An AFM, XPS and electrochemical study of molecular electroactive monolayers formed by wet chemistry functionalization of H-terminated Si(1 0 0) with vinylferrocene

Molecular electroactive monolayers have been produced from vinylferrocene (VFC) via light-assisted surface anchoring to H-terminated n- and p-Si(1 0 0) wafers prepared via wet chemistry, in a controlled atmosphere. The resulting Si-C bound hybrids have been characterized by means of XPS and AFM. Their performance as semiconductor functionalized electrodes and their surface composition have been followed by combining electrochemical and XPS measurements on the same samples, before and after use in an electrochemical cell. White-light photoactivated anchoring at short (1 h) exposure times has resulted in a mild route, with a very limited impact on the initial quality of the silicon substrate. In fact, the functionalized Si surface results negligibly oxidized, and the C/Fe atomic ratio is close to the value expected for the pure molecular species. The VFC/Si hybrids can be described as (η⁵-C₅H₅)Fe²⁺(η⁵-C₅H₄)-CH₂-CH₂-Si species, on the basis of XPS results. Electrochemical methods have been applied in order to investigate the role played by a robust, covalent Si-C anchoring mode towards substrate-molecule electronic communication, a crucial issue for a perspective development of molecular electronics devices. The response found from cyclic voltammograms for p-Si(1 0 0) functionalized electrodes, run in the dark and under illumination, has shown that the electron transfer is not limited by the number of charge carriers, confirming the occurrence of electron transfer via the Si valence band. The hybrids have shown a noticeable electrochemical stability and reversibility under cyclic voltammetry (cv), and the trend in peak current intensity vs. the scan rate was linear. The molecule-Si bond is preserved even after thousands of voltammetric cycles, although the surface coverage, evaluated from cv and XPS, decreases in the same sequence. An increasingly larger surface concentration of Fe³⁺ at the expenses of Fe²⁺ redox centers has been found at increasing number of cv’s, experimentally associated with the growth of silicon oxide. Surface SiO⁻ groups from deprotonated silanol termination, induced by the electrochemical treatments, are proposed as the associated counterions for the Fe³⁺ species. They could be responsible for the observed decrease in the electron transfer rate constant with electrode ageing.     

A convenient strategy of dimerization by microwave heating and using 2,5-diketopiperazine as scaffold

A novel and convenient microwave-assisted dimerization of an active peptide compound using the DKPs as scaffold is described. The key reaction giving rise to the diketopiperazine scaffold is the intermolecular coupling. No epimerization was detected in the reactions used. Conventional and microwave heating of the reactions are compared. Synthesis by microwave irradiation gave the desired compounds in higher yields and in shorter reaction times than those obtained by conventional heating.     

一类混合型微分差分方程的周期解

利用Fenchel变换,我们推出一类微分差分方程存在周期解等价于某泛函具有临界点,并求出方程具有周期解的充分条件.     

FT-IR study on solvent effects in building blocks of bioactive compounds. V

3-Hydroxy-4-hydroxymethyl pyrrolidin-2-ones, easily prepared from the Baylis–Hillman adduct 1-ethyl-4-methyl-2-hydroxy-3-methylenebutanedioate, are useful intermediates in the synthesis of bioactive compounds. In order to understand the mechanism involved in this reaction, vibrational and Montecarlo molecular mechanics conformational analysis on 1-ethyl-4-methyl-2-hydroxy-3-methylenebutanedioate were carried out, confirming the existence of a low energy intramolecular H-bonded five-member ring.     

Electronic transport properties of bismuth nanobridges through silicon-nitride membranes

The electronic transport through nanostructured bismuth nanobridges has been investigated at low temperatures (T<2 K) and in magnetic fields B up to 8.5 T. The samples show reproducible resistance fluctuations as a function of B, superimposed on a large magnetoresistance of up to 50%. In addition, time-dependent resistance fluctuations in zero magnetic field demonstrate the presence of bistable scatterers in the constriction region of our samples, which are described by two-level systems. Their dynamics are shown to be sensitive to subtle modifications of the static scatterer configuration in their vicinity, which cannot be detected in the sample magnetofingerprint.     

On the counting function of the lattice profile of periodic sequences

The lattice profile analyzes the intrinsic structure of pseudorandom number sequences with applications in Monte Carlo methods and cryptology. In this paper, using the discrete Fourier transform for periodic sequences and the relation between the lattice profile and the linear complexity, we give general formulas for the expected value, variance, and counting function of the lattice profile of periodic sequences with fixed period. Moreover, we determine in a more explicit form the expected value, variance, and counting function of the lattice profile of periodic sequences for special values of the period.     

Radiative lifetimes in Ce I and Ce II

New radiative lifetime measurements based on time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence techniques are reported for 18 even-parity levels belonging to the 4f5d^26p and 4f ²5d ² configurations of Ce I and 6 even-parity levels belonging to the 5d^26s, 4f5d6p, and 4f6s6p configurations of Ce II. Free neutral and singly ionized cerium atoms were produced by laser ablation. The Ce I and Ce II levels range in energy from 26 545 to 29 102 cm^-1, and 42 573 to 48 152 cm^-1, respectively. Received 25 September 2002 Published online 4 March 2003     

一种小波域音频信息隐藏方法

提出了一种基于量化的小波域音频隐藏算法，将保密语音隐藏到载体音频中．为提高隐藏重和保密语音传输的安全性，对保密语音进行了小波域压缩编码和m序列的扩频调制，生成待隐藏的比特序列；通过量化方法，将编码和调制后的保密语音隐藏到载体音频的小波系数中；保密语音的恢复过程不需要使用原始音频、仿真结果表明，隐藏有保密语音的载体音频听觉质量没有明显下降，提取的保密语音感知质量较好；该算法对重量化、加噪、低通滤波等攻击均有良好的鲁棒性．     

Analysis on Shack–Hartmann wave-front sensor with Fourier optics

In Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWS), the behavior of the irradiance pattern produced by the micro-lens array is important for an accurate centroid estimation. In this paper, the behavior of a micro-lens array in SHWS is analyzed using Fourier optics, and reveals that in addition to the main, expected spots, secondary spots with smaller intensities also appeared as a result of diffraction by the small dimensions of the micro-lens and interference from the different micro-lenses. This result is confirmed by comparing with a irradiance pattern taken from an actual SHWS. The additional error in centroid estimation caused by these secondary spots is discussed and relationship to the parameters of the micro-lens of SHWS is analyzed.     

What Oxidation State of Iron Determines the Amethyst Colour?

A colourless quartz crystal doped with ⁵⁷Fe³⁺ was obtained by hydrothermal synthesis in an NH₄F solution. The crystal was transformed into violet amethyst by gamma-irradiation. The change in colour was accompanied by changes in the Mössbauer spectrum that can be interpreted as the conversion of trivalent iron into the tetravalent state: Fe³⁺→Fe⁴⁺.