Non-aggregated Pd nanoparticles deposited onto catalytic supports

Nanostructured powders have shown great promise for a variety of applications including chemical gas sensors, high surface area supports for catalysis, tribology, chemical mechanical polishing, and optoelectronics. In this report, highly dispersed Pd nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution, and mean diameter of 2±0.2 nm, were deposited at room temperature onto amorphous carbon and oxide supports (TiO₂, Al₂O₃) by pulsed-laser ablation of a Pd sputtering target. Depositions were performed in Ar at a back-fill pressure of 3 mTorr after reaching a base pressure of 10^-7 Torr. Populations of uniformly dispersed particles with an interparticle spacing of 3 to 10 nm were observed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with little evidence of nanoparticle aggregation. The chemical compositions of individual nanoparticles were confirmed by high spatial resolution energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.     

A power-law distribution for tenure lengths of sports managers

We show that the tenure lengths for managers of sport teams follow a power law distribution with an exponent between 2 and 3. We develop a simple theoretical model which replicates this result. The model demonstrates that the empirical phenomenon can be understood as the macroscopic outcome of pairwise interactions among managers in a league, threshold effects in managerial performance evaluation, competitive market forces, and luck at the microscopic level.     

Bimodal fission in binary and ternary spontaneous fission of 252Cf

The hot bimodal fission of ²⁵²Cf is reexamined with new high-statistics data. We constructed a γ-γ-γ coincidence cube for binary fission and LCP-gated γ-γ matrix for ternary fission. By identifying the secondary fission fragments from their γ-ray transitions, we measured the yields for various fission splits. The normal neutron yield distribution is found to be Gaussian for Xe-Ru. However, the binary fission split of Ba-Mo is found to exhibit a bimodal neutron distribution with the “hot mode” corresponding to ≈3.1% of the total yield. In α ternary fission, the first measurements of yields for specific fission splits are presented. The Te-α-Ru and Xe-α-Mo neutron yields fit well with a single mode, but the Ba-α-Zr split shows evidence for an enhanced hot mode with an intensity of ≈13.8% of the normal mode. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Ultrasound accelerated Claisen-Schmidt condensation: A green route to chalcones

Chalcones have been synthesized under sonochemical irradiation by Claisen-Schmidt condensation between benzaldehyde and acetophenone. Two basic activated carbons (Na and Cs-Norit) have been used as catalysts. The effect of the ultrasound activation has been studied. A substantial enhancing effect in the yield was observed when the carbon catalyst was activated under ultrasonic waves. This “green” method (combination of alkaline-doped carbon catalyst and ultrasound waves) has been applied to the synthesis of several chalcones with antibacterial properties achieving, in all cases, excellent activities and selectivities. A comparative study under non-sonic activation has showed that the yields are lower in silent conditions, indicating that the sonication exerts a positive effect on the activity of the catalyst. Cs-doped carbon is presented as the optimum catalyst, giving excellent activity for this type of condensation. Cs-Norit carbon catalyst can compete with the traditional NaOH/EtOH when the reaction is carried out under ultrasounds. The role of solvent in this reaction was studied with ethanol. High conversion was obtained in absence of solvent. The carbons were characterized by thermal analysis, nitrogen adsorption and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.     

Strain-induced modification of magnetic structure and new magnetic phases in rare-earth epitaxial films

Rare earths exhibit complex magnetic phase diagrams resulting from the competition between various contributions to the magnetic energy: exchange, anisotropy and magnetostriction. The epitaxy of a rare-earth film on a substrate induces (i) a clamping to the substrate and (ii) pseudomorphic strains. Both these effects are shown to lead to modifications of the magnetic properties in (0 0 1)Dy, (0 0 1)Tb and (1 1 0)Eu films. In Dy and Tb films, spectacular variations of the Curie temperature have been evidenced. Additionally, Tb films exhibit a new large wavelength magnetic modulation. In Eu films, one of the helical magnetic domains disappears at low temperature whereas the propagation vectors of the other helices are tilted. The link between structural and magnetic properties is underlined via magnetoelastic models. Moreover, molecular beam epitaxy permits the growth of Sm in a metastable dhcp phase. The magnetic structure of dhcp Sm has been elucidated for the first time. In this review, neutron scattering is shown to be a powerful technique to reveal the magnetic structures of rare-earth films.     

