Chemically Modified Field-Effect Transistors for Measurement of Ion Activities in Aqueous Solution

Chemically modified field effect transistors for the selective detection of several cation and anion activities in aqueous solution are described. For obtaining sensors of high durability, novel polysiloxane membranes have been developed which contain different side groups to tune their intrinsic properties. These polysiloxane membranes show good performance in life time experiments. The ion selectivity has been tuned by incorporation of various novel ion receptor molecules, yielding sensors with high selectivities for sodium, potassium, lead, cupper, cadmium, silver, nitrate, nitrite, fluoride, and dihydrogen phosphate

Supramolecular materials: molecular packing of tetranitrotetrapropoxycalix[4]arene in highly stable films with second-order nonlinear optical properties

Highly stable films of tetranitrotetrapropoxycalix[4]arene (9) with second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) properties and a noncentrosymmetric structure were obtained by a novel crystallization process at 130-140 degrees C in a de electric field. The packing of 9 in these films was elucidated by a combination of X-ray diffraction, angle-dependent second- harmonic generation, and scanning force microscopy (SFM). The experimental results agree well with solid-state molecular dynamics calculations for these films. No crystalline phase was observed for nitrocalix[4]arene derivatives with longer or branched alkyl chains; this explains the limited NLO stability of films of these calixarenes. Scanning force microscopy o­n the aligned films of 9 showed two distinct surface lattice structures: a rectangular lattice (a = 9.3, b = 11.7 Angstrom) and a pseudohexagonal lattice (d approximate to 11.4 Angstrom). The combination of these data with the interlayer distance of 8.9 Angstrom (X-ray diffraction) allowed the packing of molecules of 9 in these structures to be fully elucidated at the molecular level