X-ray excited optical luminescence of Ce-doped BaAl2O4

The luminescence properties of Ce³⁺ in BaAl₂O₄ are reported. The results of simultaneous measurements of XEOL and XAS in the X-ray energy range that includes the Ba L_II,III-edges and Ce L_III edge are shown. The XEOL yield increases as the energy of the photons increases. The radioluminescence spectra, taken from 200 to 1100 nm, showed broad emission bands corresponding to 5d¹→²F_5/2, ²F_7/2 transitions of Ce³⁺ when incorporated into two nonequivalent Ba sites. The lifetime of the light emission was also measured using the single bunch operation mode at the Brazilian National Synchrotron Laboratory (LNLS), and BaAl₂O₄:Ce³⁺ showed single exponential decay time component of about 44.3 ns.     

Atomic and Magnetic Structure of the Interface in Multilayers

Temperature dependence of the magnetic properties of Fe/Ag vacuum evaporated multilayers was studied in a wide range of layer thickness. For Fe thickness larger than 1 nm continuous magnetic layers can be found, but its hyperfine field is significantly lower than that of pure α-Fe at elevated temperatures. It is attributed to a decrease of the Curie temperature due to Ag impurities in the Fe layer. Below 1 nm Fe thickness magnetic relaxation and the formation of a granular alloy with 35 T average hyperfine field was observed. Magnetoresistance results indicate the presence of Fe clusters in the Ag matrix, as well. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Slow relaxation,confinement, and solitons

Millisecond crystal relaxation has been used to explain anomalous decay in doped alkali halides. We attribute this slowness to Fermi-Pasta-Ulam solitons. Our model exhibits confinement of mechanical energy released by excitation. Extending the model to long times is justified by its relation to solitons, excitations previously proposed to occur in alkali halides. Soliton damping and observation are also discussed.     

LiH-(X2Σ+)+3,4He rotational quenching at ultralow energies: spin-flip and isotopic effects from quantum dynamics on an ionic system

We study in this work the quantum scattering between a helium atom and a LiH^- molecule at low and ultralow energies. For the noble gas we have considered the two natural isotopes ³He, ⁴He, plus a “mock” ^3.5He. Our aim is to clarify the role played by the isotopic changes of the mass in the buffer gas (in this case, helium) during collision events where the interaction is described through a newly computed ab initio rigid rotor potential between He and LiH^-. The main conclusion of the present study is that this anionic species could be a good candidate for He-driven sympathetic cooling in traps since its elastic cross sections are always found to be larger than the inelastic ones in a relevant range of nearly vanishing energies. The ³He isotope is found to be more efficient than the other examples, yielding larger quenching rates in comparison with its heavier counterparts. Spin-flip inelastic channels are also analysed and discussed in terms of their dependence on the present, weak, interaction potential between partners and found to provide a further, interesting feature of the present mixture. The new results are also compared with those found by us in earlier, similar, quantum calculations on different systems.     

Computational study of plasma-surface interaction in plasma-assisted technologies

The influence of the unevenness of substrates immersed into plasma important for plasma-based treatment of materials were studied by computer experiment. The role of both substrate properties and plasma parameters was investigated. For this analysis the combination of multidimensional fluid modelling and particle simulation was used. The fluid part of our model consisted of continuity equations for all charged species, energy balance equation for electrons and Poisson equation. The basic scattering processes were also included. The particle simulation technique was used both for the calculation of electron energy distribution function and for the derivation of quantities characterising plasma-surface interaction. This approach enabled us to study in detail the structure of the sheath and presheath near metal substrates with realistic geometries and finite dimensions. The main attention was devoted to the influence of substrate geometry in both macroscopic and microscopic spatial scales on the local electric fields in plasma.     

Modal resonant ultrasound spectroscopy for ferroelastics

Recent experimental and theoretical improvements of resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) are summarized to investigate elastic constants of phases in shape memory alloys. The proposed inversion procedure, described in this work, is particularly suitable to reliable evaluation of the temperature dependence of elastic constants of low-symmetry ferroelastic materials which may be strongly elastically anisotropic and tend to exist in twinned forms. The method is applicable even for the evaluation of single-crystal elastic constants from RUS measurements on microtwinned crystals, since it involves a homogenization algorithm based on the macroscopic deformation response of the layered structure. This potentially allows performing meaningful acoustic studies on samples with a general submicron-size layered structure.     

Bestimmung von Verunreinigungen in Silizium mit Hilfe der Aktivierungsanalyse

Mittels Aktivierungsanalyse wurde der Gehalt an Arsen, Antimon, Kupfer, Phosphor und Zink in Halbleitersilizium bestimmt. Die Methode besteht aus zwei Schritten:

1. Gruppentrennung durch Anionenaustausch mit einem Gemisch von Salz- und Fluorwasserstoffsäure,

2. Selektive substöchiometrische Extraktion von Arsen und Kupfer mit Diäthyldithiocarbamat, von Antimon mit Cupferron und von Zink mit Dithizon. Phosphor wurde extraktiv als Phosphomolybdat abgetrennt.     

Search for doubly charged Higgs bosons with lepton-flavor-violating decays involving tau leptons

We search for pair production of doubly charged Higgs particles (H+/- +/-) followed by decays into electron-tau (etau) and muon-tau (mutau) pairs using data (350 pb(-1) collected from [over]pp collisions at sqrt[s]=1.96 TeV by the CDF II experiment. We search separately for cases where three or four final-state leptons are detected, and combine results for exclusive decays to left-handed etau (mutau) pairs. We set an H+/- +/- lower mass limit of 114(112) GeV/c(2) at the 95% confidence level.     

The perihelion of Mercury advance and the light bending calculated in (enhanced) Newton’s theory

Quantum fluctuations of a real massless scalar field are studied in the context of the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP). The dynamical finite vacuum energy is found in spatially flat Friedmann–Robertson–Walker spacetime which can be identified as dark energy to explain late time cosmic speed-up. The results show that a tiny deviation from the standard uncertainty principle is necessary on cosmological ground. By using the observational data we have constraint the GUP parameter even more stronger than ever.