Inhibition of a Gold-Based Catalyst in Benzyl Alcohol Oxidation: Understanding and Remediation

Benzyl alcohol oxidation was carried out in toluene as solvent, in the presence of the potentially inhibiting oxidation products benzaldehyde and benzoic acid. Benzoic acid, or a product of benzoic acid, is identified to be the inhibiting species. The presence of a basic potassium salt (K2CO3 or KF) suppresses this inhibition, but promotes the...

Improved Nb SIS devices for heterodyne mixers between 700?GHz and 1.3?THz with NbTiN transmission lines using a normal metal energy relaxation layer

In this paper, we demonstrate experimentally the implementation of a niobium-trilayer junction with an aluminum-oxide tunnel barrier, embedded in a high-gap superconducting niobium-titanium-nitride circuit. Previously reported heating by quasiparticle trapping is removed by inserting a normal metal layer of gold between the niobium junction and...

The persistence length of double stranded DNA determined using dark field tethered particle motion

The wormlike chain model describes the micromechanics of semiflexible polymers by introducing the persistence length. We propose a method of measuring the persistence length of DNA in a controllable near-native environment. Using a dark field microscope, the projected positions of a gold nanoparticle undergoing constrained Brownian motion are...

In situ imaging of electromigration-induced nanogap formation by transmission electron microscopy

The authors imaged electromigration-induced nanogap formation in situ by transmission electron microscopy. Real-time video recordings show that edge voids form near the cathode side. The polycrystalline gold wires narrow down until a single-grain boundary intersects the constriction along which the breaking continues. During the last 50?ms of...

Bias-dependent contact resistance in rubrene single-crystal field-effect transistors

The authors report a systematic study of the bias-dependent contact resistance in rubrene single-crystal field-effect transistors with Ni, Co, Cu, Au, and Pt electrodes. They show that the reproducibility in the values of contact resistance strongly depends on the metal, ranging from a factor of 2 for Ni to more than three orders of magnitude...

Self-breaking in planar few-atom Au constrictions for nanometer-spaced electrodes

The authors present results on electromigrated Au nanojunctions broken near the conductance quantum of 77.5??S. At room temperature it is found that wires, initially narrowed by an actively-controlled electromigration technique down to a few conductance quanta, continue to narrow after removing the applied voltage. Separate electrodes form as...

Mechanism of deactivation of Au/Fe2O3 catalysts under water-gas shift conditions

Ambipolar Cu- and Fe-phthalocyanine single-crystal field-effect transistors

We report the observation of ambipolar transport in field-effect transistors fabricated on single crystals of copper- and iron-phthalocyanine, using gold as a high work-function metal for the fabrication of source and drain electrodes. In these devices, the room-temperature mobility of holes reaches 0.3?cm2/V?s in both materials. The highest...

Planar nanocontacts with atomically controlled separation

We have developed a technology to reproducibly make gaps with distance control on the single-atom scale. The gold contacts are flat on the nanometer scale and are fabricated on an oxidized aluminum film that serves as a gate. We show that these contacts are clean and can be stabilized via chemical functionalization. Deposition of conjugated...