On the effect of microscopic roughness of the metal surface on the surface plasmon dispersion relation and photoemission

The effect of microscopic surface roughness on the opical characteristics of metal is considered. The field near the rough surface has been calculated on the basis of integral equations containing only smoothly varying field components. It appears that the influence of surface plasmons can cause, as a result of drastic enhancement of the field at the surface, an increase by several orders in such observed surface effects as photoemission and Raman scattering by adsorbed molecules. The results of calculation are compared with the experimental data obtained from the study of photoemission from silver with rough surface. Expressions have been derived for the dispersion relation for surface plasmons on a rough surface.     

Determination of trace elements in water by radioisotope alpha-particle induced X-ray emission

An X-ray spectrometric system including²¹⁰Po -particle sources for excitation and a Si(Li) detector has been applied to determine the concentrations of trace elements in water samples. Thin targets were prepared by the evaporation of a known volume of water deposited on a Mylar backing. The system was calibrated using the internal standard method. Relative sensitivities were measured for 16 elements detected by their K, L and M X-rays. The results are compared with theoretical calculations. The minimum detection limits from 0.01 to 0.07 g/ml were obtained for 2000 s analysis time.     

Cationic crosslinking of solid dgeba resins with ytterbium(III) trifluoromethanesulfonate as initiator

Solid bisphenol-A epoxy resin of medium molecular mass was cured using a Lewis acid initiator (ytterbium(III) trifluoromethanesulfonate) in three different proportions (0.5, 1 and 2 phr). A kinetic study was performed in a differential scanning calorimeter. The complete kinetic triplet was determined (activation energy, pre-exponential factor, and integral function of the degree of conversion) for each system. A kinetic analysis was performed with an integral isoconversional procedure (free model), and the kinetic model was determined both with the Coats-Redfern method (the obtained isoconversional value being accepted as the effective activation energy) and through the compensation effect. All the systems followed the same isothermal curing model simulated from non-isothermal ones. The growth-of-nuclei Avrami kinetic model A_3/2 has been proposed as the polymerization kinetic model. The addition of initiator accelerated the reaction especially when 2 phr was added. 0.5 and 1 phr showed very few kinetic differences between them.