Photoluminescence activity of Yang and Secco etched multicrystalline silicon material

Ultraviolet and blue-green photoluminescence (PL) was investigated on multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) samples chemically etched by Secco and Yang solutions. The samples were characterized by dislocation density (10⁵-10⁶ cm⁻²). The form of etched pits is triangular with Yang etch and like a honeycomb with Secco etch as observed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). These textures of mc-Si wafers give a PL activity similar to that obtained with nanostructures of porous silicon (PS) as reported in the literature. The ultraviolet PL spectra observed with Yang etch shift to the blue-green spectrum range when applying Secco etch. In our experiments we have observed 3-5 μm diameter macro pores separated by a high density of nanowalls. These observations suggest that the origin of the PL activity are quantum dots resulting from the silicon nanocrystallites obtained after few minutes of chemical etching.     

An Efficient Method for the Synthesis of 3-Cyano-6-hydroxy-2(1H)-pyridinones under Microwave Irradiation and Solvent-free Conditions

Summary. Three component condensation of alkylacetoacetates, primary amines, and alkyl cyanoacetates catalyzed by solid supports under microwave irradiation gave N-alkyl 3-cyano-6-hydroxy-2(1H)-pyridinones with high yields. Upon carrying out the reaction under the same condition on acidic alumina, zeolite HY, silica gel, and montmorillonite K-10, the best yields were achieved by silica gel. Corresponding author. E-mail: balalaie@yahoo.com Received August 28, 2002; accepted September 3, 2002     

THE PROBLEM OF LIMIT CYCLES FOR A LIENARD TYPE CUBIC SYSTEM

The purpose of this paper is to study a general Lienard type cubic system with one antisaddle and two saddles. We give some results of the existence and uniqueness of limit cycles as well as the evolution of limit cycles around the antisaddle for system (2) in the following when parameter a1 changes.     

MgBr2·OEt2 mediated protection of alcohols with hexamethyldisilazane: An efficient catalytic route for the preparation of silyl ethers under solvent-free conditions

Various types of alcohols and phenols were rapidly protected by hexamethyldisilazane in good to excellent yields at room temperature in the presence of catalytic amount of magnesium bromide ethyl etherate under solvent-free conditions. Good to excellent chemoselectivity was demonstrated for competitive protection of primary hydroxyls in the presence of secondary and tertiary alcohols. Highly selective protection of phenols in the presence of aromatic amines was also demonstrated successfully.     

Two methods for semi-automated quantification of changes in ventricular volume and their use in schizophrenia

Two semi-automated methods for quantification of ventricular volume change from baseline and follow-up magnetic resonance imaging scans have been developed. Technique 1 employs direct segmentation of the ventricles from both the scans using thresholding and contour extraction. Technique 2 operates on difference images produced by voxel based intensity subtraction of the baseline from the registered follow-up images. Here, all voxels with intensities above a noise threshold and in a restricted area are monitored to compute volumetric changes. In phantom measurements the first technique was accurate to 0.0046%, the second to 0.167% of the phantom volume. Results from normal volunteers was that the average ventricular volume changed by 1.52% and 1.54% for images acquired within 9 months using techniques 1 and 2, respectively. With schizophrenic patients mean change of 10.78% and 9.43% were found employing the first and second procedures, respectively. All measurements agreed with a radiologist’s visual grading of the changes. Robust, objective, fast, easy-to-use, and fairly accurate procedures have been developed and validated to quantify volumetric changes.