Effect of treatment of activated carbon fiber cloth electrodes with cold plasma upon performance of electric double-layer capacitors

Charge/discharge behavior of electric double-layer capacitors composed of activated carbon fiber cloth (ACFC) electrodes and an organic electrolyte was investigated. The modification of the ACFC electrodes was performed using cold plasma generated in argon-oxygen atmosphere. The effect of the cold plasma treatment of the ACPC electrodes on the capacitor performance was discussed on the basis of the physical and chemical properties of the ACFC surface such as pore radius distribution and surface atom concentration.     

Attractants for Rice Leaf Bug, <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Trigonotylus caelestialium</Emphasis> (Kirkaldy), are Emitted from Flowering Rice Panicles

Volatiles were extracted from rice plants of various growth stages with solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to identify attractants that cause invasion of the rice leaf bug Trigonotylus caelestialium (Kirkaldy) into paddy fields. The composition of volatile blends produced by rice plants changed with rice development. In addition, volatile blend compositions differed between the panicles and the stems and leaves. The relative geranyl acetone content was high in all plant structures analyzed. In volatiles from whole plants in the fourth-leaf stage and panicles in the full-ripe stage, the relative content of green leaf volatiles (GLVs) was higher than that found in other rice plant structures. In contrast, relative terpene levels emitted from whole plants in the panicle-formation stage and by panicles and stems and leaves in the flowering stage were higher than those of other rice plant structures. However, the type of terpenes found differed between the panicles and the stems and leaves. Relative levels of β-caryophyllene in whole plants in the panicle-formation stage and panicles in the flowering stage were much higher than that in stems and leaves in the flowering stage. Our previous studies demonstrated that the odor from whole plants in the panicle-formation stage and panicles in the flowering stage is attractive to rice leaf bugs. Here, the attractiveness of β-caryophyllene to adult bugs was investigated in olfactometer assays. Adult females were attracted to β-caryophyllene at a concentration of 0.001%, which is approximately equivalent to the concentration produced by flowering rice panicles. However, β-caryophyllene also was present in the odor of whole plants in the fourth-leaf stage and in stems and leaves in the flowering stage. Furthermore, the amounts of this compound emitted from these structures were similar. Therefore, we suggest that the relative abundance of this compound in a volatile blend is important for attractance of the bugs.     

Profile structure of magnetic flux lines in type-II superconductor from a rectangular electron hologram

Profile magnetic configuration of a quantized flux line and flux-line lattice penetrating a type-II superconductor thin foil, niobium, was observed by electron holography and Lorentz microscopy using a 300 kV field-emission electron microscope. Each single flux line was distributed periodically as lattice structure in the mixed state just below its critical temperature of 8.5 K, while at low temperature of 5 K the flux lines were weakly bound as bundles. In order to observe the flux-line distribution over a wide area, discrete Fourier transform reconstruction in the holography was extended for a rectangular area without loss of information and data precision.     

Gas detection by structural variations of fluorescent guest molecules in a flexible porous coordination polymer

The development of a new methodology for visualizing and detecting gases is imperative for various applications. Here, we report a novel strategy in which gas molecules are detected by signals from a reporter guest that can read out a host structural transformation. A composite between a flexible porous coordination polymer and fluorescent reporter distyrylbenzene (DSB) selectively adsorbed CO? over other atmospheric gases. This adsorption induced a host transformation, which was accompanied by conformational variations of the included DSB. This read-out process resulted in a critical change in DSB fluorescence at a specific threshold pressure. The composite shows different fluorescence responses to CO? and acetylene, compounds that have similar physicochemical properties. Our system showed, for the first time, that fluorescent molecules can detect gases without any chemical interaction or energy transfer. The host-guest coupled transformations play a pivotal role in converting the gas adsorption events into detectable output signals.     

