Looking for the optimal DTI acquisition scheme given a maximum scan time: are more b-values a waste of time?

In this study we used simulated data to investigate how valuable the use of multiple b-values is, in terms of improving the accuracy and reproducibility of Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) results. Our results show that the systematic bias of the estimated scalar diffusion parameters [apparent diffusion coefficient and fractional anisotropy (FA)] - due to the Rician distribution of magnetic resonance noise - can be minimized by increasing the number of b-values and not by increasing the number of sampling directions. In addition, the use of more than one b-value accounts better for the wide range of diffusivities found in the human brain by bringing closer together the FA estimates for fibres with different mean diffusivities. It is also shown that while for tractography studies we should use as many sampling directions as allowed by scan time limitations, for follow-up, intersubject or multicenter studies, the use of more than one b-value will improve the accuracy of the scalar diffusion parameters, as long as the minimum number of directions required for robust estimation of each parameter is still used.     

Linear stability analysis on the onset of Soret-driven motion in a nanoparticles suspension

The onset of Soret-driven instability in binary mixture heated from above is analysed using the linear stability theory. The horizontal fluid layer placed between two plates is in a thermally stable state but the Soret diffusion can induce buoyancy-driven convection in the case of a negative Soret coefficient. It is well known that convective motion sets in from both boundaries if the Rayleigh number exceeds its critical value. For the case of highly unstable density stratification the buoyancy-driven motion sets in during the transient diffusion stage. The new stability equations are derived and are solved analytically and numerically. Here the stability limits which are related to the onset time of instabilities and wave number are presented as a function of the Rayleigh number, Lewis number and the separation ratio. The present stability criteria are compared with the existing experimental data.     

Flow-controlled growth in Langmuir monolayers

We propose a hydrodynamic mechanism, based on the Marangoni flow, to describe growth instabilities of liquid-condensed islands in the supercooled liquid-expanded phase of two-dimensional Langmuir monolayers. This Marangoni instability is intrinsic to Langmuir monolayers and is not controlled by the expulsion of chemical impurities from the liquid-condensed phase. The hydrodynamic transport of the insoluble surfactants is shown to overwhelm passive diffusion and to provide a mechanism for fingering instabilities. The model can explain the observations by Brewster-angle microscopy of ramified liquid-condensed islands in monolayers that do not contain the fluorescent dye impurities, which are normally believed to be responsible for Langmuir-film growth instabilities. Received 21 May 2000 and Received in final form 18 June 2001     

Role of surface anisotropy for magnetic impurities in electron dephasing and energy relaxation and their size effect

Recently the electron dephasing and energy relaxation due to different magnetic impurities have been extensively investigated experimentally in thin wires, and in this Letter these quantities are theoretically studied. It was shown earlier that a magnetic impurity in a metallic host with strong spin-orbit interaction experiences a surface anisotropy of the form H=K(d)(nS)(2) which causes size effects for impurities with integer spin. Here we show that the dephasing and the energy relaxation are influenced by the surface anisotropy in very different ways for integer spin having a singlet ground state. That must result also in strong size effects and may resolve the puzzle between the concentrations estimated from the two kinds of experiments.     

Computer simulations of the Stranski-Krastanov growth of heteroepitaxial films with elastic anisotropy

A three-dimensional finite element method is developed to simulate the surface morphological evolution during the Stranski-Krastanov heteroepitaxial growth. In the formulation, the surface evolves through surface diffusion driven by the gradient of the surface chemical potential, which includes the elastic strain energy, elastic anisotropy and surface energy. Surface condensation rate is assumed to depend on the difference between the surface chemical potential and the chemical potential of the vapor phase. Our simulations reveal that the self-assembly of quantum dots are strongly dependent on the variation of growth rate and elastic anisotropy strength. With appropriate choice of growth rate and elastic anisotropy strength, a relatively more uniform and regular quantum dot array can be obtained.     

A study of rotationally invariant and symmetric indices of diffusion anisotropy.

This study investigated the properties of a class of rotationally invariant and symmetric (relative to the principal diffusivities) indices of the anisotropy of water self-diffusion, namely fractional anisotropy (FA), relative anisotropy (RA), and volume ratio (VR), with particular emphasis to their measurement in brain tissues. A simplified theoretical analysis predicted significant differences in the sensitivities of the anisotropy indices (AI) over the distribution of the principal diffusivities. Computer simulations were used to investigate the effects on AI image quality of three magnetic resonance (MR) diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) acquisition schemes, one being novel: the schemes were simulated on cerebral model fibres varying in shape and spatial orientation. The theoretical predictions and the results of the simulations were corroborated by experimentally determined spatial maps of the AI in a normal feline brain in vivo. We found that FA mapped diffusion anisotropy with the greatest detail and SNR whereas VR provided the strongest contrast between low- and high-anisotropy areas at the expense of increased noise contamination and decreased resolution in anisotropic regions. RA proved intermediate in quality. By sampling the space of the effective diffusion ellipsoid more densely and uniformly and requiring the same total imaging time as the published schemes, the novel DTI scheme achieved greater rotational invariance than the published schemes, with improved noise characteristics, resulting in improved image quality of the AI examined. Our findings suggest that significant improvements in diffusion anisotropy mapping are possible and provide criteria for the selection of the most appropriate AI for a particular application.     

