Synthesis and refractive‐index control of fluoropolymers by the polyaddition of bis(epoxide)s and triazine di(aryl ether)s

The polyaddition of fluorine‐containing bis(epoxide)s and fluorine‐containing triazine di(aryl ether)s were examined to give the corresponding fluorine‐containing poly(cyanurate)s. It was observed that the synthesized fluoropolymers had good thermal stabilities and good film‐forming properties. The glass transition temperatures (T<sub>gsub>'s) and refractive‐indices (n<sub>Dsub>'s) of synthesized polymers were determined by differential scanning calorimetry and ellipsometry, respectively, and it was found that the values of T<sub>gsub>'s and n<sub>Dsub>'s were supported by their fluorine containing ratios and skeletons. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 4421–4429, 2007     

Solution of the hyperbolic mild‐slope equation using the finite volume method

A finite volume solver for the 2D depth‐integrated harmonic hyperbolic formulation of the mild‐slope equation for wave propagation is presented and discussed. The solver is implemented on unstructured triangular meshes and the solution methodology is based upon a Godunov‐type second‐order finite volume scheme, whereby the numerical fluxes are computed using Roe's flux function. The eigensystem of the mild‐slope equations is derived and used for the construction of Roe's matrix. A formulation that updates the unknown variables in time implicitly is presented, which produces a more accurate and reliable scheme than hitherto available. Boundary conditions for different types of boundaries are also derived. The agreement of the computed results with analytical results for a range of wave propagation/transformation problems is very good, and the model is found to be virtually paraxiality‐free. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spectral shift function and trace formula

The complete proofs of Krein’s theorem on the spectral shift function and the trace formula are given for a pair of self-adjoint operators such that either (i) their difference is trace-class or (ii) the difference of their resolvents is trace-class. The proofs, essentially due to Krein, is based on Herglotz’s theorem on the boundary value of the analytic functions whose imaginary part is non-negative on the upper half plane, and an almost optimal class of functions are obtained for which the trace formula is valid. Also an alternative method based on Weyl-von Neumann’s theorem for self-adjoint operators, avoiding the complex function theory and inspired by Voiculescu’s work, is given for the first case. Furthermore, some applications of the spectral shift function have been discussed.     

Novel Poly（thienylene Ethynylene）s with Electron-accepting Groups

Since the early works of A. J. Heeger, A G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa on semiconducting polymers, π-conjugated oligomers and polymers have been actively investigated for a variety of optoelectronic applications, such as field effect transitors (FET…     

Description of the turbidity measurements near the phase transition temperature of poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) copolymers: the effect of pH, concentration, hydrophilic and hydrophobic content on the turbidity

Absorbance values between 300 and 800 nm of aqueous solutions of poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide-co-itaconic acid-9.80), poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide-co-itaconic acid-52.05) and poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide)s containing Tegomer H-Si 2111 end groups and/or blocks were measured using a Shimadzu 160-A UV-visible spectrometer. Turbidities obtained from these absorbance values were used to interpret the macromolecular phase transition from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic structure of the polymers. The effects of comonomer type and content, concentration of the solutions, pH and temperature on the coil-globule transition were discussed in terms of turbidity form factor, β related to size and shapes of particles and calculated by using the simplified form of Debye equation.The results presented in this work show that the presence of Tegomer H-Si 2111 (Si containing end groups and/or blocks) or high amount of itaconic acid (IA) in the chains prevent a collapse transition from hydrated extended coils to hydrophobic globules, which aggregate and form a separate phase (β<2). Furthermore, it was observed that in the case of concentrated solutions intermolecular hydrophobic interactions between isopropyl groups overcame the repulsive forces resulting from the ionized carboxylic acid groups of IA or surface active nature of Si containing hydrophobic groups (β>2). This stage of the transition corresponds to macroscopic phase separation after an intramolecular process.     

