Fast Drift and Diffusion in a Class of Isochronous Systems with the Windows Method

The aim of the paper is to deal with some peculiar difficulties arising from the use of the geometrical tool known as windows method in the context of the well known problem of Arnold’s diffusion for isochronous nearly-integrable Hamiltonian systems. Despite the simple features of the class of systems at hand, it is possible to show how the absence of an anisochrony term leads to several substantial differences in the application of the method, requiring some additional devices, such as non-equally spaced transition chains and variable windows. As a consequence, we show the existence of a set of unstable orbits, whose drifting time matches, up to a constant, the one obtained via variational methods.     

Topological Boundary Invariants for Floquet Systems and Quantum Walks

A Floquet systems is a periodically driven quantum system. It can be described by a Floquet operator. If this unitary operator has a gap in the spectrum, then one can define associated topological bulk invariants which can either only depend on the bands of the Floquet operator or also on the time as a variable. It is shown how a K-theoretic result combined with the bulk-boundary correspondence leads to edge invariants for the half-space Floquet operators. These results also apply to topological quantum walks.     

Hierarchical porous nitrogen-doped partial graphitized carbon monoliths for supercapacitor

Porous carbon monoliths have attracted great interest in many fields due to their easy availability, large specific surface area, desirable electronic conductivity, and tunable pore structure. In this work, hierarchical porous nitrogen-doped partial graphitized carbon monoliths (N–MC–Fe) with ordered mesoporous have been successfully synthesized by using resorcinol-formaldehyde as precursors, iron salts as catalyst, and mixed triblock copolymers as templates via a one-step hydrothermal method. In the reactant system, hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) is used as nitrogen source and one of the carbon precursors under hydrothermal conditions instead of using toxic formaldehyde. The N–MC–Fe show hierarchically porous structures, with interconnected macroporous and ordered hexagonally arranged mesoporous. Nitrogen element is in situ doped into carbon through decomposition of HMT. Iron catalyst is helpful to improve the graphitization degree and pore volume of N–MC–Fe. The synthesis strategy is user-friendly, cost-effective, and can be easily scaled up for production. As supercapacitors, the N–MC–Fe show good capacity with high specific capacitance and good electrochemical stability.

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Graphical abstract Hierarchical porous nitrogen-doped partial graphitized carbon monoliths with ordered mesoporous have been successfully synthesized by using resorcinol-formaldehyde as precursors, iron as catalyst, and mixed triblock copolymers as templates via a one-step hydrothermal method.

     

Coarsening-resistant Ag nanoparticles stabilized on amorphous TiO<Subscript>x</Subscript> nanoparticles

Bare Ag nanoparticles (～10 nm) and Ag nanoparticles (1–20 nm) on the surfaces of larger TiO_x nanoparticles were prepared by laser ablation of microparticle aerosols (LAMA). The behaviors of the nanoparticles during high temperature annealing were then studied with ex situ and in situ transmission electron microscopy. For the ex situ heating experiments, Ag and Ag-on-TiO_x NPs were collected onto gold TEM grids and subjected to annealing treatments at 500 °C in argon, vacuum, and air. At this temperature, bare Ag NPs on carbon TEM supports coarsened rapidly in both air and argon atmospheres. In contrast, Ag-on-TiO_x NPs that were heated to 500 °C in flowing argon or in a vacuum did not coarsen significantly and were remarkably stable. Ag-on-TiO_x NPs that were heated to 500 °C in air, however, behaved quite differently. The TiO_x crystallized upon heating and a significant loss of Ag were observed from the surfaces of the TiO_x, likely due to sublimation. These results demonstrate that the surface defect structure and chemistry of the oxide support strongly influence the thermal stability of Ag NPs produced by LAMA.     

