Binding energy of hydrogen-Cd vacancy complex in CdTe

The structural and electronic properties of hydrogen-Cd vacancy complex in CdTe have been studied by using density functional theory. Three typical complexes between hydrogen and Cd vacancy were found in our present study. The stablest complex P₂ was predicted by using the formation energy and the binding energy. We found that the formation of the complex is exothermic and its binding energy is extremely large. The analysis of the transition energy level indicates that the forming of the complex turns the double acceptors caused by Cd vacancy to be a single one. The position of the single acceptor deeper than the shallow acceptor derived from the cation vacancy. At the same time, the forming of the complex directly increases the lifetime of the minority carrier from decreasing its concentration. The mechanism of the hydrogen passivation effect was also briefly discussed in our present study.     

Colloidal semiconductor quantum dots: Potential tools for new diagnostic methods

We present and discuss the application of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots for diagnostic purposes, with special emphasis for cancer. We prepared and applied core-shell cadmium sulfide-cadmium hydroxide (CdS/Cd(OH)₂) semiconductor quantum dots in aqueous medium. Tissue and cells labeling was evaluated by laser scanning confocal microscopy as well as by conventional fluorescence microscopy. The procedure presented in this work, shown to be a promising tool for fast, low-cost and precise cancer diagnostic protocols.     

Establishment of Configuration with Optimized Current Profile in Pellet Fuelled Discharge on HL-2A

A sawtooth-free period is produced following the pellet injection in the pellet fuelled discharge of qa = 3.4 （where qa is the safety factor at the plasma boundary） in the HL-2A tokamak. Establishment of the current profile such as in the hybrid scenario is studied under the condition of pellet injection in HL-2A. It is shown that a q-profile of weak negative shear is produced immediately after the pellet injection, and it then evolves to a broad flat profile with q0 〉 1 （where qo is the safety factor at the centre）. The measured MHD mode structures evidence consistencies of the evaluated q-profile with locations of the q = 1 surface in the sawtoothing period and of the q = 2 surface in the sawtooth-free period. TRANSP analysis indicates that the energy confinement is enhanced substantially during and after pellet injection, which is resulted from the q-profile optimization and the plasma density peaking.     

Sinusoidal Steady State Analysis on 4H--SiC Buried Channel MOSFETs

With the combined use of the drift-diffusion （DD） model, experiment measured parameters and small-signal sinusoidM steady-state analysis, we extract the Y-parameters for 4H-SiC buried-channel metal oxide semicon- ductor field effect transistors （BCMOSFETs）. Output short-circuit current gain G and Mason＇s invariant U are cMculated for extrapolating unity current gain frequency in the common-source configuration fT and the maximum frequency of oscillation fmax, respectively. Here fT = 800 MHz and fmax= 5 GHz are extracted for the 4H-SiC BCMOSFETs, while the field effect mobility reaches its peak value 87cm2/Vs when VGs = 4.5 V. Simulation results clearly show that the characteristic frequency of 4H-SiC BCMOSFETs and field effect mobility are superior, due to the novel structure, compared with conventional MOSFETs.     

A renormalization-group study of an Ising spin-glass with annealed vacancies

Systems driven and characterized by fluctuations in density and magnetization can be realistically modeled using the Blume–Emery–Griffiths model; a spin-1 Ising model with bilinear, biquadratic, and crystal-field interactions. In this study, renormalization-group techniques are used on an exactly solvable system in which frustration is present due to competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions. Thus, this calculation models a spin-glass system with annealed vacancies. To determine the effects of these competing bilinear interactions, an exactly solvable frustrated hierarchical model has been constructed, similar to those introduced to study spin glasses [S.R. McKay, A.N. Berker, S. Kirkpatrick, Phys. Rev. Lett. 48 (1982) 767]. Phase diagrams have been calculated for a series of planes of constant biquadratic coupling while varying the temperature and concentration of annealed vacancies in the system. In addition, a phase diagram was produced for constant concentration of annealed vacancies as the biquadratic coupling (i.e. clustering bias) was varied. Each phase diagram reveals three qualitatively unique basins of attraction, each corresponding to a phase distinguished by a unique renormalization-group trajectory. The sink of each trajectory is interpreted to determine the nature of each phase: dense paramagnetic, dilute paramagnetic and spin-glass.     

