EPMA of interfaces applied to the solid oxide fuel cell

Chemical interactions at the phase boundaries of materials applied for the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) have been studied by EPMA. The chemical reactivity at the interface of La_y-xSr_xMnO₃/ZrO₂-Y₂O₃ is dependent on the stoichiometry (y) and the Sr content (x) of the perovskite. Typical reaction products (zirconates) and a diffusion zone in the ZrO₂–Y₂O₃ have been observed. The extension of cation release (Mn) is related to the increasing chemical activity of Mn oxide in the perovskite by the Sr substitution for La. The wettability of the metal/oxide interface in the anode cermet (Ni/ZrO₂–Y₂O₃) has been found to be influenced by chemical reactions resulting from the applied reducing atmosphere with high carbon activity. The disintegration of ZrO₂–Y₂O₃ in contact with molten Ni or Ni-Ti and Ni-Cr alloys leads to the redeposition of Y₂O₃-enriched oxides and also to Zr-rich intermetallic compounds and eutectics.     

Observation of ionic thermocurrents in zirconia-based solid electrolytes

In ionic conductors, long range-migrating charges are a main cause of polarization processes. This has complicated, up to date, the study of ionic thermocurrents (ITC) in solid electrolytes. However, the method is appealing, as it probes directly charge-formation phenomena that are important both from a scientific point of view and for applications. This work reports on the observation of ITC in solid electrolytes. Under appropriate experimental conditions, the ITC response of a zirconia sample electroded with platinum is a reproducible one, thus opening the way to a new characterization method that may complement other well established methods, such as Impedance Spectroscopy and a number of electrochemical techniques. The general trends of the response, which is composed of two well resolved ITC peaks, is discussed. One of them, taking place at higher temperatures, conforms to the standard shape of a first order kinetics depolarization process. Paper presented at the 2nd Euroconference on Solid State Ionics, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, Sept. 10–16, 1995     

MO analysis of macroscopic supercurrent flow in MgB 2

We present results from an extended magneto-optical (MO) analysis of two samples cut from high-density pellets of MgB₂. The first sample was studied in order to show that no matter how large the sample is and despite the bulk granularity, the material enters into a critical state in a crystal-like fashion. The second sample was chosen for the quantitative analysis. A numerical approach based on an inverted 2D Biot-Savart model was used to calculate the current paths across the homogeneous polycrystalline bulk, as well as in the vicinity and across some morphological defects. Local current densities in the homogeneous part were estimated as a function of the applied magnetic field at different temperatures, in three regimes: below full penetration, at full penetration and above full penetration, respectively. A hypothesis of interpretation of the apparent absence of magnetic granularity inside the polycrystalline microstructure is presented. It is related to a critical state likely reached by a network of strongly coupled Josephson junctions. Received 31 May 2001 and Received in final form 5 December 2001     

Formation on field emitters coated with fullerenes of microformations producing ordered emission images

Field emission projector studies of fullerene coatings deposited on tungsten tip field emitters reveal specific ordered patterns in the form of doublets, quadruplets, rings, disks, and other forms in the emitter images. The ways in which these types of ordered emission patterns arise and their relation to C₆₀ microformations have been established. Possible causes of the emergence of the ordered emission images are analyzed on the basis of published data and experimental results obtained. A modification of the model of field emission from the surface of microformations taking into account internal reflection of the electronic waves from the formation boundaries has been proposed.     

Shell model interaction between proton holes and between proton holes and neutron particles around 208Pb

An effective residual interaction between particles and holes for shell model calculations around ²⁰⁸Pb, derived from the interaction between free nucleons, is compared with the measured properties of proton-hole neutron states in ²⁰⁸Tl and the interaction between proton holes is adjusted to newly measured level energies in ²⁰⁶Hg. These interaction elements are particularly relevant for neutron-rich nuclei. The adjustment of two mixing elements reproduces the known γ-decay data in ²⁰⁸Tl. Received: 2 April 2002 / Accepted: 2 May 2002     

Higher-order <Emphasis Type="Bold">?</Emphasis> corrections in the semiclassical quantization of chaotic billiards

In the periodic orbit quantization of physical systems, usually only the leading-order ? contribution to the density of states is considered. Therefore, by construction, the eigenvalues following from semiclassical trace formulae generally agree with the exact quantum ones only to lowest order of ?. In different theoretical work the trace formulae have been extended to higher orders of ?. The problem remains, however, how to actually calculate eigenvalues from the extended trace formulae since, even with ? corrections included, the periodic orbit sums still do not converge in the physical domain. For lowest-order semiclassical trace formulae the convergence problem can be elegantly, and universally, circumvented by application of the technique of harmonic inversion. In this paper we show how, for general scaling chaotic systems, also higher-order ? corrections to the Gutzwiller formula can be included in the harmonic inversion scheme, and demonstrate that corrected semiclassical eigenvalues can be calculated despite the convergence problem. The method is applied to the open three-disk scattering system, as a prototype of a chaotic system. Received 10 September 2001 and Received in final form 3 January 2002     

Diffractive heavy vector meson production from the BFKL equation

Diffractive heavy vector meson photoproduction accompanied by proton dissociation is studied for arbitrary momentum transfer. The process is described by the non-forward BFKL equation, for which a complete analytical solution is found, giving the scattering amplitude. The impact of non-leading corrections to the BFKL equation is also analysed. Results are compared to the HERA data on production. Received: 2 July 2002 / Revised version: 29 August 2002 / Published online: 18 October 2002     

Study of the Surface Processes in Vapor-Phase Epitaxial GaAs: Asymmetric Trapping of Atoms at the Step

Experimental proofs of asymmetric trapping of atoms at the growth step in vapor-phase epitaxy of gallium arsenide in the GaAs–AsCl₃–H₂ system are given. The data obtained confirm the important role of the surface diffusion mass transfer in the growth of epitaxial GaAs layers on vicinals in the neighborhood of (111)A. The effective diffusion length is estimated.     

Development of high-speed video cameras for Dynamic PIV

The most promising next generation Image Velocimtry (IV) is the high-speed Dynamic PIV. It requires the development of innovative high-speed video camera sensors. We started by specifying the required performance of these new sensors, for measurements in air and water flows. These criteria founded on the most recent developments in PIV algorithms and incorporate results from a large questionnaire survey of users of high-speed video cameras in Japan. The results suggest that the followings are required: (1) frame rate of 1,000,000 fps, (2) pixel count of 1,000,000 pixels, (3) frame storage capacity of 100–200 frames for tracing a single event and 10,000 frames for turbulent measurements, (4) gray levels of 4–8 bits for PTV; 12 bits for observation. Finally, we reviewed the state of the art of high-speed video-image sensors. Currently the standard parallel-readout sensors can operate at 1 Kfps with a pixel count of approximately 1 Kpixels. The In-situ Storage Image Sensor (ISIS) developed by the authors has recently achieved frame rates of 1 Mfps.