Electro-optic pulse response of ferroelectric liquid crystals

The electro-optic response of ferroelectric smectic C* liquid crystals has been studied. Anomalous switching behaviour of such materials which possess a negative dielectric anisotropy has been reported. These materials show a minimum in response time at a sufficiently high field. We present results showing the dependency of this minimum upon spontaneous polarisation and the effect of AC bias. Calculations based upon the equation of motion of the director around the cone are presented which describe this effect and its dependence on the relative magnitudes of the spontaneous polarization and dielectric anisotropy of the material. Good agreement with the experimental results is found.     

Thermal desorption of interacting molecules from mixed adlayers

A Monte Carlo simulation method is used to study thermal desorption of gas molecules from mixed adlayers containing two species. The effects of lateral interactions among adatoms and initial surface coverage on the desorption spectra are examined. It is shown that attractive lateral interactions lead to sharper peaks and that desorption occurs at high temperatures, whereas repulsive interactions lead to multiple peak spectra. It is found that interactions between unlike molecules affect the spectra for species with lower desorption energy only, and that the two species desorb together only in certain cases. Lateral interactions also affect the desorption kinetics significantly and very different behavior for the two species may be obtained.     

Risk and quality control in a supply chain: competitive and collaborative approaches

This paper provides a quantitative and comparative economic and risk approach to strategic quality control in a supply chain, consisting of one supplier and one producer, using a random payoff game. Such a game is first solved in a risk-neutral framework by assuming that both parties are competing with each other. We show in this case that there may be an interior solution to the inspection game. A similar analysis under a collaborative framework is shown to be trivial and not practical, with a solution to the inspection game being an ‘all or nothing’ solution to one or both the parties involved. For these reasons, the sampling random payoff game is transformed into a Neyman–Pearson risk constraints game, where the parties minimize the expected costs subject to a set of Neyman–Pearson risk (type I and type II) constraints. In this case, the number of potential equilibria can be large. A number of such solutions are developed and a practical (convex) approach is suggested by providing an interior (partial sampling) solution for the collaborative case. Numerical examples are developed to demonstrate the procedure used. Thus, unlike theoretical approaches to the solution of strategic quality control random payoff games, the approach we construct is both practical and consistent with the statistical risk Neyman–Pearson approach.     

Analysis of reflectance and modulation spectroscopic lineshapes in optoelectronic device structures

We discuss the spectral lineshapes of reflectance and modulated reflectance (MR) measurements on optoelectronic device structures such as epi-layers, quantum wells (QWs), vertical-cavity surface emitting-lasers (VCSELs) and resonant-cavity light-emitting diodes (RCLEDs). We consider the various methods for the extraction of built-in electric fields and band-gap energies from Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKO), using the example of a tensilely strained InGaAs QW system, whose InGaAsP barriers yield strong FKO. We describe how critical point transition energies can be easily obtained by eye from Kramers-Kronig (KK) transforms of low field or QW modulation spectra, using the example of the modulated transmittance spectra of dilute-nitrogen InGaAsN p-i-n structures. We also discuss how the ordinary reflectivity spectrum, usually acquired at the same time as the MR signal, may also be exploited to extract layer thicknesses and compositions, and information about the active QW absorption spectrum in VCSEL and RCLED structures.     

Annealing effect on soft magnetic properties and magnetoimpedance of Finemet Fe73.5Si13.5B9Nb3Au1 alloy

Effect of annealing on the soft magnetic properties of Fe_73.5Si_13.5B₉Nb₃Au₁ amorphous ribbon has been investigated by means of structure examination, magnetoimpedance ratio (MIR) and incremental permeability ratio (PR) spectra measured in the frequency range of 1–10 MHz at a fixed current of 10 mA X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the as-cast sample was amorphous and it became nanocrystalline under a proper heat treatment. When annealing amorphous alloy at 530 °C for 30, 60, 90 min, soft magnetic properties have been improved drastically. Among the samples investigated, the sample annealed at 530 °C for 90 min showed the softest magnetic behavior. The MIR and PR curves revealed the desirable changes in anisotropy field depending upon annealing.