Magnetic properties in Fe-doped NiO synthesized by co-precipitation

The magnetic properties of 1.5 at% Fe-doped NiO bulk samples were investigated. The samples were prepared by sintering the corresponding precursor in air at temperatures between 400 and 800 °C for 6 h. The synthesis was by a chemical co-precipitation and post-thermal decomposition method. In order to allow a comparison, a NiO/0.76 at% NiFe₂O₄ mixture was also prepared. The X-ray diffraction pattern shows that the samples that were sintered at 400 and 600 °C remain single phase. As the sintering temperature increased to 800 °C, however, the sample becomes a mixture of NiO and NiFe₂O₄ ferrite phases. The samples were investigated by measuring their magnetization as a function of magnetic field. The samples sintered between 400 and 800 °C and the one mixed directly with NiFe₂O₄ nanoparticles show a coercivity value of H_c≈200, 325, 350 and 110 Oe, respectively. The magnetic properties of the samples depend strongly on the sintering temperature. Simultaneously, the field-cooling hysteresis loop shift also observed after cooling the sample sintered at 600 °C to low temperature suggests the possibility of the existence of a ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic exchange coupling.     

Susceptibilities of the antiferromagnet REM model

The linear and non-linear susceptibilities of the two sub-lattices Random Energy Model (REM) allowing antiferromagnetic order is studied as a function of the external field (h) and temperature (T). Due to the competition between external field and the internal exchange field acting on the spins there is a drastic change of the system's behavior as the parameters (h,T) are varied. The behavior of the susceptibilities in low and high fields is very different in that the latter may grow as the temperature decreases. Moreover, the critical region undergoes a substantial enlargement as the external field increases. Received: 29 May 1998     

An incoherent sub-picosecond X-ray source for time-resolved X-ray-diffraction experiments

Ultrashort bursts of K _α X-ray radiation were generated from fs-laser-produced plasmas. A complete experimental characterization of the X-ray source in terms of spectral, spatial, and temporal properties was performed. The pulse width of the K _α burst is shorter than 250 fs. The time-resolved evolution of a shock wave launched by a synchronized laser pulse in InSb was investigated. The transient change of the rocking curve yields detailed information on the structural changes. Received: 29 June 2000 / Published online: 22 November 2000     

Aggregation-based growth of silver nanowires at room temperature

We describe an aggregation-based growth mechanism for formation of silver nanowires at room temperature. It is found that the pH of solution and the concentration of l-cysteine capping molecules have an important effect on the formation and growth of nanowires. Characterization by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and UV-vis spectroscopy recorded as time clearly shows that the silver nanowires are grown at the expense of nanoparticles.     

Random quantum magnets with broad disorder distribution

We study the critical behavior of Ising quantum magnets with broadly distributed random couplings (J), such that P(ln J) ∼ | ln J|^{-1 - α}, α > 1, for large | ln J| (Lévy flight statistics). For sufficiently broad distributions, α < , the critical behavior is controlled by a line of fixed points, where the critical exponents vary with the Lévy index, α. In one dimension, with = 2, we obtained several exact results through a mapping to surviving Riemann walks. In two dimensions the varying critical exponents have been calculated by a numerical implementation of the Ma-Dasgupta-Hu renormalization group method leading to ≈ 4.5. Thus in the region 2 < α < , where the central limit theorem holds for | ln J| the broadness of the distribution is relevant for the 2d quantum Ising model. Received 6 December 2000 and Received in final form 22 January 2001