Biodegradable aromatic copolyesters made from bicyclic acetalized galactaric acid

Random poly(hexamethylene terephthalate‐co‐galactarate)s and poly(dodecamethylene terephthalate‐co‐galactarate)s copolyesters covering the whole range of compositions were obtained with weight‐average molecular weights of ～30,000–50,000 g mol^?1 by melt polycondensation. They were thermally stable above 300 °C, and displayed T_g in the +20 to ?20 °C range with values steadily decreasing with the content in galactarate units. All the copolyesters were semicrystalline with T_m between 50 and 150 °C and those made from dodecanediol were able to crystallize from the melt at a crystallization rate depending on composition. Copolyesters containing up to 50% of galactaric units retained the crystal structure of their respective polyterephthalate homopolyesters, whereas they adopted the structure of the respective polygalactarates when the content in Galx units reached 70%. Stress‐strain essays revealed decay in the mechanical parameters as the aromatic units were replaced by Galx. Incubation in aqueous buffer revealed that hydrolysis of the polyesters were largely enhanced by copolymerization and evidenced the capacity of the Galx unit for making aromatic polyesters susceptible to biodegradation. A detailed NMR analysis complemented by SEM observations indicated that hydrolysis took place by preferred splitting of galactarate ester bonds with releasing of alkanediol and Galx‐diacid. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2012     

A branching process model for sand avalanches

An analytically solvable model for sand avalanches of noninteracting grains of sand, based on the Chapman-Kolmogorov equations, is presented. For a single avalanche, distributions of lifetimes, sizes of overflows and avalanches, and correlation functions are calculated. Some of these are exponentials, some are power laws. Spatially homogeneous distributions of avalanches are also studied. Computer simulations of avalanches of interacting grains of sand are compared to the solutions to the Chapman-Kolmogorov equations. We find that within the range of parameters explored in the simulation, the approximation of noninteracting grains of sand is a good one.     

Study of the gas-phase parameters affecting the silicon-oxide film deposition induced by an ArF laser

A study of the gas-phase parameters involved in ArF laser induced chemical vapour deposition of silicon-oxide thin films is presented. A complete set of experiments has been performed showing the influence of the concentration of the precursor gases, N₂O and SiH₄, and their influence on total and partial pressures on film growth and properties. In this paper we demonstrate the ability of this LCVD method to deposit silicon oxide films of different compositions and densities by appropriate control of gas composition and total pressure. Moreover, a material specific calibration plot comprising data obtained using different preparation techniques is presented, allowing determination of the stoichiometry of SiO _x films by using FTIR spectroscopy independently of the deposition method. For the range of processing conditions examined, the experimental results suggest that chemical processes governing deposition take place mainly in the gas phase.     

Structure of neutron stars in R-squared gravity

The effects implied for the structure of compact objects by the modification of General Relativity (GR) produced by the generalization of the Lagrangian density to the form $f(R)=R+\alpha R^2$ , where $R$ is the Ricci curvature scalar, have been recently explored. It seems likely that this squared-gravity may allow heavier Neutron Stars (NSs) than GR. In addition, these objects can be useful to constrain free parameters of modified-gravity theories. The differences between alternative gravity theories are enhanced in the strong gravitational regime. In this regime, because of the complexity of the field equations, perturbative methods become a good choice to treat the problem. Following previous works in the field, we performed a numerical integration of the structure equations that describe NSs in $f(R)$ -gravity, recovering their mass-radius relations, but focusing on particular features that arise from this approach in the profiles of the NS interior. We show that these profiles run in correlation with the second-order derivative of the analytic approximation to the Equation of State (EoS), which leads to regions where the enclosed mass decreases with the radius in a counter-intuitive way. We reproduce all computations with a simple polytropic EoS to separate zeroth-order modified gravity effects.     

Finite size effects on the optical transitions in quantum rings under a magnetic field

We present a theoretical study of the energy spectrum of single electron and hole states in quantum dots of annular geometry under a high magnetic field along the ring axis in the frame of uncorrelated electron-hole theory. We predict the periodic disappearance of the optical emission of the electron-hole pair as the magnetic field increases, as a consequence of the finite height of the barriers. The model has been applied to semiconductor rings of various internal and external radii, giving as limiting cases the disk and antidot.