Meltblown fibers: Influence of viscosity and elasticity on diameter distribution

Both melt viscosity (η_o) and elasticity (correlated here with the longest melt relaxation time λ₁) were found to control the diameter distribution of meltblown fibers. Fibers were formed by melt blowing binary polystyrene (PS) blends containing widely differing component molecular weights using a custom-built laboratory apparatus. Varying the concentration and molecular weight of a high molecular weight PS provided independent control over η_o and λ₁. These rheological parameters influence the average diameter (d_av) and the distribution of diameters (coefficient of variation, CV) of meltblown fibers in different ways. Increasing η_o leads to an increase in d_av but has little impact on CV. On the other hand, increasing λ₁ beyond a threshold value reduces CV while simultaneously increasing d_av. A one-dimensional slender-jet theoretical model with both upper convected Maxwell and Phan–Thien and Tanner constitutive equations was developed to investigate the influence of viscoelasticity and processing parameters on the properties of meltblown fibers. This model predicts a strong dependence of fiber diameter on the air shear stress and variations in fiber diameter with viscoelasticity that are in qualitative agreement with the experimental results. We believe these results suggest that carefully controlling the viscoelastic profile of polymers used in melt blowing is a viable approach for producing nanofibers with narrow fiber diameter distributions using current commercial equipment.     

Phenomenological studies on structure and elemental composition of nanosecond and femtosecond laser-generated aerosols with implications on laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

In laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS), the properties of laser-generated aerosols, such as size and composition, are crucial for matrix-independent quantification. In this study, the aerosol particle morphology and elemental composition generated by two state-of-the-art laser systems (ArF excimer nanosecond-UV laser and Ti:sapphire femtosecond-IR laser) were investigated by electron microscopic techniques. Electrostatic sampling of the aerosols directly onto transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids allowed us to study the morphology and elemental composition of the aerosols using TEM and TEM–EDX (energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) analyses, respectively. The results of the electron microscopic studies were finally compared to the LA-ICPMS signals of the main matrix components. The investigations were carried out for non-conducting materials (glass and zircon), metallic samples (steel and brass) and semiconductors (sulfides). The studies confirm that ns-LA-generated aerosols dominantly consist of nanoparticle agglomerates while conducting samples additionally contain larger spherical particles (diameter typically 50 to 500 nm). In contrast to ns-laser ablation, fs-LA-generated aerosols consist of a mixture of spherical particles and nanoparticle agglomerates for all investigated samples. Surprisingly, the differences in elemental composition between nanoparticle agglomerates and spherical particles produced with fs-LA were much more pronounced than in the case of ns-LA, especially for zircon (Si/Zr fractionation) and brass (Cu/Zn fractionation). These observations indicate different ablation and particle formation mechanisms for ns- and fs-LA. The particle growth mechanism for ns-LA is most likely a gas-to-particle conversion followed by agglomeration and additional hydrodynamic sputtering for conducting samples. On the other hand, phase explosion is assumed to be responsible for the mixture of large spherical particles and nanoparticle agglomerates as found for fs-LA-generated aerosols. Based on these mechanisms, the overall temporal elemental fractionation effects in ns-LA-ICPMS seem to occur mainly during the ablation. This effect was not observed for fs-LA-ICPMS despite the element separation into different particle fractions, which, on the other hand, could induce severe ICP-induced fractionation.     

Dark-matter candidates

The existence of dark matter provides strong evidence for physics beyond the standard model. Extending the standard model with the Peccei–Quinn symmetry and/or supersymmetry, compelling dark-matter candidates appear. For the axion, the neutralino, the gravitino, and the axino, I review primordial production mechanisms, cosmological and astrophysical constraints, experimental searches, and prospects for experimental identification.     

Lattice Location of 12B in Single-Crystal Ni3Al Studied by β-Radiation Detected NMR

β-radiation detected nuclear magnetic resonance was applied to determine the location of ¹²B probe nuclei in a Ni₃Al single crystal. Combining our results with those of channeling experiments it turned out that more than 90% of the ¹²B ions occupy the octahedral interstitial site with six Ni ions as nearest neighbours.     

On circuit decomposition of planar Eulerian graphs

We give a common generalization of P. Seymour's “Integer sum of circuits” theorem and the first author's theorem on decomposition of planar Eulerian graphs into circuits without forbidden transitions.     

Skew Schubert polynomials

We define skew Schubert polynomials to be normal form (polynomial) representatives of certain classes in the cohomology of a flag manifold. We show that this definition extends a recent construction of Schubert polynomials due to Bergeron and Sottile in terms of certain increasing labeled chains in Bruhat order of the symmetric group. These skew Schubert polynomials expand in the basis of Schubert polynomials with nonnegative integer coefficients that are precisely the structure constants of the cohomology of the complex flag variety with respect to its basis of Schubert classes. We rederive the construction of Bergeron and Sottile in a purely combinatorial way, relating it to the construction of Schubert polynomials in terms of rc-graphs.