Thermal Studies on Ammonium Uranates

Ammonium uranates are important intermediates in the preparation of nuclear fuel UO₂. These can generally be prepared through two different routes: heterogeneous (conventional) and homogeneous methods of precipitation. In the conventional method, ammonium hydroxide, gaseous ammonia and ammonium carbonate are the precipitating agents. In the homogeneous method, urea hydrolysis is used to generate in situ ammonia needed for precipitation. For the present studies, ammonium hydroxide is used for the conventional and urea for the homogeneous methods of precipitation. The uranates, thusprepared, are characterized by thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermogravimetry (DTG)and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Thermally the numbers of decomposition steps are identical for both uranates but the temperatures of the decomposition and mass losses vary. The intermediate and final oxides are identified by X-ray diffractometry (XRD). This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the origin of photocontraction effect in amorphous chalcogenide films

Large photocontraction of up to 26% has been observed in some chalcogenide films. Conditions necessary for the occurrence of large photocontraction are indicated to be: ability to form a glass, high bond ionicity, strong electron-phonon coupling, low density of the bulk material, and a large density difference between the bulk and the thin-film. These studies suggest that contraction (densification) is due to the mechanical collapse of the columns resulting from the large internal stresses caused by the interaction of the photogenerated carriers and the charged dangling bonds.     

Observation of subcellular structures of neurons by an illumination mode near-field optical microscope under an optical feedback control

We propose an illumination mode near-field optical microscope operated under an optical feedback for imaging biological specimens in their natural environment. For feedback control, rapidly varying evanescent signal has been generated over the sample surface. It has been found that evanescent signal can be profitably used as a control signal by utilizing its sample feature dependent discrimination sensitivity. Neurons have been successfully observed both in air and in liquid with a resolution well beyond the diffraction limit.