3D polycarprolactone (PCL) scaffold with hierarchical structure fabricated by a piezoelectric transducer (PZT)-assisted bioplotter

The 3D bioplotter, which is one of the rapid-prototyping systems, enables us to produce the design-based scaffolds which could control good mechanical properties and pore structures for mimicking human organs. Although the plotting system has several advantages to fabricate a variety of designed scaffolds, the main disadvantage of scaffolds fabricated by the system is that the strand surfaces are too smooth and tend to discourage initial cell attachment within the scaffolds. To overcome the problem, we suggest a new 3D plotting method supplemented by piezoelectric vibration system for fabricating scaffolds that have hierarchical surface structures, which increase the surface roughness of the scaffold without any additional chemical process. The surface-modified 3D scaffold exhibited various positive qualities including enhanced compressive modulus and improved initial cell attachment and proliferation. Cell culturing results demonstrated that the interactions between chondrocytes and the scaffold were much more favorable than those between the cells and conventionally plotted 3D scaffolds. This process provides a feasible new technique for fabricating high-quality 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering applications.     

Epitaxial graphene: the material for graphene electronics

The search for an ideal graphene sheet has been a quest driving graphene research. While most research has focused on exfoliated graphene, intrinsic substrate interactions and mechanical disorder have precluded the observation of a number of graphene's expected physical properties in this material. The only graphene candidate that has demonstrated all the essential properties of an ideal sheet is multilayer graphene grown on the SiC(000 ) surface. Its unique stacking allows nearly all the sheets in the stack to behave like isolated graphene, while the weak graphene‐graphene interaction prevents any significant doping or distortion in the band near the Fermi level. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

On the ground-state magnetic structure in Er2Ni2Pb

We have studied the unusual low-temperature magnetic phase of Er₂Ni₂Pb using powder neutron diffraction measurements in zero field down to 460 mK. Our previous neutron diffraction experiments down to 1.5 K showed that magnetic Bragg reflections seen in Er₂Ni₂Pb can be indexed by several propagation vectors that partially coexist. All the incommensurate propagation vectors seemed to disappear in the low temperature limit. The present study, however, shows that reflections belonging to the propagation vector q’ = (0.47 0 1/2) do not disappear but remain present down to 460 mK. This highly unexpected result suggests that the magnetic structure described by this propagation vector might not be a simple sine-wave modulation. One interesting possibility here is a spin-slip structure as the ground state.     

A Unique Method to Describe the Bonding Strength in a Bonded Solid-S-olid Interface by Contact Acoustic Nonlinearity

We present a unique method to describe the bonding strength at a bonded solid-solid interface in a multilayered composite material by contact acoustic nonlinearity （CAN） parameter. A CAN model on the bonded solid-solid interface is depicted. It can be seen from the model that CAN parameter is very sensitive to the bonding strength at the interface. When an incident focusing acoustic longitudinal wave scans the interface in two dimensions, the transmitted wave can be used to extract CAN parameter. The contour of the bonding strength for a sample is obtained by CAN parameter. The results show that the region with weak bonding strength can be easily distinguished from the contour.     

Experimental Evidence of Two-Proton Emissions from 18Ne Excited State

Experiment ^18Ne＋^197 Au was performed in Heavy Ion Research Facility Radioactive Ion Beam Line at Lanzhou （RIBLL）. The nuclear energy levels of ^18Ne were built by complete kinematical reconstruction of the decay products and diproton decay were observed from ^18Ne excited states. At 6.15 MeV, the experimental relative momentum and angular correlations of the emitted protons are given. The obvious enhancement at ｜qrol｜= 23 MeV/c and θc.m. = 40° shows the experimental criterion of ^2He cluster decay from ^18Ne^q.     

Magnetic properties of CoFeP films prepared by electroless deposition

Structure and magnetization of CoFeP films prepared by the electroless deposition were systematically investigated by varying the bath composition and deposition parameters to optimize soft magnetic properties. The cobalt content in the CoFeP films varies from 40.4 to 94.9 wt% by controlling the bath composition. Increase of the metallic ratio FeSO₄·7H₂O/(CoSO₄·7H₂O+FeSO₄·7H₂O) affects the films’ microstructure, which switches from amorphous to crystalline structure. The magnetic properties of CoFeP films reveal that the coercivity (H_c) values range from 80 up to 185 A/m and the saturation magnetization (M_s) from 82 to 580 eum/g depending on the bath composition, deposition parameters and heat-treatment conditions. Increase of M_s and remanent magnetization (M_r) as well as decrease of H_c are observed for the CoFeP films with bath pH, temperature and the metallic molar ratio increasing. It is also found that the H_c is enhanced with the increase of NaH₂PO₂·H₂O concentration. CoFeP films showing good soft magnetic properties with coercivities less than 140 A/m and M_s close to 600 emu/g can be obtained in high pH bath and thereafter heat treatment. The deposit is found to be suitable as soft magnetic materials for core materials.     