金刚石表面杂质的深度分布

 利用二次离子质谱法（SIMS）测量和分析了金刚石的表面杂质。为获得表面杂质的深度分布，采用了离子剥蚀法，用15 keV的Ar⁺总共剥蚀了6 400 s，以N、Na、Mg和Si四种杂质作为研究对象。结果表明，各种杂质的浓度最大值均位于最外表面的一薄层内，它相当于剥蚀时间不足6.5 min。对于某一给定的杂质，在不同样品的最外表面上的浓度可以相差很悬殊。但当Ar⁺剥蚀30 min以后，不同样品中的浓度相差不大，且同一样品中，各种杂质的浓度随剥蚀时间的增大（即随深度的增加）变化不大。     

Impurity effects on lowest-energy Cooper pairing in an antiferromagnet

Isotropic scattering of electrons from nonmagnetic impurities does not suppress lowest-energy Cooper pairing in an antiferromagnet at all, and effects of non-isotropic scattering are expected to be small in magnitude. For this state, impurities substituted for magnetic ions affect the superconductivity mainly through their effects on the antiferromagnetism. Effects of nonmagnetic impurities on lowest-energy Cooper pairing in an antiferromagnet are just as though the pairing were s-wave in a nonmagnetic superconductor: in this state anisotropy of the pairing is purely a spin-density anisotropy and not a charge-density anisotropy. The Cooper pairing scheme which has lowest free energy in a perfect-crystal antiferromagnet also has lowest energy in a dirty antiferromagnet.     

Diffusion of particles over strongly anisotropic surface with traps

We investigate surface diffusion in a system of particles adsorbed on a two-dimensional strongly anisotropic lattice. There are two kinds of the lattice sites - ordinary sites and deep traps. Particles adsorbed in the ordinary sites can migrate over the surface, but particles adsorbed in traps are immobile. These particles do not move over the surface and they obstacle also the mobile particles migration (surface defects). Using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations we obtained coverage dependencies of the tracer, jump, and chemical diffusion coefficients. The coefficients are rather sensitive to the defect concentration. Even small admixture of the defects decreases drastically the fast diffusion. The effect is rather specific: strong dependence of the pre-exponential factor on the defect concentration and almost independent activation energy. The defect influence on the slow diffusion is weak. It results in strong decreasing of the surface diffusion anisotropy with the defect concentration. Such unusual behavior of the diffusion coefficients was observed in many experimental investigations of the surface diffusion of lithium, cesium, potassium, and strontium over strongly anisotropic W(1 1 2) and Mo(1 1 2) planes. It was shown that this specific behavior arises exclusively due to the surface anisotropy, and does not depend on the lateral interaction between the particles.     

Relaxation on the energy method for the transient Rayleigh-Bénard convection

The onset of buoyancy-driven instability in initially quiescent fluid layers having the various boundary conditions is analyzed by using the energy method. New energy stability equation is derived under the Boussinesq approximation and the relative stability concept. The predicted critical conditions are compared with the previous results based on the conventional energy method. The stability limits which are related to the onset time of instabilities are presented as a function of the Rayleigh number Ra and the Prandtl number Pr. The present stability results predict that the onset time of convective instability decreases with increasing Ra and Pr. For the case of high Ra, the onset time of the instability is relatively insensitive to the boundary conditions of the upper boundaries.     

From bell shapes to pyramids: A reduced continuum model for self-assembled quantum dot growth

A continuum model for the growth of self-assembled quantum dots that incorporates surface diffusion, an elastically deformable substrate, wetting interactions and anisotropic surface energy is presented. Using a small slope approximation a thin-film equation for the surface profile that describes faceted growth is derived. A linear stability analysis shows that anisotropy acts to destabilize the surface. It lowers the critical height of flat films and there exists an anisotropy strength above which all thicknesses are unstable. A numerical algorithm based on spectral differentiation is presented and simulations are carried out. These clearly show faceting of the growing islands and a power law coarsening behavior.     

