A unique vibrational signature of rotated water monolayers on Pt(111): predicted and observed

Six H-bonds in the periodic di-interstitial structure that accounts for scanning tunneling microscope images of "√37" and "√39" wetting layers on Pt(111) are some 0.2 A? shorter than H-bonds are in ice Ih. According to a broadly obeyed correlation, this density functional theory result implies a stringent test of the di-interstitial motif, namely the presence of an OH-stretch band red-shifted from that of ice Ih by more than 1000 cm(-1). Infrared absorption spectra satisfy the test, in showing a feature centered at about 1965 cm(-1), which grows in as deposited water orders.     

New high-energy luminescence bands from Co2+ in ZnSe

Three sharp absorption features in the energy range 2.36–2.55 eV have been detected in the transmission spectrum of Co-diffused ZnSe, and a number of luminescence transitions originating from the lowest of these states at 2.361 eV have been observed. Photoluminescence excitation spectra prove that these are high energy excited states of the Co²⁺_Zn impurity, a conclusion confirmed by comparison of measured and predicted luminescence energies. This represents the first identification of luminescence branching from a higher excited state of a transition metal ion in any semiconductor. The sharp, weakly phonon-coupled transitions involve either intra-impurity excitation or transitions from the impurity to localised states split off from a minimum in the conduction band. The implications of these observations for the mechanism of host-impurity energy transfer and for the nature of the excited state wavefunctions are discussed.     

Lubrication theory of drag on a scanning probe in structured water, near a hydrophilic surface

The drag is evaluated, in lubrication theory, on a parabolic-cylindrical tip moving parallel to a flat sample, in water, close enough that the presumed nanometer-thick, structured-water, "interphase" coatings of both it and the sample overlap. Assuming coatings of width, w, and of viscosity, eta, much larger than bulk water's, the friction force is predicted to equal -2pietacRphi(D/2w), where R is the tip's radius of curvature, c is its speed, D is the tip-sample separation, and Phi is a universal function whose value only differs noticeably from ln(2w/D) for D < w.