrene‐mediated sulfonation, whereas better thermal and mechanical properties were obtained through styrene‐mediated sulfonation in comparison with the direct sulfonation process. PBE had shown higher degree of sulfonation and percentage grafting than POE. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 8023–8040, 2008     

Dynamical analysis of toxin producing Phytoplankton–Zooplankton interactions

In the present paper we consider a toxin producing phytoplankton–zooplankton model in which the toxin liberation by phytoplankton species follows a discrete time variation. Firstly we consider the elementary dynamical properties of the toxic-phytoplankton–zooplankton interacting model system in absence of time delay. Then we establish the existence of local Hopf-bifurcation as the time delay crosses a threshold value and also prove the existence of stability switching phenomena. Explicit results are derived for stability and direction of the bifurcating periodic orbit by using normal form theory and center manifold arguments. Global existence of periodic orbits is also established by using a global Hopf-bifurcation theorem. Finally, the basic outcomes are mentioned along with numerical results to provide some support to the analytical findings.     

Spin-orbit gauge and quantum spin Hall effect

We have shown that the non-Abelian spin-orbit gauge field strength of the Rashba and Dresselhaus interactions, when split into two Abelian field strengths, the Hamiltonian of the system can be re-expressed as a Landau level problem with a particular relation between the two coupling parameters. The quantum levels are created with up and down spins with opposite chirality and leads to the quantum spin Hall effect.