Surface shear rheological studies of marine phytoplankton cultures-Nitzschia closterium, Thalassiosira rotula, Thalassiosira punctigera and Phaeocystis sp

The study of interfacial properties in the marine environment is important for the understanding of air-sea gas exchange processes, especially with respect to the behaviour of entrained air bubbles. Seawater contains surfactant material, much of which is thought to origin from the exudation of dissolved organic material (DOM) by phytoplankton. This study aims at investigating the influence of different phytoplankton species on the surface shear viscosity of an air-water interface. Measurements of surface shear viscosity were carried out with the ISR1 interfacial shear rheometer. Surface shear viscosities of stock cultures of Phaeocystis sp., Thalassiosira rotula, Thalassiosira punctigera and Nitzschia closterium as well as of F/2 nutrient medium and seawater were measured. The surface shear viscosity of N. closterium was investigated during different stages of its growth as well as for an unfiltered stock culture sample and its filtrate. Results reveal that the influence of phytoplankton on the surface shear viscosity is species specific. An increase in surface shear viscosity occurred for the N. closterium stock culture only. The remaining cultures showed similar behaviour to F/2 nutrient medium. The increase of surface shear viscosity during the growth of N. closterium occurred mainly during the exponential growth phase. The increases in surface shear viscosity depend on the presence of phytoplankton cells in the sample. The formation of compact mechanical structures at the air-water interface originating from the aggregation of DOM released by N. closterium as a cause for the observed increases in surface shear viscosity is discussed.     

Monte carlo simulations of self-assembled surfactant aggregates

Monte Carlo simulations provide some insight into the self-assembly of amphiphiles in aqueous environment. A rather simple solvent-free model, with only two adjustable parameters in the effective pair potential, allows one to describe the formation of micelles, stable curved membranes, and metastable vesicles. Characteristic features of the self-assembled aggregates, such as the distribution of the micelle size and the value of the curvature elastic constant for membranes, can be obtained from simulated data. The capability of the simple approach was demonstrated for a surfactant model with three spherical segments. The extension of the simulation to molecules with more segments and branched amphiphiles is straightforward.     

Modeling impurity-assisted chain creation in noble-metal break junctions

In this work we present the generalization of the model for chain formation in break junctions, introduced by Thiess et al (2008 Nano Lett. 8 2144), to zigzag transition-metal chains with s and p impurities. We apply this extended model to study the producibility trends for noble-metal chains with impurities, often present in break junction experiments, namely, Cu, Ag and Au chains with H, C, O and N adatoms. Providing the material-specific parameters for our model from systematic full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave first-principles calculations, we find that the presence of such impurities crucially affects the binding properties of the noble-metal chains. We reveal that both the impurity-induced bond strengthening and the formation of zigzag bonds can lead to a significantly enhanced probability for chain formation in break junctions.     

Roman Coarse Ware from Bavaria, Austria and Northern Italy

This interdisciplinary study focuses on a specific type of Roman coarse ware that was widely distributed in Bavaria, Austria and northern Italy during the 1st half of the 1st century AD. Various physical methods were applied to study the provenance of this characteristic marble tempered blackware and to assess its production techniques. The blackware found in large numbers on the Auerberg and at other sites in southern Germany can be identified as imported from East Tyrol, Austria.     

Linear scaling of the interlayer relaxations of the vicinal Cu(p,p,p − 2) surfaces with the number of atom-rows in the terraces

We investigate the multilayer relaxation trends in the vicinal Cu(p,p,p − 2) surfaces employing the all-electron full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave method. Calculations are performed for the (3 3 1), (2 2 1), (5 5 3), (3 3 2), (7 7 5), and (4 4 3) surfaces, which have 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 atom-rows in the terrace, respectively. The following trends are identified: (i) The interlayer relaxations perpendicular to the surface scale almost linearly with the number of atom-rows in the terraces. (ii) The nearest-neighbor distances do not depend on the surface termination, but only on the local coordination. (iii) For Cu(p,p,p − 2) in which the topmost n surface layers have nearest-neighbor coordination smaller than the bulk Cu (calculated for the unrelaxed surfaces), the topmost (n − 1) interlayer spacings (d₁₂, … , d_n−1,n) contract compared with the unrelaxed spacing, while the nth interlayer spacing (d_n,n+1) expands. The next (n − 2) interlayer spacings (d_n+1,n+2, … , d_{2n−2,2n−1}) contract, while the interlayer spacing indicated by d_2n−1,2n expands. A similar rule was found for the relaxations parallel to the surfaces. These trends provide a better understanding of the atomic structure of vicinal Cu surfaces.