Growth and thermal stability of epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films

We have investigated the oxygen pressure and the temperature dependence on BiFeO₃ thin films deposited on SrTiO₃ substrates by pulsed laser deposition. Reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction measurements indicate that high-quality epitaxial thin films are obtained for and T=650 °C. Outside of this pressure-temperature window, parasitic peaks attributed to β-Bi₂O₃ appear. We find an increase of the out-of-plane lattice parameter with oxygen pressure that we ascribe to Bi-deficiency due to its high volatility at low pressure. Ex-situ anneals have been performed and results show that as-grown single-phase BiFeO₃ thin films degrade after annealing, whereas as-grown BiFeO₃ containing impurity phases evolve toward a single-phase structure. These experiments demonstrate that parasitic phases can stabilize compounds which are usually unstable in air at elevated temperatures.     

Low-temperature magnetic structures in the DySi FeB-type compound 27.03.09

The low-temperature magnetic ordering of the dimorphic DySi compound has been studied at 1.5 K by neutron diffraction on two polycrystalline samples. The samples comprise various amounts of the two orthorhombic modifications: CrB-type (Cmcm Nr. 63, all atoms at 4c site: (0, y, )) and FeB-type (Pnma Nr. 62, all atoms at 4c site: (x, , z)), both order antiferromagnetically (T_N≈38 K). The CrB-type phase orders with a uniaxial structure with the wave vector q₁=(0, 0, ) requiring a doubling of the c-axis. The Dy moments point along the linear chain with the shortest distance c. At 1.5 K, the ordered moment value is 8.57(1) μ_B/Dy atom.Two symmetry independent wave vectors describe the 1.5 K magnetic ordering of the FeB-type phase: q₂=(0, , ) and q₃=(0, 0.484(1), 0.0892(1)), coexisting in form of domains. In both structures the magnetic moments are confined to the (0 0 1) plane at an angle of 2(2)° and 22(3)° from the shortest axis b, respectively. Both structures correspond to sine wave modulations. The amplitude of the q₂ wave is m_o=7.5(1) μ_B/Dy atom and that of q₃ 8.2(1) μ_B/Dy atom. The wave vector q₂ when referring to the (a, 2b, c) cell and the wave vector q=(0, 0, ) corresponds to a transversal modulation, which by a proper origin choice can be also described as an antiphase domain structure with two amplitudes. The moments point to the b-axis and are stacked in the sequence (+m_o/2, −m_o/2, −m_o, −m_o/2, +m_o/2, +m_o, …) along the c-direction, while t_b acts as an antitranslation. For the q₃ phase, the local moment value depends on the atom position in the wave. We also discuss the case where q₃ and q₂ act simultaneously in physical space.     

Electron-doped Sm1−xSrxMnO3 perovskite manganites: Crystal and magnetic structures and physical properties

We present the results of a study of electron-doped Sm_1−xSr_xMnO₃ (x>0.5) perovskite manganites by combining high-resolution neutron powder diffraction with measurements of resistivity, magnetization and magnetic susceptibility. Although investigated Sm_0.45Sr_0.55MnO₃ and Sm_0.37Sr_0.63MnO₃ compounds belonging to the same phase diagram area differ significantly in the strontium content, they are homogeneous antiferromagnetic (AF) insulators and do not exhibit CMR. They have different crystallographic symmetries (orthorhombic Pbnm and tetragonal I4/mcm, respectively) in the entire temperature range under study (1.5-288 K), differ in the type of spin ordering at low temperatures (AF-A and AF-C), are characterized by different orbital polarizations (d_x²_−y² and d_3z²_−r²), and possess two- and one-dimensional magnetic properties, respectively. The lack of magnetoresistance for these compositions is explained by the lack of coexisting magnetic phases involving double exchange ferromagnetism, in contrast to what is observed for the magnetoresistive Sm_1−xSr_xMnO₃ compounds, that is with x?0.52.     

Influence of epitaxial strain on the terrace and inter-layer diffusions in metal epitaxy

The influence of epitaxial strain on the surface and inter-layer diffusions are investigated using molecular statics and transition state theory with several types of embedded atom method potentials for Ag and Ni. Quantitatively to analyze the competition of the surface and inter-layer diffusions in the instability to the multi-layer growth, Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier and the attempt frequencies of the surface and inter-layer diffusions by both hopping and exchange mechanisms are considered simultaneously. The attempt frequencies of exchange mechanism are larger by order one than those of hopping mechanism and especially, the difference becomes more severe for the inter-layer diffusion. Considering both the attempt frequency and activation energy barrier shows that the layer-by-layer growth is enhanced by compressive strain for Ag(0 0 1), which is confirmed by the existing linear stability theory and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations.