California Institute of Technology

Alexander Katz

Mark E Davis

Michael D Ward

The present invention relates to amorphous inorganic materials having pores of controlled size and shape with one or more spatially organized functional groups formed therein. Much like the active site residues in an enzyme, these functional groups can be positioned in a defined three dimensional relationship within the voids and with respect to each other. By varying both the positions and identities of these functional groups, diverse sets of substrate specific adsorbents and non-biologically-based catalysts can be made.

Amorphous silica having discrete voids and spatially organized functionalities formed therein

A method using quartz resonators probes dynamically the mechanical characteristics of thin films. This method probes the film properties at the anti-resonance frequency where the vibrational amplitude is smallest, minimizing nonlinear contributions in the dependence of the film mechanical characteristics on the resonator electrical characteristics. Determination of the mechanical characteristics involves impedance analysis, transformation of .vertline.Y.vertline. and .theta. data into a linear form so that the conductance and susceptance at the frequency of minimum absolute admittance can be accurately determined, and use of a two-dimensional Newton-Raphson numerical method to determine the values of the storage modulus G', loss modulus G', as well as various other film and resonator properties.

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Flagstaff, AZ, United States of America

Alexander Katz