Investigation of the electrochemical production and doping of soluble electrically conducting poly(3-methyl-4-phenylthiophene)

The electrochemical production and doping of soluble, as well as the physicochemical properties of a soluble electrically conducting polymer based on 3-methyl-4-phenylthiophene were studied.Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Éxperimental'naya Khimiya, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 143–148, March–April, 1993.The authors would like to express gratitude to the State Committee of the Ukraine on questions of science and technology for financial support for this work within the framework of the State Scientific and Technical Program 7.1. Materials for Electronic Technology, as well as to V. P. Kandilenko and V. Ya. Chernov for aid in recording the fluorescence spectra of the P3M4PT films.     

Fibre-laser IR luminescence diagnostics of malignant tumours using rare earth porphyrins

To eliminate the masking effect of the background luminescence of endogenic substances in biological tissues and to increase the luminescence contrast values of malignant tumours, sarcoma-implanted mice were administered with ytterbium porphyrins instead of free porphyrin radicals. This was followed by in vivo luminescence localization of tumours using fibre-laser spectrofluorometry. The luminescence contrast values obtained reached 10-45 which is evidently not a limit.     

Structural and sensing properties of nanocrystalline SnO<Subscript>2</Subscript> films deposited by spray pyrolysis from a SnCl<Subscript>2</Subscript> precursor

We report the fabrication and characterization of tin dioxide gas sensing layers. The tin dioxide layers were synthesized using a convenient, simple and low-cost technique of spray pyrolysis. The formation of stoichiometric SnO₂ layers with fine-grain structure is revealed by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. The microstructure, phase, nanoparticle size distribution and surface morphology were studied by transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction and atomic force microscopy. Most of the grains were of 10–20 nm size; however, some particles were up to 100 nm in size and had a microtwin lamellae structure of SnO₂ phase (cassiterite) with lattice parameters a= 0.474 nm and c= 0.319 nm. The sensitivity of the layers with respect to 1000–10000 ppm CH₄ in air was obtained from both resistivity (S_R) and capacity (S_C) measurements at 330 °C and values of S_R=5–7 and S_C=22–31 were extracted. PACS 68.43.-h; 68.55.-a; 81.05.Hd; 81.07.-b; 81.15.Rs     

A generalized gradient approximation for exchange derived from the model potential of van Leeuwen and Baerends

The common way to obtain energies from Kohn-Sham exchange potentials is by using the Levy-Perdew virial relation. For potentials that are not functional derivatives (i.e., nearly all model exchange potentials in existence), this approach leads to energy expressions that lack translational and rotational invariance. We propose a method for constructing potential-based energy functionals that are free from these artifacts. It relies on the same line-integration technique that gives rise to the Levy-Perdew relation, but uses density scaling instead of coordinate scaling. The method is applicable to any exchange or correlation potential that depends on the density explicitly, and correctly recovers the parent energy functional from a functional derivative. To illustrate our approach we develop a properly invariant generalized gradient approximation for exchange starting from the model potential of van Leeuwen and Baerends.