New construction of hybrid and aperiodic ordered PBG cavity

The band gap of a photonic crystal (PhC) cavity intrinsically avoids HOM problems. In this paper, we present a new PBG structure based on the possible advantage of using hybrid structures and aperiodic lattices. This novel hybrid and aperiodically ordered cavity was designed for apparently higher Q-factor (more than 10300) and achieving large accelerating field gradient. The HOMs in the cavity are able to be absorbed efficiently.     

Preparation of highly (111)-oriented (Pb,La)(Zr,Sn,Ti)O<Subscript>3</Subscript> (PLZST) antiferroelectric thin films by modified sol-gel process using a novel tin source,dibutyloxide of tin

Highly (111)-oriented Pb_0.97La_0.02Zr_0.85Sn_0.13 Ti_0.02O₃(PLZST) antiferroelectric thin films were deposited on Pt(111)/Ti/SiO₂/Si(100) substrates through a modified sol-gel process technique. The electric field-induced antiferroelectric-to-ferroelectric (AFE‐FE) phase transformation behaviour was examined by C-V measurement. The results indicated that antiferroelectric (AFE) to ferrroelectric (FE) switching field , FE to AFE switching field were 315 kV/cm and 240 kV/cm respectively. The temperature dependence of the dielectric constant showed that the Curie temperature (T _c) of the PLZST antiferroelectric thin films was 171°C. The voltage dependent current density of the highly (111)-oriented PLZST film was less than 1.3 × 10⁻⁶ A/cm² over electric field range from 0 to ± 427 kV/cm.     

Transportation of sulfur mustard (HD) in alkyd coating

The kinetics of absorption, desorption, and degradation of sulfur mustard (HD) in alkyd coating was experimentally studied, and a one-dimension mass transfer model for the transportation of HD molecule in alkyd coating was established on the experimental data. The obtained results indicated that the persistence of HD molecule could be greatly increased due to the absorption of HD droplets by alkyd coating, and there still occurred the desorption of HD as vapor from coating for more than 3 days even after decontamination of HD droplets onto coating. It was also experimentally shown that the majority of HD both absorbed and desorbed was accomplished at an early stage, less than 10 h, and HD molecule was able to be degraded within the alkyd coating probably through the reactions of hydrolysis and elimination. The diffusion coefficient and degradation rate constant of HD in alkyd coating were determined to be practically around 10(-9) cm2/s and 2.4 x 10(-5) min(-1), respectively.     

pH-driven conformational switch of "i-motif" DNA for the reversible assembly of gold nanoparticles

Herein we demonstrate that gold nanoparticles conjugated to "i-motif" DNA behave like a pH dependent switch that undergoes reversible aggregations which can be easily visualized by the naked eye.     

Electrostatic force microscopy on oriented graphite surfaces: coexistence of insulating and conducting behaviors

We present measurements of the electric potential fluctuations on the surface of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite using electrostatic force and atomic force microscopy. Micrometric domainlike potential distributions are observed even when the sample is grounded. Such potential distributions are unexpected given the good metallic conductivity of graphite because the surface should be an equipotential. Our results indicate the coexistence of regions with "metalliclike" and "insulatinglike" behaviors showing large potential fluctuations of the order of 0.25 V. In lower quality graphite, this effect is not observed. Experiments are performed in Ar and air atmospheres.     

Parallel numerical simulation of the ultrasonic waves in a prestressed formation

Formation stress prediction plays an important role in petroleum production. Understanding ultrasonic wave propagation in a stress-induced anisotropic formation will help us to find an efficient method to correctly predict formation stress or formation pore pressure. In this work, a parallel 3D finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method is developed to simulate elastic wave propagation in pre-stressed formations. A perfectly matched layer (PML) is used as an absorbing boundary condition. The acceleration ration of total CPU computation time and the lasting time of the program run in the super computer-ShenTeng 6800 in the Super Computation Center of Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) are tested. It shows that the acceleration factor of the parallel FDTD program is considerably high even if the domain is only divided in one direction. When the total computation model size fixed, the acceleration factor of 8 CPU and 64 CPU is 3.0 and 13.8, respectively. The velocities under various static stresses are obtained by processing the array data calculated with the FDTD using Prony's method. The linear relation between velocity and the applied pre-stress is in agreement with that predicted by the acoustoelasticity theory. Results from the numerical simulation confirm the reciprocity principle and the superposition principle.     

A note on crossing the phantom divide in hybrid dark energy model

Recently a lot of attention has been given to building dark energy models in which the equation-of-state parameter w   can cross the phantom divide w=−1$w=-1$. However, to our knowledge, these models with crossing the phantom divide only provide the possibility that w can cross −1. They do not answer another question: why crossing phantom divide occurs recently? Since in many existing models whose equation-of-state parameter can cross the phantom divide, w undulates around −1 randomly, why are we living in an epoch  w<−1$w<-1$? This can be regarded as the second cosmological coincidence problem. In this Letter, we propose a possible approach to alleviate this problem within a hybrid dark energy model.     

Carborane functionalized pyrroles and porphyrins via the Suzuki cross-coupling reaction

A new route to carboranylated pyrroles and porphyrins is reported which involves the Suzuki coupling of readily available bromo- and boronic acid-pyrroles and bromoporphyrins with functionalized carboranes; the X-ray structures of two targeted products are presented and discussed.