Control of the coating layer thickness of TiO2–SiO2 core–shell hybrid particles by liquid phase deposition

This paper describes control of the coating layer thickness and the crystallite size of the core–shell hybrid particles by controlling the process parameter. The core–shell hybrid particles were prepared using liquid phase deposition (LPD). We confirmed that the homogeneous coating was attained from the result of the zeta potential and the transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation. Furthermore, the coating layer microstructure was estimated using Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) method. The obtained coating layer of titania was estimated using the band gap energy. Results indicate that the blue shift of the band gap energy signifies that the physical property of the hybrid particles was controlled by the coating layer thickness and the crystallite size, which are determined by the processing parameters.     

0.5-μm 3.3-V BiCMOS standard cells with 32-kilobyte cache andten-port register file

BiCMOS standard cell macros, including a 0.5-W 3-ns register file, a 0.6-W 5-ns 32-kbyte cache, a 0.2-W 3-ns table look-aside buffer (TLB), and a 0.1-W 3-ns adder, are designed with a 0.5-μm BiCMOS technology. A supply voltage of 3.3 V is used to achieve low power consumption. Several BiCMOS/CMOS circuits, such as a self-aligned threshold inverter (SATI) sense amplifier and an ECL HIT logic are used to realize high-speed operation at the low supply voltage. The performance of the BiCMOS macros is verified using a fabricated test chip     

High-Field Magnetization of the Distorted Spin Frustration System Ni5(TeO3)4Br2

We performed high-field magnetization measurements, M(H), on the Ni₅(TeO₃)₄Br₂ by using a pulse magnet. The Ni²⁺ ions (S = 1) of this compound form a two dimensional distorted spin frustrated system (distorted kagome lattice), and undergo a Neel transition at T _N ～29 K, due to the anisotropy. Below T _N , a complex spin arrangement which contains ten spin sub-lattices was suggested by neutron scattering and electron spin resonance studies. We observed a step-like transition at H _c ～11 T when T<T _N . By contrast, at T>T _N , the field-dependent magnetization curves behaved like a straight line. The H _c is close to those obtained by previous spin resonance studies of Ni₅(TeO₃)₄Br₂ and Ni₅(TeO₃)₄Cl₂ in which a spin-flop-like transition was proposed to explain the field-dependent resonance spectra. Interestingly, the observed change in magnetization (ΔM) at H _c corresponds to nearly one-half of the magnetic moment of Ni²⁺ ion, suggesting that the observed step-like behavior possibly corresponds to a spin-flip-like transition (i.e. from antiferromagnetic state to ferrimagnetic state). In addition, in the high-field region (H>H _c ), the M(H) curves did not show plateau behavior, but exhibited the straight lines having finite slopes without any sign of saturation up to 55 T.     

Enhancement of Spin–Orbit Interaction by Bandgap Engineering in InAs-Based Heterostructures

We investigated Rashba spin–orbit interaction in various InAs-based heterostructures to evaluate the relative significance of the electric field in the quantum wells (QWs) and at the interfaces. Test structures were designed in such a way that the peak of the electron wave function was located on the abrupt band discontinuity at the front end of the main channel, whereas a control sample had no band discontinuity in the middle of the QW. The Rashba coefficient obtained for the test structures was almost double that of the control sample. Significant contribution of the electric field at the band discontinuity was verified by k · p calculation. Bandgap engineering was shown to be effective for obtaining an increased Rashba coefficient.     

High Power,Frequency Tunable,Submillimeter Wave ESR Device Using a Gyrotron as a Radiation Source

ESR device using a submillimeter wave gyrotron as a radiation source and a pulse magnet for high field up to 30 T has been constructed. Our gyrotrons (Gyrotron FU series) were developed as millimeter and submillimeter wave radiation sources and have attractive advantages for ESR spectroscopy, for example, high power and frequency tunability over broad range. The ESR device has been successfully applied to three cases of ESR measurements. In the first case, the temperature dependence of ESR was measured for a typical antiferromagnetic material MnO at the frequency of 301 GHz. In the second case, the dependence of the fine structure constant of the ruby on the magnetic field intensity was measured in the millimeter to submillimeter wave region. In these two cases, the gyrotron was operated by complete cw mode. In the final case, a pulse technique was applied to the ESR, the gyrotron was operated in pulse mode and the pulsed magnetic field was generated in the synchronized phase with the gyrotron operation.