Synthesis and characterization of hollow ��-Fe2O3 sub-micron spheres prepared by sol�Cgel

In this work we report the preparation of magnetic hematite hollow sub-micron spheres (??-Fe₂O₃) by colloidal suspensions of ferric nitrate nine-hydrate (Fe(NO₃)₃·9H₂O) particles in citric acid solution by following the sol?Cgel method. After the gel formation, the samples were annealed at different temperatures in an oxidizing atmosphere. Annealing at 180°C resulted in an amorphous phase, without iron oxide formation. Annealing at 250°C resulted in coexisting phases of hematite, maghemite and magnetite, whereas at 400°C, only hematite and maghemite were found. Pure hematite hollow sub-micron spheres with porous shells were formed after annealing at 600°C. The characterization was performed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Mössbauer spectroscopy (MS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).     

Dark matter results from 100 live days of XENON100 data

We present results from the direct search for dark matter with the XENON100 detector, installed underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso of INFN, Italy. XENON100 is a two-phase time-projection chamber with a 62 kg liquid xenon target. Interaction vertex reconstruction in three dimensions with millimeter precision allows the selection of only the innermost 48 kg as the ultralow background fiducial target. In 100.9 live days of data, acquired between January and June 2010, no evidence for dark matter is found. Three candidate events were observed in the signal region with an expected background of (1.8 ± 0.6) events. This leads to the most stringent limit on dark matter interactions today, excluding spin-independent elastic weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) nucleon scattering cross sections above 7.0 × 10(-45) cm(2) for a WIMP mass of 50 GeV/c(2) at 90% confidence level.     

Two-photon induced anisotropy in PMMA film doped with Disperse Red 13

In this paper we present optical anisotropy induced by 150-fs laser pulses operating at 775 nm in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films doped with Disperse Red 13 (DR13). Two-photon absorption of DR13 induces reversible birefringence in the sample, a feature associated with the molecular orientation caused by isomerization of the azochromophores. No irreversible anisotropy, associated with photobleaching of the chromophore was observed. The slope of 2 obtained for the induced birefringence as a function of the excitation irradiance corroborates the two-photon nature of the process.     

Contact phase modulation method for acoustic nonlinear parameter measurement in solid

In this work, a new method to measure in contact the nonlinearity parameter beta of solid plates is presented. A high frequency (HF) tone-burst signal of 20 MHz is inserted in the material by a contact-transducer (with a suitable coupling). A low frequency (LF) pulse (2.5 MHz) is applied to the other face, in the opposite direction, so that the nonlinear interaction of the two waves takes place during the back propagation toward the HF transducer. This collinear interaction creates a phase modulation of the HF tone-burst which is proportional to the beta coefficient and the particle velocity of the LF wave. To determine this particle velocity, in time domain, an extended self-reciprocity calibration of the contact LF transducer is used. A numeric phase demodulation is then performed, giving the beta coefficient of the sample. The proposed method is validated by nonlinearity parameter measurements in Fused Silica. The nonlinear parameter of Fused Silica measured is found to be in good agreement with the literature, and specially the negative sign of this parameter.     

EPR spectroscopy of protein microcrystals oriented in a liquid crystalline polymer medium

Correlation of the g-tensor of a paramagnetic active center of a protein with its structure provides a unique experimental information on the electronic structure of the metal site. To address this problem, we made solid films containing metalloprotein (Desulfovibrio gigas cytochrome c(3)) microcrystals. The microcrystals in a liquid crystalline polymer medium (water/hydroxypropylcellulose) were partially aligned by a shear flow. A strong orientation effect of the metalloprotein was observed by EPR spectroscopy and polarizing optical microscopy. The EPR spectra of partially oriented samples were simulated, allowing for molecular orientation distribution function determination. The observed effect results in enhanced sensitivity and resolution of the EPR spectra and provides a new approach towards the correlation of spectroscopic data, obtained by EPR or some other technique, with the three-dimensional structure of a protein or a model compound.     

Charged tensor matter fields and Lorentz symmetry violation via spontaneous symmetry breaking

We consider a model with a charged vector field along with a Cremmer-Scherk-Kalb-Ramond (CSKR) matter field coupled to a U(1) gauge potential. We obtain a natural Lorentz symmetry violation due to the local U(1) spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism triggered by the imaginary part of the vector matter. The choice of the unitary gauge leads to the decoupling of the gauge-KR sector from the Higgs-KR sector. The excitation spectrum is carefully analyzed and the physical modes are identified. We propose an identification of the neutral massive spin-1 Higgs-like field with the massive Z boson of the so-called mirror matter models.Received: 30 October 2003, Revised: 16 March 2004, Published online: 23 June 2004     

Biased bilayer graphene: semiconductor with a gap tunable by the electric field effect

We demonstrate that the electronic gap of a graphene bilayer can be controlled externally by applying a gate bias. From the magnetotransport data (Shubnikov-de Haas measurements of the cyclotron mass), and using a tight-binding model, we extract the value of the gap as a function of the electronic density. We show that the gap can be changed from zero to midinfrared energies by using fields of less, approximately < 1 V/nm, below the electric breakdown of SiO2. The opening of a gap is clearly seen in the quantum Hall regime.