A comprehensive two-dimensional (2D) reverse phase (RP) liquid chromatography (LC) method is developed for alkaloid analysis. This offline comprehensive 2D method is developed using different pH values. With a pH value of 10.5, most alkaloids appear in the form of neutral molecules possessing high retention factors based on their polarity, while the alkaloid polarity order is changed when the pH value decreased to 3.0. The performance of pH modulated 2D LC is demonstrated with 8 alkaloid standards which resulted in orthogonal separation. The developed method is then applied to total alkaloid separation in Corydalis yanhusuo. The first-dimension separation is carried out using methanol and water containing 1.0% ammonium hydroxide and a strong base-resistant RP column, which afforded a peak capacity of 94. The second-dimension analysis is carried out with a surface positive charge column providing a peak capacity of 205 using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and water with 0.15% formic acid. 2D analyses of total alkaloid extract from C. yanhusuo afford a total peak capacity of 9090. Sixteen compounds were tentatively identified based on their ultraviolet spectrum and MS/MS analyses. The proposed method provides an alternative approach to achieve high peak capacity for analysis of alkaloid extract.

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An anisotropic wicking of molten Sn-Pb solder over an intermetallic rough surface has been studied. The phenomenon features preferential spreading and forming of an elliptical spread domain. A theoretically formulated model was established to predict the ratio of the wicking distance along the long axis (rx) to that along the short axis (ry) of the final wicking pattern. The phenomenon was simultaneously experimentally observed and recorded with a hotstage microscopy technique. The anisotropic wicking is established to be caused by a non-uniform topography of surface micro structures as opposed to an isotropic wicking on an intermetallic surface with uniformly distributed surface micro features. The relative deviation between the theoretically predicted rx/ry ratio and the corresponding average experimental value is 5%. Hence, the small margin of error confirms the validity of the proposed theoretical model of anisotropic wicking

Normal mode is a very fundamental notion in quantum and classical optics. In this paper, we present a method to calculate normal modes by decomposing dyadic Green's function, where the modes are excited by dipoles. The modes obtained by our method can be directly normalized and their degeneracies can be easily removed. This method can be applied to many theoretical descriptions of cavity electrodynamics and is of interest to nanophotonics.