Spectroscopy study of dimerization of fluorone dyes in AOT reverse micelles.

The dimerization processes and its thermodynamic parameters of fluoronic dyes (fluorescein (F), eosin (E), erythrosine (ER), bengal rose (BR)) in reverse micelles of AOT with different hydrodynamic radius R are studied. The dimerization constants and its efficiency (the degree of dimerization of dye molecules (1-X)) were determined from the experimental data. It is found that an increase in the intercombination conversion due to the heavy atom effect leads to an increase of the value of (1-X).

Molecular dynamics simulation of the formation of Cu-Pt nanocontacts in the mechanically controlled break junction experiments.

The formation of the Cu-Pt nanocontacts has been investigated by means of classical molecular dynamics simulations. The simulations of the mechanically controlled break junction experiment have been performed in wide ranges of temperatures (0-300 K) and at relative Pt concentrations (0-20%). The structure of the breaking area has been studied 2 ns before the final breaking of the nanocontacts.

Tyrosine fluorescence probing of the surfactant-induced conformational changes of albumin.

Tyrosine fluorescence in native proteins is known to be effectively quenched, whereas its emission increases upon proteins' unfolding. This suggests that tyrosine fluorescence could be exploited for probing structural rearrangements of proteins in addition to the extensively used tryptophan emission. We studied the possibility of using tyrosine fluorescence as an indicator of surfactant-induced conformational changes in albumins.

Emergence of spin-filter states in Pt-Fe nanowires.

Our theoretical study predicts the emergence of a new spin-filter state in one-dimensional Pt-Fe bimetallic nanowires. The results show the existence of two transmission states in contracted "zig-zag" Pt-Fe nanowires with low and high transmission 1G0 and 3G0, correspondingly, and one transmission state in linear stretched nanowires with conductance 2G0. Our first principle calculations revealed the dependence of quantum conductance of Pt-Fe nanowires on their geometry and atomic structure.