Note: Fabrication and characterization of molybdenum tips for scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy

We present a method for the preparation of bulk molybdenum tips for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy and we assess their potential in performing high resolution imaging and local spectroscopy by measurements on different single crystal surfaces in UHV, namely, Au(111), Si(111)-7 × 7, and titanium oxide 2D ordered nanostructures supported on Au(111). The fabrication method is versatile and can be extended to other metals, e.g., cobalt.

Determination of phenolic antioxidants in aviation jet fuel

The world-wide aviation jet fuel used for civil and military aircraft is of a kerosene type. To avoid peroxide production after the refinery process a specific antioxidant additive should be added on fuel. The antioxidants generally used are based on hindered phenols in a range of concentration 10-20 microg/ml. In the present work a specific method to measure the concentration of phenolic antioxidants is shown. The method is based on a liquid chromatographic technique with electrochemical detection. The technique, because of its selectivity, does not require sample pre-treatments. The analysis of a 5-10 ml fuel sample can be performed in less than 10 min with a sensitivity of 0.1 microg/ml and a RSD=2.5%. A comparison with another highly selective gas chromatographic technique with mass spectrometric detection with selected ion monitoring (GC-MS-SIM) is reported. The sensitivity of GC-MS-SIM method was 2 microg/ml with a RSD=3.1%.