Dielectric properties and conductivity of styrene-methacrylic acid copolymers and partially neutralized salts

Dielectric and conductivity measurements have been carried out on styrene-methacrylic acid copolymers and their salts in the glass transition region, stressing the comparison of polymers neutralized to different extents. A simple monomer-dimer equilibrium between carboxylic acid groups is applicable to the pure acid polymers, which explains the increase of both the glass transition temperature and of the dielectric strength with concentration of methacrylic acid. The dielectric data indicate that very few sodium carboxylate groups can dissolve in the matrix of the pure salt, whereas the presence of carboxylic acid groups in partly neutralized polymers enhances the dissolution of the salt groups in the matrix. Considerable differences are observed between the partly neutralized polymer and the blend consisting of pure acid and pure salt copolymers, which suggests that exchange of cations between acid and salt groups is quite slow even at high temperatures. The conductivity of the ionomers appears to be related to the diffusion of carriers through the matrix.     

Raman scattering in 3RNbS2

Raman scattering spectra on a layer type compound 3RNbS₂ were measured at 300 and 77 K, and three peaks were observed at 382, 325 and 281 cm^?1 at 300 K. The vibration modes were analyzed in terms of Bromley's nearest neighbour model, and a good agreement with the experiment was obtained.     

Non-relativistic Limit of a Dirac Polaron in Relativistic Quantum Electrodynamics

A quantum system of a Dirac particle interacting with the quantum radiation field is considered in the case where no external potentials exist. Then the total momentum of the system is conserved and the total Hamiltonian is unitarily equivalent to the direct integral of a family of self-adjoint operators acting in the Hilbert space , where is the Hilbert space of the quantum radiation field. The fiber operator is called the Hamiltonian of the Dirac polaron with total momentum . The main result of this paper is concerned with the non-relativistic (scaling) limit of . It is proven that the non-relativistic limit of yields a self-adjoint extension of a Hamiltonian of a polaron with spin 1/2 in non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics.     

First-principles energy band calculation for undoped and N-doped InTaO4 with layered wolframite-type structure

The electronic structures of undoped and N-doped InTaO₄ with optimized structures are calculated within the framework of the density functional theory. Calculated lattice constants are in excellent agreement with experimental values, within a difference of 2%. The valence band maximum (VBM) is located near the middle point on the ZD line and the conduction band minimum (CBM) near the middle point on the DX line. This means that InTaO₄ is an indirect-gap material and a minimum theoretical gap between VBM and CBM is ca. 3.7 eV. The valence band in the range from −6.0 to 0 eV mainly consists of O 2p orbitals, where In 4d5s5p and Ta 5d orbitals are slightly hybridized with O 2p orbitals. On the other hand, the conduction band below 5.5 eV is mainly composed of the Ta 5d orbitals and the contributions of In and O orbitals are small. The band gap of N-doped InTaO₄ decreases by 0.3 eV than that of undoped InTaO₄, because new gap states originating from N 2p orbitals appear near the top of the valence band. This result indicates that doping of N atoms into metal oxides is a useful method to develop photocatalysts sensitive to visible light.     

Sliding acceleration of water droplets on a surface coated with fluoroalkylsilane and octadecyltrimethoxysilane

Both fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) and octadecyltrimethoxysilane (ODS) were coated on oxidized silicon wafers using soaking and CVD method. Smooth coatings with Ra values of less than 1 nm were attained. The slope of the sliding acceleration against the inverse of the droplet mass showed an inflection point. That point shifted to the direction of smaller droplets with decreasing FAS ratio to ODS. The water droplets’ length was increased when the sliding velocity was increased. Fluoroalkylsilane addition to ODS increases the interaction between water and the hydrophobic surface. Results showed that the sliding acceleration of a water droplet depends strongly on the surface ratio of these silanes.     

Epitaxy: the motion picture

The engineering of many modern electronic devices demands control over a crystal down to the thickness of a single layer of atoms—and future demands will be even more challenging. Such control is achieved by the method of crystal growth known as epitaxy, and that makes this method the subject of intense study. More than that, recent advances are revolutionizing our knowledge of how surfaces grow. In fact, growing surfaces show a beautifully rich variety of phenomena, many of which are only now beginning to be uncovered. In the past few years many surface imaging techniques have been used to give us a close look at how crystals grow—while they are growing. The purpose of this article will be to illustrate some of the ways real surfaces grow and change as revealed by some of the latest in situ microscopic imaging technologies.

It is often said that crystal growth is more of an art than a science. Here we will show that it is emphatically both.     

Control of island formation using overgrowth technique on cleaved edges of strained multiple quantum wells and selective epitaxy on patterned substrates

Two approaches to control the position and the size of semiconductor islands are proposed. The first method is to perform overgrowth on a cleaved edge of strained multiple quantum wells which acts as a substrate with a periodically modulated lattice constant, thus inducing a periodic strain to the overgrown layer. The second method is to selectively grow islands in specific windows defined by electron beam lithography. Both the methods are applied to the Ge/Si system and the controllability of the Ge island formation is demonstrated.     

Full-parallax three-dimensional display based on light field reproduction

Optical Review - Light field displays can display three-dimensional (3D) images with smooth motion parallax without the use of special glasses, by reproducing light ray information from objects....     

3D atomic imaging by internal-detector electron holography

A method of internal-detector electron holography is the time-reversed version of photoelectron holography. Using an energy-dispersive x-ray detector, an electron gun, and a computer-controllable sample stage, we measured a multiple-energy hologram of the atomic arrangement around the Ti atom in SrTiO3 by recording the characteristic Ti Kα x-ray spectra for different electron beam angles and wavelengths. A real-space image was obtained by using a fitting-based reconstruction algorithm. 3D atomic images of the elements Sr, Ti, and O in SrTiO3 were clearly visualized. The present work reveals that internal-detector electron holography has great potential for reproducing 3D atomic arrangements, even for light elements.     

Development and test of SEOP neutron spin filter in Japan

We have begun the development of an in-situ spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP) system aiming to use it as a neutron spin filter for incident beam polarization at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). To use it, it is recommended that the optics be adjusted easily, have high stability, and have a small size. In this paper we improved our previous SEOP system aiming to use it in J-PARC and performed a neutron beam test at the JRR-3 NOP beamline to see the performance of the neutron spin filter (NSF). The polarization of the ³He gas reached 73%. This paper gives the present status of the development of in-situ SEOP system in J-PARC.