Fabrication and characterization of drug particles produced by electrospraying into reduced pressure

In the present study, electrospraying was used in drug particle-production. The objective of the research was to establish whether electrospraying can be carried out in reduced pressure in order to improve the drying process of the droplets. By this method, it is possible to produce drug particles relatively uniform in size, crystallinity and porosity. Drying the droplets in a reduced pressure is a more sensitive way to remove the solvent from the particles than, for example, the addition of heat. The efficiency of this drying method and particle morphology were studied using SEM, DSC, and XRD. Another objective was to workout whether the size of the produced particles can be estimated by a simple method. The maximum particle size was defined theoretically and compared to experimental results with good agreement.     

Fabrication and characterization of amorphous silica nanostructures

Large-scale amorphous silica nanostructures, including nanowires, nanotubes and flowerlike nanowire bunches depending on the position, have been fabricated on silicon wafer through a cheap route under the assistance of gold and germanium. Accompanying the observation of blue-green light emission, comprehensive micro-structural characterization reveals that the growth of nanostructures is catalyzed only by gold whereas the final morphology of nanostructures depends on the location to germanium ball. Au₂Si, a compound of gold and silicon, is also disclosed as an intermediate state during the catalysis. Correspondingly, a growth scheme is proposed based on the experimental results and the vapor-liquid-solid mechanism.     

Band-gap engineering of amorphous photonic materials

The relation between the structural characteristics and the transmission properties of amorphous photonic material (APM) is studied. The simulation and the experimental results show that the long-range order of the basic lattice in the APM has little relation with the optical properties of the photonic material. In contrast, the condition of the unit cell of the APM has a close relation to the transmission property of the APMs. The band-gap and the band properties change with the shrinking of the unit cells. This suggests a procedure for band-gap engineering of amorphous photonic materials.     

A self-consistent cluster theory of amorphous materials

A cluster method for the electronic structure of amorphous materials is presented with an application to amorphous diamond. Eight-atom cluster model gives a pseudogap in the density of states.     

Topics in the theory of amorphous materials

In this Colloquium, I describe some current frontiers in the physics of semiconducting amorphous materials and glasses, including a short, but self-contained discussion of techniques for creating computer models, among them the quench from the melt method, the Activation-Relaxation Technique, the decorate and relax method, and the experimentally constrained molecular relaxation scheme. A representative study of an interesting and important glass (amorphous GeSe₃:Ag) is provided. This material is a fast-ion conductor and a serious candidate to replace current FLASH memory. Next, I discuss the effects of topological disorder on electronic states. By computing the decay of the density matrix in real space, and also computing well-localized Wannier functions, we close with a quantitative discussion of Kohn’s Principle of Nearsightedness in amorphous silicon.     

Thermal conductive performance of deposited amorphous carbon materials by molecular dynamics simulation

A series of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films with different microstructure were prepared by depositing carbon atoms on diamond surface with incident energy ranging from 1 to 100 eV. The thermal conductivity of the deposited films and the Kapitza resistance between the film and the diamond substrate were investigated. Results show that the average density, the average fraction of sp³ bonding and the thermal conductivity of the DLC films increase first, reaching a maximum around 20–40 eV before decreasing, while the Kapitza resistance decreases gradually with increased deposition energy. The analysis suggests that the thermal resistance of the interface layer is in the order of 10^?10 m²K/W, which is not ignorable when measuring the thermal conductivity of the deposited film especially when the thickness of the DLC film is not large enough. The fraction of sp³ bonding in the DLC film decreases gradually normal to the diamond surface. However, the thermal conductivity of the film in normal direction is not affected obviously by this kind of structural variation but depends linearly on the average fraction of sp³ bonding in the entire film. The dependence of the thermal conductivity on the fraction of sp³ bonding was analysed by the phonon theory.     

A neural model of hysteresis in amorphous materials and piezoelectric materials

A new approach to constructing hysteretic operator (HO) is proposed in this paper. Based on the HO, the input space of neural networks is expanded from one-dimension to two-dimension and the multi-value mapping of hysteresis is transformed into a continuous mapping comprised of one-to-one mapping and multiple-to-one mapping. Based on the expanded input space, a neural network is employed to approximate hysteresis. The results of experimental examples suggest the proposed approach is effective.     

聚焦离子束研制半导体材料光子晶体

介绍了利用聚焦离子束设备在多种半导体材料上成功研制的近红外波段二维光子晶体，给出了相关微加工结果，发现微加工的尺寸和理论设计尺寸相吻合；测试了所加工的无源光子晶体光子带隙和有源光子晶体的发光谱. 实验证明聚焦离子束可以研制二维光子晶体及相关光子晶体器件. 关键词： 聚焦离子束 半导体材料 光子晶体     

Fabrication and electromagnetic wave absorption properties of amorphous Ni-P nanotubes

Amorphous Ni-P nanotubes are fabricated through electroless chemical deposition inside an anodic aluminum oxide template. The hysteresis loops of Ni-P nanotube arrays are each found to exhibit an unusual isotropic behaviour, which is believed to be due to the competition results between the shape anisotropy and the magnetostatic interaction among nanotubes. The dynamic dependence of permittivity on the frequency spectrum is fitted to the Lorentzian-type dispersion law. The permeability dispersion behaviours have been fitted based on the Kittel equation. Electromagnetic wave absorption properties of Ni-P nanotubes/paraffin composites with different values of thickness (t) are clearly shown by a three-dimensional graph. Furthermore, the bandwidths of composites with different "t" values can be well presented by a two-dimensional contour graph, which is a novel presentation form. The results show that the composites each have a good microwave absorption performance with t larger than 5.5 mm and with the frequency around 8 gigahertz.     

