Realisation and metrological characterisation of thickness standards below 100 nm

High-accuracy film thickness measurements in the range below 100 nm can be made by various complex methods like spectral ellipsometry (SE), scanning force microscopy (SFM), grazing incidence X-ray reflectometry (GIXR), or X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF). The measurement results achieved with these methods are based on different interactions between the film and the probe. A key question in nanotechnology is how to achieve consistent results on a level of uncertainty below one nanometre with different techniques.Two different types of thickness standards are realised. Metal film standards for X-ray techniques in the thickness range 10 to 50 nm are calibrated by GIXR with monochromatised synchrotron radiation of 8048 eV. The results obtained at four different facilities show excellent agreement. SiO₂ on Si standards for SE and SFM in the thickness range 6 to 1000 nm are calibrated by GIXR with monochromatised synchrotron radiation of 1841 eV and with a metrological SFM. Consistent results within the combined uncertainties are obtained with the two methods. Surfaces and interfaces of both types of standards are additionally investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). PACS 61.10.Kw; 68.55.Jk; 06.20.Fn; 06.60.Mr; 07.79.Lh     

Constructing Space for Science at the Royal Institution of Great Britain

Those who have worked in the Royal Institution of Great Britain have, since its foundation in 1799, made significant contributions to scientific knowledge, to its practical application, and to its communication to a wide variety of audiences. Such work cannot be carried out in an architectural vacuum, and in this paper we examine how the buildings of the Royal Institution, 20 and 21 Albemarle Street in central London, have shaped the work undertaken within its walls and how, on a number of occasions, the buildings have been reconfigured to take account of the evolving needs of scientific research and communication. This paper is based on the Conservation Plan of the Royal Institution that we wrote during 2003. The Conservation Plan did not examine the land owned by the Royal Institution to the north (i.e., 22 and 23 Albemarle Street; for this area see Richard Garnier, “Grafton Street, Mayfair,” Georgian Group Journal 13 (2003), 210–272), but it did discuss 18 and 19 Albemarle Street. In this paper we concentrate on the core Royal Institution buildings at 20 and 21 Albemarle Street. Other studies of the relationship of architecture,space, and science include Crosbie Smith and Jon Agar, ed., Making Space for Science: Territorial Themes in the Shaping of Knowledge (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997); Peter Galison and Emily Thompson, ed., The Architecture of Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999); and Sophie Forgan,“The architecture of science and the idea of a university,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 20 (1989), 405–434. Frank A.J.L. James is Professor of the History of Science at the Royal Institution; he has written widely on the history of nineteenth-century science in its social and cultural contexts and is editor of the Correspondence of Michael Faraday. He is President of the British Society for the History of Science. Anthony Peers is an Associate of Rodney Melville and Partners where he works in the field of building conservation as an architectural historian. He is a Council member of the Ancient Monument Society.     

A competitive algorithm in searching for many edges in a hypergraph

We give a competitive algorithm to identify all d defective edges in a hypergraph with d unknown. Damaschke did the d=1 case for 2-graphs, Triesch extended the d=1 case to r-graphs, and Johann did the general d case for 2-graphs. So ours is the first attempt to solve the searching for defective edges problem in its full generality. Further, all the above three papers assumed d known. We give a competitive algorithm where d is unknown.     

Fir laser stabilization using stark effect: Data on CH3Br and CH3Cl

Data on the influence of the Stark Effect on an optically pumped FIR laser with CH₃Cl or CH₃Br as active medium are given for various wavelengths. A very simple method for an effective FIR power stabilisation based on the Stark Effect is described. Its working is illustrated with the EPR signal of a 10% diluted DAG sphere.     

Loss without recovery of Gibbsianness during diffusion of continuous spins

We consider a specific continuous-spin Gibbs distribution μ_t=0 for a double-well potential that allows for ferromagnetic ordering. We study the time-evolution of this initial measure under independent diffusions. For `high temperature' initial measures we prove that the time-evoved measure μ<sub>t</sub> is Gibbsian for all t. For `low temperature' initial measures we prove that μ_t stays Gibbsian for small enough times t, but loses its Gibbsian character for large enough t. In contrast to the analogous situation for discrete-spin Gibbs measures, there is no recovery of the Gibbs property for large t in the presence of a non-vanishing external magnetic field. All of our results hold for any dimension d≥2. This example suggests more generally that time-evolved continuous-spin models tend to be non-Gibbsian more easily than their discrete-spin counterparts. Research carried out at EURANDOM and supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft