Determination of the chemical diffusion coefficient of lithium in multiwall carbon nanotubes

Electrochemical intercalation of lithium into multiwall carbon nanotubes produced by the arc-electric technique has been carried out in button cells to estimate the solid state diffusion coefficients of lithium. An extension of the Galvanostatic Intermittent Titration Technique (G.I.T.T.) of Weppner and Huggins and further developed by Honders is employed. The results are interpreted providing that the lithium species enter the nanotubes perpendicularly to their walls and thus give rise to a necklace structure as observed by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Finally, the results are compared with the data obtained for different kinds of carbon: carbon fiber, petroleum coke and graphite. Paper presented at the 6th Euroconference on Solid State Ionics, Cetraro, Calabria, Italy, Sept. 12–19, 1999.     

Extended hydrodynamic approach to quantum-classical nonequilibrium evolution. I. Theory

A mixed quantum-classical formulation is developed for a quantum subsystem in strong interaction with an N-particle environment, to be treated as classical in the framework of a hydrodynamic representation. Starting from the quantum Liouville equation for the N-particle distribution and the corresponding reduced single-particle distribution, exact quantum hydrodynamic equations are obtained for the momentum moments of the single-particle distribution coupled to a discretized quantum subsystem. The quantum-classical limit is subsequently taken and the resulting hierarchy of equations is further approximated by various closure schemes. These include, in particular, (i) a Grad-Hermite-type closure, (ii) a Gaussian closure at the level of a quantum-classical local Maxwellian distribution, and (iii) a dynamical density functional theory approximation by which the hydrodynamic pressure term is replaced by a free energy functional derivative. The latter limit yields a mixed quantum-classical formulation which has previously been introduced by I. Burghardt and B. Bagchi, Chem. Phys. 134, 343 (2006).     

Antenna Array Designs for OFDM WLAN Indoor Transmission

Wireless local area networks (WLAN??s) based on the 802.11 standards are ubiquitous. However, the popularity of WLAN??s has made interference between WLAN users an issue. Spatial division multiple access (SDMA) is one way to orthogonalize these users and reduce interference. The contribution of this paper is to use real antenna array prototypes to determine the best array design for implementing indoor SDMA. Two SDMA antenna array prototypes are constructed and used to collect propagation measurements in an indoor environment. The propagation data is then incorporated into an SDMA orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) analysis. This approach is able to very accurately predict how the two array designs will influence SDMA-OFDM performance in the indoor environment where the measurements are collected. The results indicate that the compact sectorized antenna array prototype performs better than the linear array prototype for in-room communication and that the reverse is true for inter-room communication.     

Septorine and N-methoxy septorine,substituted pyrazines from the fungus Septoria nodorum berk

On the basis of ¹H nmr correlations with synthetic analogs, structures $\text{1}$ and $\text{2}$ are proposed for septorine and N-methoxy septorine, two p-hydroxybenzoyl 1-isobutyl substituted pyrazines obtained from the fungus $\text{Septoria nodorum}$ Berk, a parasite of wheat.     

MRI of liver tumors using gadolinium-DOTA: prospective study comparing spin-echo long TR-te sequence and CT

Thirty-nine patients with liver tumors were examined using MRI at 0.5 T before and after intravenous bolus injection of either 0.1 mmol/kg (n = 18) or 0.2 mmol/kg (n = 21) of Gadolinium-Dota, using spin-echo T1-and T2-weighted sequences before injections and spin-echo or gradient-echo sequences after injection. When contrast-to-noise (C/N) data were normalized relative to time, optimal mean C/N was observed after gadolinium injection. However, subjective study and case-by-case C/N measurement showed better contrast for SE 2000/60 and CT with injection in 62% and 42% of cases, respectively.     

New developments in the heteroepitaxial growth of Be-chalcogenides based semiconducting alloys

We have studied the heteroepitaxial growth of Zn(Mg)BeSe alloys on both GaAs and Si substrates. X-ray measurements show that ZnMgBeSe quaternary alloys can be grown with a high structural quality on GaAs(001). Linewidths as low as to 20 arcsec have been obtained from double x-ray diffraction and the etch pit density is in the range of 10⁻³ cm⁻². The growth of ZnBeSe ternary alloys on vicinal Si(001) substrates has been investigated. Optical properties of Zn_0.55Be_0.45Se which is lattice-matched to silicon have been studied by photoluminescence and reflectivity and a fundamental bandgap E₀ of 3.85 eV has been measured. Therefore, this material is a potential candidate for ultraviolet B detection. However, it is important to note that these measurements are not conclusive about the direct nature of alloys bandgaps.     

Elucidation of the mechanism of redox grafting of diazotated anthraquinone

Redox grafting of aryldiazonium salts containing redox units may be used to form exceptionally thick covalently attached conducting films, even in the micrometers range, in a controlled manner on glassy carbon and gold substrates. With the objective to investigate the mechanism of this process in detail, 1-anthraquinone (AQ) redox units were immobilized on these substrates by electroreduction of 9,10-dioxo-9,10-dihydroanthracene-1-diazonium tetrafluoroborate. Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance was employed to follow the grafting process during a cyclic voltammetric sweep by recording the frequency change. The redox grafting is shown to have two mass gain regions/phases: an irreversible one due to the addition of AQ units to the substrate/film and a reversible one due to the association of cations from the supporting electrolyte with the AQ radical anions formed during the sweeping process. Scanning electrochemical microscopy was used to study the relationship between the conductivity of the film and the charging level of the AQ redox units in the grafted film. For that purpose, approach curves were recorded at a platinum ultramicroelectrode for AQ-containing films on gold and glassy carbon surfaces using the ferro/ferricyanide redox system as redox probe. It is concluded that the film growth has its origin in electron transfer processes occurring through the layer mediated by the redox moieties embedded in the organic film.