Hyperfine interaction studies of amorphous materials using NMR

Through hyperfine interactions the electronic structure of amorphous materials can be investigated by NMR. Furthermore, the local character of these interactions makes them adequate to study the local environment and the local symmetry around the probe nuclei through the measurement of hyperfine fields and electric field gradients. We review recent NMR studies of amorphous metals from the following two points of view: (1) Electronic structure: Knight shifts and spin relaxation times in paramagnetic materials and hyperfine fields in ferromagnetic materials. (2) Local amorphous structure: topological and chemical short-range order. Emphasis will be given to the comparisons between amorphous materials and corresponding crystalline materials.     

Thermal properties of amorphous materials at low temperatures

Recent investigations of X-ray diffraction and electron micrograph studies reveal high density clusters separated by density deficient regions (voids) in amorphous materials. The low temperature specific heat and the thermal conductivity anomalies are explained on the basis of such a structure for amorphous materials. It is a generalisation of Debye's theory applied to most of the amorphous solids in the temperature range from 0 to 10 K. The anharmonic effects lead to the observed temperature dependence of the sound velocity. The thermal conductivity between 0 and 2 K is due to thermal diffusion, the plateau observed between 2 and 20 K is a consequence of the decrease in thermal conductivity due to three phonon processes compensated by intercluster diffusion, while beyond this range it is due to excitations within a cluster limited by the size of a cluster. Further the model predicts the coefficient of expansion about 100 times that found in the corresponding crystalline solids. An experimental verification of this result can be a good test for the model.     

Synthesis of Fe-based amorphous composite coatings with low purity materials by laser cladding

Amorphous composite coatings Fe₃₈Ni_30−XSi₁₆B₁₄V₂M_X (X = 0, 1, 2) (M contains Al, Ti, Mo, and C) were prepared with low purity of raw materials by laser cladding. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy results show that the coating have an amorphous structure with a few crystalline phase on it. The amorphous phase is the primary phase. The glass forming ability as well as the microhardness of the Fe-based alloy made from low purity raw materials can be much enhanced by adding small amount of multi-components. However, the elements addition has its optimal quantity. When X is equal to 1, the microstructure of the coating contains 97.93% amorphous phase and 2.07% crystalline phase on it. As a result, the microhardness of the coating reaches maximum. With further increasing of the additions, the amorphous phase in the coating lessens instead of augment and the crystalline phase begins to accumulate, which result in the decrease of the microhardness.     

On the relaxation nature of the glass transition of amorphous polymers and low-molecular amorphous materials

Physics of the Solid State - The relative temperature range (δT g /T g ) characterizing the liquid-to-glass transition is a single-valued function of the fluctuation volume fraction f g frozen...     

Viscoelastic characterization of compacted pharmaceutical excipient materials by analysis of frequency-dependent mechanical relaxation processes

A newly developed method for determining the frequency-dependent complex Young's modulus was employed to analyze the mechanical response of compacted microcrystalline cellulose, sorbitol, ethyl cellulose and starch for frequencies up to 20 kHz. A Debye-like relaxation was observed in all the studied pharmaceutical excipient materials and a comparison with corresponding dielectric spectroscopy data was made. The location in frequency of the relaxation peak was shown to correlate to the measured tensile strength of the tablets, and the relaxation was interpreted as the vibrational response of the interparticle hydrogen and van der Waals bindings in the tablets. Further, the measured relaxation strength, holding information about the energy loss involved in the relaxation processes, showed that the weakest material in terms of tensile strength, starch, is the material among the four tested ones that is able to absorb the most energy within its structure when exposed to external perturbations inducing vibrations in the studied frequency range. The results indicate that mechanical relaxation analysis performed over relatively broad frequency ranges should be useful for predicting material properties of importance for the functionality of a material in applications such as, e.g., drug delivery, drug storage and handling, and also for clarifying the origin of hitherto unexplained molecular processes.     

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon films obtained by a low pressure dc glow discharge

Films of a-Si: H have been deposited by means of a dc hot cathode discharge of SiH₄ with electrostatic confinement at a pressure as low as 0.4 Pa. The plasma used is quite quiescent as has been observed by means of reproducible Langmuir probe measurements. Substrates have been placed at different locations in between the electrodes, some of them facing the anode and the others facing the cathode.Films deposited on substrates facing the cathode present a granular, non-columnar, structure, an IR spectrum with only SiH absorption peaks, and a very low photoresponse. Films deposited on substrates facing the anode have a similar IR spectrum but are homogeneous, have lower hydrogen content, and present a high photoresponse. The optical absorption coefficient shows in all samples thenE=C(E–E₀) ^x behaviour, but with exponentx=3 and notx=2 as is usually considered in a-SiH.     

New probe of the electronic structure of amorphous materials

Here we show that electrochemical equilibrium voltage curves of amorphous WO3 and TiO2 coatings exhibit fine structure in striking agreement with the density of states in the conduction bands, as obtained by ab initio calculations for the crystalline counterparts. We suggest that localization of the band states is essential for observing the electronic structure. Our highly sensitive electrochemical method opens new vistas for studying the electronic structure of nonmetallic disordered materials that can be intercalated with an ionic species.     

Dielectric relaxation of low-density amorphous ice under pressure

In situ studies at high pressures show that the dielectric relaxation time tau of low-density amorphous (LDA) ice is more than an order of magnitude longer than that of high density amorphous ice. The increase in tau at the transformation to LDA ice with a simultaneous large density decrease shows that, despite an increase in the average intermolecular distance, the structural change leads to restriction for the orientational diffusion of H2O. The origin is most likely the same as in ice I, i.e., due to the ice rules. This result further stresses the crystallinelike nature of LDA ice.