Low detection limit spectrophotometry

An efficient, more sensitive and accurate spectrophotometric process is possible and can be used to obtain qualitative or quantitative results for analytes at limiting concentrations lower than usual. Transmission measurements (incident light power, P<sub>0sub>, or transmitted, P) are performed with a fluorescence spectrometer. One cell only is used to measure standards or unknown solutions, placed between the standard holder cuvette and the emission monochromator of the instrument. The source of the radiant power (P<sub>0sub>) is not the xenon lamp but the fluorescence or scattered radiation from the holder cuvette filled with an appropriate solution. The analyte concentration is found from a calibration graph, based upon Beer&rsquo;s law or the approximate formula P<sub>0sub>&minus;P=2.303P<sub>0sub>εbc, which is valid for dilute solutions. Determination of iron in a reference material, using 1,10-phenanthroline as the chromogenic reagent, was chosen as an example to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed method and clarify several important statistical questions. Also discussed is why and to what extent molecular fluorescence methods are more sensitive than molecular absorption methods.     

Acetylenic/cyanoacetylenic complexes: simulation of the Titan’s atmosphere chemistry

The structures and energies of the 1:1 acetylene/cyanoacetylene, acetylene/dicyanoacetylene and cyanoacetylene/dicyanoacetylene complexes in solid argon matrices have been investigated using FT-IR spectroscopy and ab initio calculations, at the B3LYP/6-31G** level of theory. For the three complexes, predicted frequency shifts for the L shaped structures, characterized by a hydrogen bond between the nitrogen of the cyano group and the acetylenic proton, were found to be in good agreement with those experimental. Only in the case of acetylene/cyanoacetylene complex, we obtained a second minimum with a T shaped structure characterized by an interaction between the proton of cyanoacetylene and the Π system of acetylene. It appears clearly that HC<sub>3sub>N acts as an electrophile or as a nucleophile in these complexes.     

The Legacy of Raimond Castaing

 In April 1998 Raimond Castaing left the world of electrons, of ions and others particles, his wife and his family, his numerous students, for the world of stars. Raimond Castaing (Fig. 1) had a very strong personality. No one will forget their first meeting with him and all his students remember how brilliant he was as a teacher. A lot of anecdotes about his famous hot temper are still circulating among his friends and his former students. But in this paper, we would like to evoke Castaing’s memory through his achievements in Instrumental Physics, from the time of his doctoral thesis to later developments with his students, which were all centred on the imaging of the microstructures of materials and their quantitative chemical analysis.     

Synthesis and properties of novel poly(amide-imide)s containing pendent diphenylamino groups

A new dicarboxylic acid, 2,4-bis(N-trimellitoyl)triphenylamine, bearing two preformed imide rings was synthesized from the condensation of 2,4-diaminotriphenylamine and trimellitic anhydride at 1:2 molar ratio. A series of poly(amide-imide)s (PAIs) with inherent viscosities of 0.38-0.66 dl/g were prepared by triphenyl phosphite-activated polycondensation from the diimide-dicarboxylic acid with various aromatic diamines. All the resulting PAIs were readily soluble in a variety of organic solvents and formed strong and tough films via solution casting. These PAIs have useful levels of thermal stability associated with moderately high glass-transition temperatures (259-314 °C) and 10% weight loss temperatures in excess of 530 °C in nitrogen or in air.     

A molecular mechanics approach for analyzing tensile nonlinear deformation behavior of single-walled carbon nanotubes

In this paper, by capturing the atomic information and reflecting the behaviour governed by the nonlinear potential function, an analytical molecular mechanics approach is proposed. A constitutive relation for single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT’s) is established to describe the nonlinear stress-strain curve of SWCNT’s and to predict both the elastic properties and breaking strain of SWCNT’s during tensile deformation. An analysis based on the virtual internal bond (VIB) model proposed by P. Zhang et al. is also presented for comparison. The results indicate that the proposed molecular mechanics approach is indeed an acceptable analytical method for analyzing the mechanical behavior of SWCNT’s. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10121202, 90305015 and 10328203), the Key Grant Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (0306) and the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (HKU 7195/04E).