Influence of the reaction conditions on the formation of Tl(Re)-Ba-Ca-Cu-O superconducting thin films by thallination in open system

Rhenium avoids air degradation of the target as well as of precursor thin films during the preparation of high temperature Tl-based superconductors. Addition of Re has been used during synthesis of oriented Tl(Re)-Ba-Ca-Cu-O films. High temperature superconducting Tl-based thin films were prepared by a two step method combining RF magnetron sputtering and ex-situ thallination. Precursors with a composition of Re_0.1Ba₂Ca₂Cu₃O_x were deposited on a CeO₂ buffered R-plane sapphire substrate. The sputtered films were prepared at room temperature in an Ar atmosphere. The thallination of the precursor films was performed in a one zone configuration, where both the pellet and precursor film were kept at the same temperature. The thallination temperature varied in the range of 850–880°C and samples were held for 30, 45 and 60 min at this temperature in a flowing oxygen atmosphere. Besides Tl-2212, X-ray diffraction reveals the possibility of also preparing the Tl-2223 phase, which was until now not reported in a Re doped form. Presented at 5-th International Conference Solid State Surfaces and Interfaces, November 19–24, 2006, Smolenice Castle, Slovakia     

Asymptotic Palm likelihood theory for stationary point processes

In the present paper, we propose a Palm likelihood approach as a general estimating principle for stationary point processes in $\mathbf{R}^d$ for which the density of the second-order factorial moment measure is available in closed form or in an integral representation. Examples of such point processes include the Neyman–Scott processes and the log Gaussian Cox processes. The computations involved in determining the Palm likelihood estimator are simple. Conditions are provided under which the Palm likelihood estimator is strongly consistent and asymptotically normally distributed.     

Dislocation dynamics in nanocrystalline nickel

It is believed that the dynamics of dislocation processes during the deformation of nanocrystalline materials can only be visualized by computational simulations. Here we demonstrate that observations of dislocation processes during the deformation of nanocrystalline Ni with grain sizes as small as 10 nm can be achieved by using a combination of in situ tensile straining and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Trapped unit lattice dislocations are observed in strained grains as small as 5 nm, but subsequent relaxation leads to dislocation recombination.