Surface modes with biquadratic coupling and uniaxial anisotropy in semi-infinite Heisenberg antiferromagnet

We address the role and the influence of both biquadratic exchange and uniaxial anisotropy in the study of bulk and surface magnetic excitations for a two-sublattices semi-infinite Heisenberg antiferromagnet. The calculations apply to combined effect and are based on a matching technique within the framework of both non-interacting spin-wave theory and random phase approximation. Emphasis has been laid upon the advantage of handling bulk and surface spin precessional fields, characterized by their symmetry in particular. Analytic expressions for the bulk and surface equations of motion are also derived which enables us to analyze qualitatively the nature of the modes by observing the response of the energy branches to the variation of both biquadratic exchange and single-ion anisotropy field as well as exchange parameters occurring on the surface. Two numerical applications of the theoretical formalism developed in this work are described. First concerns the situation when the free surface model is assumed. The second application considers the existence of surface perturbations and treats the effects of the presence of biquadratic exchange term on the bulk and surface spin-wave spectra showing two kinds of surface propagating modes which depend on the presence or not of the uniaxial anisotropy contribution and also on the variations of the bulk-surface exchange parameters. A significant conclusion which this work reached relates to the checking of the results obtained in the literature by using our own theoretical formalism. We show that this formalism is very well adapted to calculations of localized bulk and surface spin-wave modes associated with the simultaneous presence of biquadratic exchange and uniaxial anisotropy. Also, the results obtained for the bulk spin fluctuations field as well as for the magnetic surface waves, are found to be in qualitative agreement with those obtained in the literature. The analytic formulation presented in this work provides an accurate and practical scheme for calculating the surface spin dynamics under the influence of surface exchange parameters, biquadratic coupling and uniaxial anisotropy terms.     

磁晶各向异性场引起的YIG单晶微波器件温度不稳定性的最佳补偿

本文导出了更精确的单晶铁磁共振公式,其近似度达到磁晶各向异性场的平方项。在此基础上,讨论了由磁晶各向异性场引起的YIG(钇铁石榴石)单晶微波器件的温度不稳定性的补偿问题,对以往引用的温度补偿方向作了较大修正,并给出了外磁场沿修正的补偿方向时计算YIG器件温度特性的具体公式。     

Mass-transport driven by surface instabilities in metals under reactive plasma/ion beam treatment at moderate temperature

This paper presents a generalized approach to the mechanisms of oxidation, hydrogenation and nitriding of metals under ion irradiation with reactive particles at elevated temperatures. Experimental results on the plasma oxidation of bilayered Y/Zr films, the plasma hydrogenation of Mg films and the ion beam (1.2 keV N ₂ ⁺ ) nitriding of stainless steel are presented and discussed. We make special emphasis on the analysis of surface effects and their role in the initiation of mixing of bilayered films, the ingress of reactive species in the bulk and the restructuring of the surface layers. It is suggested that primary processes driving reactive atoms from the surface into the bulk are surface instabilities induced by thermal and ballistic surface atom relocations under reactive adsorption and ion irradiation, respectively. The diffusion of adatoms and vacancies, at temperature when they become mobile, provide the means to relax the surface energy. It is recognized that the stabilizing effect of surface adatom diffusion is significant at temperatures below 300–350°C. As the temperature increases, the role of surface adatom diffusion decreases and processes in the bulk become dominant. The atoms of subsurface monolayers occupy energetically favorable sites on the surface, and result in reduced surface energy.     

Investigation of the particle spin properties on the velocity space instability in high‐density plasmas

The nonresonant electromagnetic instabilities of the anisotropic velocity space (Weibel‐like) have always been one of the interesting subjects for researchers. These electromagnetic instabilities play an important role in generating strong magnetic fields in laboratory plasmas for applications such as inertial confinement fusion and space plasmas. In this paper, we investigate the quantum effects of the particle spin on the electromagnetic instabilities. In the case of the presence of a magnetic dipole force and an electron precession frequency like the Vlasov equation, we derive the full quantum equation. This study shows that, in the presence of the spin‐polarized effects, the growth rate of the instabilities is reduced compared to the classical cases and will not arise for low fractions of the temperature anisotropy for different values of the magnetic field. Indeed, it is expected that the probability of electron capture in the background magnetic fields and the effective collision with the particle increase because of the spin effect, so that a high portion of the electron energy is transmitted to the background plasma, and the temperature anisotropy governing the electron distribution is reduced.     

