We introduce a sensing element, “Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (MIP),” which created by “Molecular Imprinted Technique.” However, the sensitivity of MIP’s based bio-sensors limits for practical applications due to the low sensitivity. To achieve a high sensitivity of MIP’s based sensors, the synthesis of “high affinity receptor or binding sites,” such as “monoclonal particles” is a key objective. In previous studies, affinity distribution plots indicated that “high affinity binding sites” were obtained when the number of binding sites per particle decreased. It means that smaller particles are expected to have higher affinity binding sites compared to larger particles. The result motivated us to produce small-sized MIP’s particles for the achievement of higher sensitivity. Microfluidic Synthesis has taken a great attention to synthesize small particles. However, the microfluidic synthesis gave us a difficulty, especially collections of MIP’s particles from the surface of PDMS-based microchannels due to a sticking problem. Thus, we employed a new approach, which can collect MIP’s particles without any sticking problem from the surface of the reactor. It is a photopatterned MIP’s system generated on the glass surface. We prepared a photomask with micro-sized patterns and then fabricate MIP’s particles on a glass surface by photopolymerization. Uniform MIP’s patterns were printed on the glass surface. The interface between the glass surface and the MIP’s pattern was observed by SEM. Micro-sized MIP’s particles were collected from the glass surface by scratching off the photocured MIP’s patterns.

We report trigonometric parallx measurements for H2O masers around the protoplanetary nebula OH 231.8+4.2 carried out with the Very Long Baseline Array. Based on astrometric monitoring for 1 year, we measured a trigonometric parallax of 0.89 ± 0.04 mas, corresponding to a distance of 1.12+0.05−0.05 kpc. This is the most accurate distance to OH 231.8+4.2, and the first one based on an annual parallax measurement. The distribution and internal motions of the H2O masers are consistent with the bipolar outflow suggested in literatures.

We present results of astrometric observations of S269 H2O maser performed with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). We have monitored the positions of S269 H2O masers for 1 year and successfully detected its parallax to be 189±8 micro-arcsecond. This corresponds to a source distance of 5.28+0.24−0.22 kpc, and is the smallest parallax (and thus the largest distance) that has ever been measured by means of annual parallax. Proper motions of S269 H2O maser were also measured and used to determine the Galactic rotation velocity at the position of S269. Our measurements show that the Galactic rotation velocity at S269 is the same to that at the Sun within 3%, indicating that the Galactic rotation curve is flat out to R~13 kpc.

We have carried out multi-epoch VLBI observations of the H2O maser sources associated with young stellar objects (YSOs) in nearby molecular clouds with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry), which is a newly constructed VLBI network in Japan (Kobayashi et al. 2003). The main goal of our study is to measure the absolute proper motions and distances to nearby molecular clouds within 1 kpc from the Sun, to reveal their 3-dimensional structures and dynamical properties. Using the VERA dual-beam receiving system (Honma et al. 2003), we have carried out phase-referencing VLBI observations and measured annual parallaxes and absolute proper motions of the H2O maser features with respect to the extragalactic radio sources. We have successfully detected the annual parallax of one of the H2O maser features in Orion KL to be 2.29±0.10 mas, corresponding to the distance of 437±19 pc from the Sun (Hirota et al. 2007). In addition, the annual parallax of SVS13 in NGC 1333 is also determined to be4.10±0.17 mas, corresponding to the distance of 244±10 pc from the Sun, although the life time of the maser features are only 6 months. The absolute proper motions of the H2O maser features associated with Orion KL and NGC 1333 are derived, possibly indicating the outflow motions from the YSOs as well as the systemic motions of the powering sources.

The present study examines whether illusory movement (IM) of a horizontal line, induced by a moving background (MB), influences line-bisection performance in normal subjects. The first experiment attempted to identify the speeds of MB that induce IM. We found that when speed is increased from 1.53° to 13.3°/sec, IM increases, but that with further speed increases, IM decreases. Leftward MB induces rightward IM, and vice versa. In the second experiment, we had subjects bisect lines at MB speeds that had been shown to induce IM in the first experiment. We found that leftward MB induced a rightward bias, and vice versa. We also found that there was a relationship between the magnitude of IM and the degree of bias. In the third experiment, by making the target line larger than the MB, we made the conditions where IM was presumably absent. Unlike the results of bisection performed with IM, subjects showed a bias in the direction of the MB. Overall, these experiments demonstrated that the perception of motion induces subjects to attend in the direction of movement. (JINS, 2005, 11, 881–888.)

