Sputtering of ordered nickel-aluminium alloys: II. Preferential sputtering of NiAl single crystals and discussion

Atom-probe field-ion microscopy together with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry have been applied to the microanalysis of fully ordered NiAl single crystals subjected to 3 keV inert gas ion bombardment. As with the studies of Ni₃Al (the companion paper) aluminium was found to be preferentially sputtered by both argon and xenon bombardment. Comparisons between depth profiles through Ni₃Al and NiAl targets have provided information about the role of binding energies in the selective sputtering process. These data have also permitted conclusions to be drawn about the correct choice of bombarding species for sample cleaning and depth-profiling applications in surface analysis. Examination of field-ion images from specimens after bombardment suggests that the surface is microroughened and this has been confirmed using transmission electron microscopy.     

Chemical reactivity and surface-enhanced raman scattering

A mechanism is proposed for surface-enhanced Raman scattering for pyridine which explains the enhancement, the anodizalion “activation”, the significance of silver, the photographitization of coordinated pyridine and formate, the participation of surface roughness, and the irreversibly held yet liquid-like nature of surface pyridine.     

AB initio calculations of the electronic properties of N4− in KN3

The energies of the ground state and low-lying excited states of the N₄^? defect in KN₃ have been calculated using ab initio techniques. A rectangular equilibrium geometry with dimensions X = 2.76 and Z = 2.47 a.u. and ground state symmetry of Γ₄⁺ was determined by calculating N₄^? as a free radical. For this ground state the unpaired electron is in a π orbital which is consistent with the experimental hyperfine tensor only if one edge of the N₄^? radical is parallel to the c axis in KN₃. These results were used to calculate the X²Γ₄⁺ state of N₄^? in the crystal field of KN₃, yielding an energy of ?217.899 Hartrees. The isotropic hyperfine constant was calculated to be a = 2.1 G and the components of the anisotropic hyperfine tensor as B_xx = ?3.4 G, B_yy = 7.0 G and B_zz = ?3.6 G, in good agreement with experimental and INDO results. Several excited states were calculated for the N₄^? defect in KN₃. When an estimate was made of the correlation energy, the transition energy of the X²Γ₄⁺→A²Γ₃^? transition agreed well with the peak energy of the 780 nm absorption band which has been attributed to N₄^?.     

The paley-wiener theorem for the radon transform

We prove that the support of a complex-valued function f in ?^k is contained in a convex set K if and only if the support of its Radon transform k(s, ω) is, for each ω, contained in s ≦ S_K (ω); here S_K is the support function of the set K. This theorem is used to determine the propagation speeds of hyperbolic differential equations with constant coefficients, to prove the nonexistence of point spectrum for a certain class of partial differential operators, and to give a simple reduction of Lions' convolution theorem to the one-dimensional convolution theorem of Titchmarsh.     

Number fluctuation analysis of random locomotion. Statistics of a Smoluchowski process

We analyze a scheme, originally suggested by Smoluchowski, by which a diffusion coefficientD can be estimated by measuring the number of particles occupying a fixed region of a surface at various times. An expression is derived relating the variance of the estimated valueD to several experimental parameters. This expression is evaluated numerically to determine how statistical uncertainty depends on adjustable variables. Particular attention is given to experiments involving locomotion of migrating leukocytes.     

Measurement of quantum weak values of photon polarization

We experimentally determine weak values for a single photon's polarization, obtained via a weak measurement that employs a two-photon entangling operation, and postselection. The weak values cannot be explained by a semiclassical wave theory, due to the two-photon entanglement. We observe the variation in the size of the weak value with measurement strength, obtaining an average measurement of the S1 Stokes parameter more than an order of magnitude outside of the operator's spectrum for the smallest measurement strengths.