Nitrogen diffusion parameters in ion-implanted tungsten single crystals

Diffusion of nitrogen implanted in single-crystal tungsten was studied in the temperature range 700–820° C. Measurements were carried out using a method of nondestructive determination of diffusivities (developed by the authors) from the dynamics of variation in the surface impurity concentration. The initial distribution and diffusion profiles for various annealing times were determined by secondary ion mass spectrometry. The relative surface concentration of nitrogen was measured by Auger electron spectroscopy. Several fluxes of impurity atoms in the surface region of ion-doped tungsten were experimentally detected to exist. Under the assumption that the fluxes interact with each other, the temperature dependences of the nitrogen diffusivities in the flux associated with dislocations generated by ion implantation and in the flux associated with the bulk diffusion mechanism were determined. Nitrogen diffusion is characterized by a rather low activation energy, namely, 0.15 and 0.75 eV for dislocation and bulk mechanisms, respectively.     

Quantum Analytical Theory for Giant Magnetoresistance in Magnetic Multilayered Cylindrical Systems

Taking into account the quantum size effects and considering three types of scattering from bulk impurities,rough surface and rough interfaces,we use quantum-statistical Green‘s function approach and Kubo theory to calculate the electronic conductivity and the giant magnetoresistance in magnetic multilayered cylindrical systems.It is found that in the limit of weakly scattering from impurities surface and interfaces,the total conductivity is given by a sum of conductivities of all the subbands and two spin-channels.For each subband and each spin-channel the scattering rate due to the impurities,surface and interfaces is added up.     

Surface morphological response of crystalline solids to mechanical stresses and electric fields

Surface morphological evolution under the action of external fields is a fascinating topic that has attracted considerable attention within the surface science community over the past two decades. In addition to the interest in a fundamental understanding of field-induced nonlinear response and stability of surface morphology, the problem has been technologically significant in various engineering applications such as microelectronics and nanofabrication. In this report, we review theoretical progress in modeling the surface morphological response of stressed elastic solids under conditions that promote surface diffusion and of electrically conducting solids under surface electromigration conditions. A self-consistent model of surface transport and morphological evolution is presented that has provided the basis for the theoretical and computational work that is reviewed. According to this model, the surface morphological response of electrically conducting elastic solids to the simultaneous action of mechanical stresses and electric fields is analyzed. Emphasis is placed on metallic surfaces, including surfaces of voids in metallic thin films.Surfaces of stressed elastic solids are known to undergo morphological instabilities, such as the Asaro–Tiller or Grinfeld (ATG) instability that leads to emanation of crack-like features from the surface and their fast propagation into the bulk of the solid material. This instability is analyzed theoretically, simulated numerically, and compared with experimental measurements. The surface morphological evolution of electrically conducting, single-crystalline, stressed elastic solids under surface electromigration conditions is also examined. We demonstrate that, through surface electromigration, a properly applied and sufficiently strong electric field can stabilize the surface morphology of the stressed solid against both crack-like ATG instabilities and newly discovered secondary rippling instabilities; the effects of important parameters, such as surface crystallographic orientation, on the surface morphological response to the simultaneous action of an electric field and mechanical stress also are reviewed. In addition, electromigration-driven surface morphological response is analyzed systematically, focusing on the current-driven surface morphological evolution of voids in metallic thin films; this analysis has been motivated largely by the crucial role of void dynamics in determining the reliability of metallic interconnects in integrated circuits and has led to the interpretation of a large body of experimental observations and measurements. The electromigration-driven translational motion of morphologically stable voids, effects of current-driven void dynamics on the evolution of the electrical resistance of metallic thin films, and current-driven void–void interactions also are reviewed. Furthermore, theoretical studies are reviewed that demonstrated very interesting current-driven nonlinear void dynamics in stressed metallic thin films, including the inhibition of electromigration-induced instabilities due to the action of biaxial tensile stress, and stress effects on the electromigration-driven translational motion of morphologically stable voids.Complex, oscillatory surface states under surface electromigration conditions have been observed in numerical studies. In this report, emphasis is placed on void surfaces in metallic thin films, for which stable time-periodic states have been demonstrated. It is shown that increasing parameters such as the electric-field strength or the void size past certain critical values leads to morphological transitions from steady to time-periodic states; the latter states are characterized by wave propagation on the surface of a void that migrates along the metallic film at constant speed. The transition onset corresponds to a Hopf bifurcation that may be either supercritical or subcritical, depending on the symmetry of the surface diffusional anisotropy as determined by the crystallographic orientation of the film plane. It is also shown that, in the case where the Hopf bifurcation is subcritical, the simultaneous action of mechanical stress leads the current-driven void morphological response to the stabilization of chaotic attractors; in such cases, as the applied stress level increases, the void dynamics is set on a route to chaos through a sequence of period-doubling bifurcations. The observation of current-driven chaotic dynamics in homoepitaxial islands also is discussed.