Polarization modification of PZT thin films by means of electric fields and stress in scanning force microscopy

Polarization switching in scanning force microscopy (SFM) is influenced by both electric fields and stress, whereby the latter can arise inherently from Maxwell stress. We discuss the influence of electric charges and of the polarization asymmetry on the switching behaviour. For single crystallites of PZT(53/47) thin films, the sectors for ferroelectric, ferroelastoelectric and ferroelastic switching are represented in a field-stress map. The influence of stress on the second harmonic of the SFM is also discussed.     

Photo-induced evolution of copper sheets from cluster molecules and its application to photolithographic copper patterning

UV photoexcitation of (t-butylethynyl copper)₂₄ cluster films induces segregation of the crystals into metallic and organic phases and leads to evolve the metallic sheets sandwiched by organic polymers. The growth of the metallic crystals in the plane of the photo-electromagnetic field is attributed due to plasmon-plasmon interaction among nanoparticles embedded in dielectric polymer matrices. The surface enhanced photochemical reaction of residual cluster molecules on the photon incident direction is expected to take an important role for joining the metal particles to produce a metallic sheet. We can apply this phenomenon for photolithographic copper pattern generation on a flexible base plate.     

Anderson transition in dilute systems with pure exponential interactions

Summary Assuming a completely disordered lattice it is shown that all the states are localized when the disorder parameterx=a ₀/0 reachesthe value 0.31, wherea is the mean atomic separation anda ₀ is the Bohr radius.     

Zero bias anomaly in the density of states of low-dimensional metals

We consider the effect of Coulomb interactions on the average density of states (DOS) of disordered low-dimensional metals for temperatures T and frequencies ω smaller than the inverse elastic life-time 1/τ. Using the fact that long-range Coulomb interactions in two dimensions (2d) generate ln²-singularities in the DOS ν(ω) but only ln-singularities in the conductivity σ(ω), we can re-sum the most singular contributions to the average DOS via a simple gauge-transformation. If σ(ω) > 0, then a metallic Coulomb gapν(ω) ∝ |ω|/e ⁴ appears in the DOS at T = 0 for frequencies below a certain crossover frequency Ω ₂ which depends on the value of the DC conductivity σ(0). Here, - e is the charge of the electron. Naively adopting the same procedure to calculate the DOS in quasi 1d metals, we find ν(ω) ∝ (|ω|/Ω ₁)^1/2exp(- Ω ₁/|ω|) at T = 0, where Ω ₁ is some interaction-dependent frequency scale. However, we argue that in quasi 1d the above gauge-transformation method is on less firm grounds than in 2d. We also discuss the behavior of the DOS at finite temperatures and give numerical results for the expected tunneling conductance that can be compared with experiments. Received 28 August 2001 / Received in final form 28 January 2002 Published online 9 July 2002     

The growth of Pd thin films on a 6H-SiC(0 0 0 1) substrate

Pd thin films, grown on Si-rich 6H-SiC(0 0 0 1) substrates, were studied by atomic force microscopy, electron diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. It is concluded that the growth is successful only when all the growth process takes place at room temperature. Under these conditions a very good epitaxial growth of Pd is achieved, despite the large misfit (about 8.6%) between Pd and the substrate and the existence of a semi-amorphous layer between the thin film and the substrate. A large number of twins appear in these films.     

High-resolution Hadamard transform microscope fluorescence imaging: quantifying the DNA content in single cells

This study presents a novel miniaturized Hadamard transform fluorescence imaging microscope, by combining a conventional fluorescence microscope with Hadamard transform multiplexing encoding using a one-dimensional movable mask to realize spatial resolution and a linear CCD for multichannel detection. The microscope can provide high-resolution automatically-generated 0–255 gray level HT images for morphological analysis and visualization of a single cell, and normalized HT images for cellular quantitative measurements. The microscopes imaging capability was applied to measure the DNA content in human lymphocyte, chicken erythrocyte and eel erythrocyte, and a comparative study was performed. The results show that the calibrated DNA content in a chicken erythrocyte is 2.32 pg when human lymphocyte is used as the standard, and eel erythrocyte may be a potentially reliable and novel standard for determining DNA contents in other species because it has a stable DNA value of 2.06 pg, with a CV of 4.3% when 20 eel erythrocytes are measured. The results also demonstrate that the HT imaging microscope should be valuable in the fields of medicine and cell biology.     

Synthesis and Characterization of a [Mn12O12(O2CR)16(H2O)4] Complex Bearing Paramagnetic Carboxylate Ligands. Use of a Modified Acid Replacement Synthetic Approach

Summary.  A new modified approach for the synthesis of Mn₁₂ clusters, based on the use of complex [Mn₁₂O₁₂(O₂C ^t Bu)₁₆(H₂O)₄] (2) as starting material to promote the acidic ligand replacement, is presented here. This new synthetic approach allowed us to obtain complex [Mn₁₂O₁₂(O₂CC₆H₄N(O^•) ^t Bu)₁₆(H₂O)₄] (3), whose preparation remained elusive by direct replacement of the acetate groups of Mn₁₂Ac (1). Complex 3 bearing open-shell radical units, was prepared to increase the total spin number of its ground state, and consequently, to increase T _B , with the expectation that the radical ligands may couple ferromagnetically with the Mn₁₂ core. Unfortunately, magnetic measurements of complex 3 revealed that the sixteen radical carboxylate ligands interact antiferromagnetically with the Mn₁₂ core to yield a S = 2 magnetic ground state. Corresponding author. E-mail: vecianaj@icmab.es Received March 27, 2002; accepted May 2, 2002     

Laser-induced fluorescence microscopic system using an optical parametric oscillator for tunable detection in microchip analysis

A laser-induced fluorescence microscopic system based on optical parametric oscillation has been constructed as a tunable detector for microchip analysis. The detection limit of sulforhodamine B (Ex. 520 nm, Em. 570 nm) was 0.2 mol, which was approximately eight orders of magnitude better than with a conventional fluorophotometer. The system was applied to the determination of fluorescence-labeled DNA (Ex. 494 nm, Em. 519 nm) in a microchannel and the detection limit reached a single molecule. These results showed the feasibility of this system as a highly sensitive and tunable fluorescence detector for microchip analysis.     

聚苯乙烯乳胶球三维有序体的制备及其显微形貌表征

A three-dimensional (3D) ordered structure was achieved by self-organization of monodisperse polystyrene latex about 250nm in diameter after being ambient dried. The stacked morphology was investigated by scanning electron microscopy(SEM) observation. It is shown that the face-centered cubic(FCC) phase dominantly exists. This finding presents a potential template for preparing an inverse FCC structure as a photonic crystal of full band gap if the index contrast is higher than 2.8.     

聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯单分子膜的原子力学显微镜研究

报道了利用原子力显微镜（ＡＦＭ）技术对聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯（ＰＭＭＡ）单分子膜进行分子结构水平的观察研究．由ＡＰＭ图像中得到的ＰＭＭＡ单体所占面积与用π－Ａ曲线中换算出液面上ＰＭＭＡＬａｕｇｍｕｉｒ膜中单体的面积符合得很好．从ＡＦＭ图像中可见ＰＭＭＡＬＢ膜中ＰＭＭＡ的线型碳链是与档板（ｂａｒｒｉｅｒ）平行的紧密排列，与ＬＢ提膜方向相垂直．并由此对ＰＭＭＡＬＢ膜的形成过程进行分析．此外，还观察到了在Ｓｉ基底上ＰＭＭＡ直链的卷绕伸直排列形态，初步分析了其形成原因．