Shearing of oriented polyethylene and polypropylene

To learn more about the out-of-plane deformation of polymer lamellae during drawing, we have measured the resistance to shear along various planes in uniaxially oriented polyethylene and polypropylene. Fissures parallel to the orientation axis in oriented materials always cause too small an experimental value for the resistance of crystal glide parallel to the chain axes, but a rough estimate for the resistance to crystal glide is obtained using the elastic anisotropy. Also, the results suggest that kinking can be easier than glide when glide is inhibited by tie molecules.     

Approaches to selecting appropriate subjects for evaluating clinical tests

Appropriate selection of subjects is a critical element in assuring a valid evaluation of the clinical usefulness of a laboratory test. Careful definition of the clinical question to be answered by the test clearly points to the target population from which a representative sample must be obtained.     

Occurrence of rippling during the deformation of oriented polyethylene

Rippling is another mode, in addition to kink-band formation, by which oriented polyethylene can deform and results in a profuse and irregular waviness in the fibrils. For the medium-density and high-density polyethylenes investigated, rippling tended to occur only at strain rates below about 1 min^?1 at 25°C. Above this rate, kink bands tended to form. It is suggested that rippling results from easy slip between the fibrils of the oriented polymers and from the resistance of the fibrils to shortening under a compressive stress. The applied shear stress is reduced by the easy slip to a simple compression along the fibrils, and this distorts the fibril into the series of waves that constitutes rippling. Stress–strain measurements confirm that fibril slip is considerably easier under the rates at which rippling occurs than at the rates at which kink bands form.     

Forced axisymmetric motion of circular,viscoelastic plates

Williams' method for forced motion of elastic systems is applied to circular, viscoelastic plates where the effects of rotatory inertia, transverse shear and time-dependent boundary conditions are included. The viscoelastic material is assumed to have a constant Poisson's ratio. A particular problem is solved for a symmetrically loaded, completely free plate. The material used is vulcanized rubber where the viscoelastic behavior in shear is used in specifying the material parameters of a three-element solid.     

A model for the spherulite-to-fibril transformation

Based on an analogy with the growth of kink bands in oriented and annealed crystalline polymers, a mechanism is suggested for the deformation-induced spherulite-to-fibril transformation. Oriented and annealed material was employed as a model because it has roughly the same structure as the lamellar bundle of the spherulite. Under conditions that minimize the fibrillar quality and maximize the lamellar bundle quality, oriented and annealed crystalline polymers deform with the formation and growth of kink bands. The characteristics of kink bands are the sharpness of the kinks, occurring within zones ca. 100 Å wide, and mirror symmetry of the fibrils about the kink-zone planes. The spherulite-fibril transformation is suggested by analogy, then, to occur in the narrow zones that indeed are often found and to result in mirror symmetry of the chain axes about the transformation-zone planes, which may not exactly occur because of a tendency for the tie molecules to be pulled from the lamellae during drawing. The implications for the transformation are (a) that the microfibril backbones are derived from the tie molecules between lamellae and (b) though some unfolding occurs as blocks that were adjacent within the lamellae become separated, the crystals remain mostly intact during the transformation. The analog is supported by or at least is consistent with various other results, including those from morphological and small- and wide-angle x-ray studies.     

The experimental gas-phase structures of 1,3,5-trisilylbenzene and hexasilylbenzene and the theoretical structures of all benzenes with three or more silyl substituents

The structures of 1,3,5-trisilylbenzene and hexasilylbenzene in the gas phase have been determined by electron diffraction, and that of 1,3,5-trisilylbenzene by X-ray crystallography. The structures of three trisilylbenzene isomers, three tetrasilylbenzenes, pentasilylbenzene and hexasilylbenzene have been computed, ab initio and using Density Functional Theory, at levels up to MP2/6-31G*. The primary effect of silyl substituents is to narrow the ring angle at the substituted carbon atoms. Steric interactions between silyl groups on neighbouring carbon atoms lead first to displacement of these groups away from one another, and then to displacement out of the ring plane, with alternate groups moving to opposite sides of the ring. In the extreme example, hexasilylbenzene, the SiCCSi dihedral angle is 17.8(8) degrees .     

Hysteretic spin-density-wave ordering in confined geometries

We have measured the antiferromagnetic spin-density-wave (SDW) order in Cr/Cr(97.5)Mn2.5(001) superlattices. The Mn doping creates a high Néel temperature layer that confines the incommensurate SDW order within the Cr layers. With temperature cycling we observe a transition from commensurate to incommensurate SDW order and discrete changes in the SDW period. We find that these transitions show significant hysteresis (up to 75 K) when the number of SDW nodes within the Cr layer changes by an odd number, while there is no hysteresis for changes of an even number of nodes. This results from the competition between maintaining the spin structure at the interfaces and introducing a spin slip at the nodes of the Cr SDW.     

Dynamic roughening of tetrahedral amorphous carbon

The roughness of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) films grown at room temperature is measured as a function of film thickness by atomic force microscopy, to extract roughness and growth exponents of alpha approximately 0.39 and beta approximately 0-0.1, respectively. This extremely small growth exponent shows that some form of surface diffusion and relaxation operates at a homologous temperature of 0.07, much lower than in any other material. This is accounted for by a Monte Carlo simulation, which assumes a smoothening during a thermal spike, following energetic ion deposition. The low roughness allows ta-C to be used as an ultrathin protective coating on magnetic disk storage systems with approximately 1 Tbit/in.(2) storage density.     

Observation of negative group delays within a coaxial photonic crystal using an impulse response method

An impulse response experiment is described which independently verifies the recently observed result of negative group delayed propagation within a coaxial photonic crystal. This result was unexpected when it was reported and has been the subject of enduring controversy because theoretical models predict that negative group delays should not be possible in passive linear media. The impulse response method allows for the determination of both the transmission amplitude and the group delay for narrow-band wave packets over a wide frequency range in one simple experiment. The impulse response results presented here confirm our earlier finding of negative group delays within the band gap region and are in excellent agreement with the more traditional approach of measuring transit times for wave packets. However, negative group delays are observed only over very narrow frequency ranges within the wider band gap suggesting that another interference mechanism is involved.     

The role of precursor gases on the surface restructuring of catalyst films during carbon nanotube growth

Catalyst films undergo considerable surface morphology restructuring prior to carbon nanotube nucleation, deeply influencing the nanostructures obtained. Here we study the influence of different gaseous atmospheres on the structure of thin Fe films. The morphology is influenced by process temperature and substrate interactions and varying the gas type and pressure can control the average catalyst island height.