Bridged polysilsesquioxanes were synthesized by modifying the Si-O-Si polymeric network to produce highly nanoporous glasses for facile and uniform doping of nanoparticles. By taking advantages of void volumes created through the molecular modification technique, we designed and synthesized hexylene- and fluoroalkylenebridged polysilsesquioxanes doped with both Er+3 ions/CdSe nanoparticles for amplifier applications. Significant enhancement in fluorescence intensity at 1540 nm has been observed from the fluoroalkylene-bridged glass. Analysis by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) indicates a dramatically enhanced degree of condensation and a low level of hydroxyl environment in the fluoroalkylene-bridged hosts. The presence of CdSe nanoparticles, by virtue of their low phonon energy, also appears to significantly influence the nature of the surrounding photoluminescence environment of Er+3 ions in those organically modified hosts, resulting in the increased photoluminescence intensity.

Microfabrication offers us the ability to fabricate numerous active devices at the micro-scale by patterning features on a variety of substrates for developing small devices in nanotechnology. Since materials scientists and chemists have been looking for unconventional approaches in the synthesis of novel materials, we introduce here a novel strategy of fabricating microfluidic reactors. A new microfluidic reactor was designed and fabricated for the microscale synthesis of materials, which has not been possible from conventional bulk syntheses. The microreactor presents a continuous, dynamic droplet generation. Using the microfluidic reactor, we demonstrate here a microfluidic synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP), which is useful for bio- or chemical sensor applications due to its specific molecular recognition functions. Since the particle size of MIP's system directly affects their affinity capability in molecular recognitions, uniform MIPs’ particles at the nano- or micro-scale were produced via the microfluidic technique to achieve high sensitivity by developing ‘monoclonal’ MIPs particles, which have only high affinity binding sites.

Recent advances in microfabrication technology allow us to develop a number of novel devices with high performance. In microfabrication technology, a new development, ‘soft lithography’, is widely used by making stamps, molding, and microcontact-printing due to the low cost and easy processability. The resolution of soft lithography significantly relies on the performance of stamping materials. However, pattern transfers using commercially available PDMS stamp materials often end up with mechanical failures such as collapse or sag due to their low physical stiffness. Additionally, most of those commercial PDMS materials are thermally curable systems, which results in significant thermal deformations. These limitations have motivated us to start this work, which demonstrates a ‘chemical approach’ to overcome those limits by developing new stiff, photocurable PDMS stamp materials with attached designed functionalities. Molecular modification of PDMS materials results in advanced soft lithography, which produces enhanced physical toughness, lower polymerization shrinkage, and photopatterning capability.

A new family of organic/inorganic hybrid silicate materials, bridged polysilsesquioxanes, was designed and synthesized through a molecular-level mixing technique. Since hybrid materials in the molecular-composite level, whose domain sizes are in the nanometer-scale, and whose constituents often lose individual identities and thus create new properties, we obtained a set of improved properties from those organically modified glasses. By modifying the Si-O-Si polymeric network, in this study, we produced controllable, porous hybrid glasses for facile and uniform doping of various ions, metals or semiconductor particles. By taking advantage of void volume created in those molecularly modified silicate systems, novel optical materials with designed properties can thus be achieved. Via a chemical strategy, we designed hexylene- or fluoroalkylene-bridged hybrid glasses doped with both Er+3 ions and CdSe nano-particles for the development of new laser amplifier materials. In photoluminescence experiments, a significant enhancement in fluorescence intensity at 1540 nm has been obtained from the fluoroalkylene-bridged glass. The presence of CdSe nano-particles, by virtue of their low phonon energy, also appears to significantly influence the nature of the surrounding environment of Er+3 ions in those modified silicate systems, resulting in the increased fluorescence intensity.

The development of new materials for organic/plastic electronics allows us to fabricate novel devices through unconventional approaches. The ‘soft lithography technique’ has been widely used in replicating and fabricating small features. This technique is a low cost alternative to photolithography by generating structures from masters to substrates, which employ ‘elastomeric materials’, such as highly stretchable silicon elastomer, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to replicate or transfer the original features to a variety of substrates by molding and printing processes. Since the resolution of pattern transfer significantly relies on the performance of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamp materials, commercial PDMS materials have shown limitations in high fidelity pattern transfer due to their low physical toughness and high thermal expansion coefficients. For those reasons, pattern fabrications using conventional PDMS materials are unable to satisfy our set of diverse demands, especially in the area of nano-scale replication. To achieve high performance in molding and printing, here we introduce a new strategy, design and synthesis of a modified PDMS silicon elastomer that is a stiffer and photocurable element to achieve our specific task of nano-scale resolution soft lithography. We then demonstrated its unique capabilities for the case of nano-features (300 nm wide) with narrow and tall heights (600 nm height) of photoresist, which is one of the most challenging ‘nano-patterning’ tasks in advanced soft lithography, which is often limited in its use at the nano-scale with other commercially available elastomers.