Seed-mediated synthesis of acanthosphere-like gold microstructures with tunable LSPR in the NIR region using gemini surfactants as directing agents for SERS applications

Acanthosphere-like gold microstructures (AGMs) were synthesized using a facile, two-step, seed-mediated method and butanediyl-1,4-bis(dimethylhexadecylammonium bromide) (16-4-16) as a structure-directing agent. The morphologies and sizes of the products were controlled during the synthesis process by adjusting the concentrations of 16-4-16, the AgNO₃ feed, HAuCl₄, ascorbic acid, the amount of Ag seeds and the types of gemini surfactants used through systematic inquiry; particle sizes ranging from 130 to 800 nm were well prepared. Correspondingly, the morphology of the products changed between regular and irregular AGMs, and the products presented a number of new morphologies, such as open-mouthed submicrostructures and ribbon nanowires. In particular, with the increase in the 16-4-16 concentration, the structural morphology of the thorns clearly changed from a tip to a lamellar structure. A UV-vis spectroscopic analysis indicated that the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak of the AGMs could be adjusted by changing the above factors, which extended from 500 to 1350 nm in the near-infrared (NIR) region, enabling a tremendous potential for using the AGMs as platforms for various biomedical applications. Based on the intermediate products, we propose a two-stage growth mechanism for the AGMs in which their solid cores and tips are generated successively. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurements indicate that the AGMs can serve as sensitive SERS substrates; a SERS detection limit of 5 × 10^?7 M is presented for rhodamine B molecules.

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Graphical abstract

     

Symbiotic organism search algorithm for simulation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">J</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">V</Emphasis> characteristics and optimizing internal parameters of DSSC developed using electrospun TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> nanofibers

In the present investigation, the recently developed, simple, robust, and powerful metaheuristic symbiotic organism search (SOS) algorithm was used for simulation of J-V characteristics and optimizing the internal parameters of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) fabricated using electrospun 1-D mesoporous TiO₂ nanofibers as photoanode. The efficiency (η =?5.80%) of the DSSC made up of TiO₂ nanofibers as photoanode is found to be ～ 21.59% higher compared to the efficiency (η =?4.77%) of the DSSC made up of TiO₂ nanoparticles as photoanode. The observed high efficiency can be attributed to high dye loading as well as high electron transport in the mesoporous 1-D TiO₂ nanofibers. Further, the validity and advantage of SOS algorithm are verified by simulating J-V characteristics of DSSC with Lambert-W function.     

Ab-initio optical properties and dielectric response of open-shell spinel zinc ferrite

In the present work, we predict the optical properties and the dielectric response spectrum of the spinel zinc ferrite Zn₂Fe₄O₈, and show in particular the impact of many-body effects on the absorption spectrum, using advanced many-body perturbation approach. The excitonic effects remarkably redistribute the spectral weights causing a red-shift of 1.6 eV of the maximum of the independent particle G ₀ W ₀?(IP-G ₀ W ₀) towards the electron-hole affected spectrum. The excitation spectrum of the zinc ferrite exhibits a low lying doubly degenerated bound dark exciton at 1.84 eV with a fully symmetric excited-state density, and a narrow optical gap setting on at 1.93 eV. We further analyse the electronic transitions and exciton density distributions giving insights to the nature of excitations. The dielectric response of Zn₂Fe₄O₈ shows a particular sensitivity to the excitations higher than the electronic band gap, however it abruptly becomes passive to the incoming electro-magnetic wave and propagates to the negative regions at high energy regimes.     

Perfect valley polarization in MoS<Subscript>2</Subscript>

We study perfect valley polarization in a molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanoribbon monolayer using two bands Hamiltonian model and non-equilibrium Green’s function method. The device consists of a one-dimensional quantum wire of MoS₂ monolayer sandwiched between two zigzag MoS₂ nanoribbons such that the sites A and B of the honeycomb lattice are constructed by the molecular orbital of Mo atoms, only. Spin-valley coupling is seen in energy dispersion curve due to the inversion asymmetry and time-reversal symmetry. Although, the time reversal symmetry is broken by applying an external magnetic field, the valley polarization is very small. A valley polarization equal to 46% can be achieved using an exchange field of 0.13 eV. It is shown that a particular spin-valley combination with perfect valley polarization can be selected based on a given set of exchange field and gate voltage as input parameters. Therefore, the valley polarization can be detected by detecting the spin degree of freedom.