A facile switch of the reaction pathways of aerobic oxidative coupling of alcohols and amines from amidation to imination was realized for the first time by tuning the Au/Pd ratios in ion-exchange resin supported Au-Pd alloy catalysts (Au-Pd/resin). Amides were obtained with high yields on Au 6 Pd/resin while imines were obtained over AuPd 4 /resin. Various alcohols and amines underwent oxidative coupling smoothly in water to afford the desired products with good to excellent yields. Further investigation on the reaction mechanism suggested the synergistic effect between Au and Pd determined the adsorption strength of the aldehyde intermediate, which in turn dictated the reaction pathways. That is, on Au-rich alloys (e.g., Au 6 Pd) absorbed aldehyde species was formed, followed by further oxidation to yield amides, while on Pd-rich alloys (e.g., AuPd 4 ), free aldehyde was generated, which then underwent condensation with amines to produce imines.The discovery might provide avenues to develop new efficient catalysts for the green synthesis of special chemicals. Scheme 1 Pathways of oxidative coupling of alcohols and amines. † Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Experimental details, 1 H NMR and 13 C NMR spectra are provided. See

In this letter, we report that high-performance insulating films can be generated by judicious control over the microstructure of sol-gel-processed titanium dioxide (TiO2) films, typically known as wide-bandgap semiconductors. The resultant device made of 23 nm-thick TiO2 dielectric layer exhibits a low leakage current density of ∼1 × 10(-7) A cm(-2) at 2 V and a large areal capacitance of 560 nF cm(-2) with the corresponding dielectric constant of 27. Finally, low-voltage flexible organic thin-film transistors were successfully demonstrated by incorporating this versatile solution-processed oxide dielectric material into pentacene transistors on polyimide substrates.

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Implantable electrical stimulators can be used to treat a variety of neurological disorders and restore paralyzed body functions. In electrical neural stimulation, the stimulator circuit with safe charge balancing is essential to minimize damage to electrodes and biological tissue. In this paper, an implantable current-mode neural stimulator for long-term safe electrical stimulation is presented. Anodic current pulse modulation active charge balancing technique is proposed to keep the residual voltage on the electrode within the safe window, which enables long-term safe stimulation. To ensure more complete charge balancing, the proposed active charge balancing technique can also be used with passive electrode shorting. Transistor stacking and dynamic gate biasing techniques can prevent the breakdown of standard MOSFET devices from high supply voltages, which enable the implementation of output current driver and charge balancing circuits without using HV process. The stimulator IC designed with 0.18-µm standard CMOS process can generate up to 1 mA of stimulation current and only consumes an area of 0.11 mm². Since all functions are implemented on-chip without using external components, the proposed stimulator IC is suitable for highdensity implantable stimulation applications.

The patterned vertical alignment (PVA) liquid crystal (LC) mode shows a wide viewing angle and a perfect dark state at a normal direction. However, it is inevitable to avoid the formation of disclinations and the movement of defect points during stabilization of LC's reorientation. It is due to fact that the LC directors tilt downward in different directions with collisions between them by the fringe-electric field. Consequently, the transmittance decreases and the response time gets slower. In order to overcome this barrier, the pretilt angles in four different directions are introduced on the substrates utilizing UV-curable reactive mesogen (RM) monomers. According to our studies, concentration of RM, UV curing condition, and applied voltage to the cell are critical to achieve an optimized surface-modified PVA mode which provides the well-defined reorientation of the LCs with respect to an electric field. Moreover, morphological behaviors on surface of substrate depending on curing conditions were investigated in order to confirm the existence of the stabilized polymer.