Small angle neutron scattering from oxygen precipitates in silicon

The formation of silicon oxide precipitates from Czochralski grown silicon depends on the time and temperature of the heat treatment as well as on the initial content of interstitially dissolved oxygen. Samples containing between 5×10¹⁷ O_i/cm³ and 13×10¹⁷ O_i/cm³ have been heated at 750° C for 96 h. SiO₂ precipitates of various shape and size have been obtained and investigated by means of small angle neutron scattering (SANS) in the Q-range 0.05 Å^–1<Q<0.2 Å^–1. The obtained SANS patterns reveal a typical anisotropy of their intensity distribution, which splits into a central peak at Q<0.1 Å^–1 due to the shape of the individual particles and a number of weak intensities for large Q-values, originating from a correlation between defects, possibly between the precipitates. While these correlation peaks in the SANS patterns are seen best for rather low values of about (5–7)×10¹⁷ O_i/cm³ oxygen content, the central peak anisotropy is most pronounced for higher values of ca 10×10¹⁷ O_i/cm³. The integrated intensity of the central peak increases with increasing initial oxygen content. For comparison, untreated samples of the same initial oxygen content do not reveal any anisotropic SAN scattering or a broadened central peak beam.     

Spline prewavelets for non-uniform knots

Summary In this paper, we develop a framework suitable for performing a multiresolution analysis using univariate spline spaces of arbitrary degree and with non-uniform knot-sequences. To this end, we show, among other things, the existence of compactly supported prewavelets and of prewavelets that are globally supported, but decay exponentially. In each case we obtain a decomposition of a fine spline space as a sum of a coarse spline space plus a spline space spanned by prewavelets.     

Crystal field and magnetic properties of the tetragonal TbNi2Si2 compound

The magnetic properties of a TbNi₂Si₂ single crystal have been investigated experimentally by specific heat, anisotropy of the susceptibility and magnetization, and inelastic neutron scattering, leading to the determination of its fundamental coupling parameters. The lowest crystalline electric field states are two singlets close to each other, that explains the different magnetic structures evidenced in TbNi₂Si₂: an amplitude modulated structure, close to T _N , a simple antiferromagnetic one at low temperature and an antiphase one when an external magnetic field is applied along the c direction.     

Selective saturation and inversion of multiple resonances in high-resolution solid-state 13C experiments using slow spinning CP/MAS and tailored DANTE pulse sequences.

Taking advantage of the long 13C T1 values generally encountered in solids, selective saturation and inversion of more than one resonance in 13C CP/MAS experiments can be achieved by sequentially applying several DANTE pulse sequences centered at different transmitter frequency offsets. A new selective saturation pulse sequence is introduced composed of a series of 90 degrees DANTE sequences separated by interrupted decoupling periods during which the selected resonance is destroyed. Applications of this method, including the simplification of the measurement of the principal values of the 13C chemical shift tensor under slow MAS conditions, are described. The determination of the aromaticity of coal using a relatively slow MAS rate is also described.     

Sputtering yield of chromium by argon and xenon ions with energies from 50 to 500 eV

A radioactive tracer technique is described for the quantitative measurement of the sputtering yield of a target material electroplated on a copper substrate. Sputtering yields of chromium by argon and xenon ions with energies from 50 to 500 eV are reported. The ion beams, having a current density ranging from 0.01 to 0.1 mA/cm² at an operating pressure of 2×10^–5 Torr, were produced by a low-energy ion gun. The sputtered atoms were collected on an aluminum foil surrounding the target. ⁵¹Cr was used as the tracer isotope. The results indicate that the radioactive tracer technique is sensitive enough in measuring the extremely small amount of sputtered material at low ion currents and low ion energies.     

Magnetic resonance imaging: a new window into industrial processing.

Although the most important use of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) continues to be for diagnostic medicine, recognition is being gained for many nonmedical applications. Examples include the following areas: petrogeology, food, agriculture, polymers and polymer-composites, and pharmaceuticals. These areas all involve studies of species that have short spin-spin relaxation times, and consequently need far fast gradient switching. These technical details are discussed and typical applications given.     

Optical switching between bistable soliton states: a theoretical review

In this paper we summarize what is currently known about optical switching between bright bistable soliton states in one and higher dimensions. A guideline to selecting media with appropriate intensity-dependent refractive indices to support bistable solitary waves is presented. The stability criterion for robustness of the solitary waves is discussed. Finally, some methods and numerical examples of optical switching are presented.     

An Overview of Scheduling Problems Arising in Satellite Communications

Satellite communications, like batches of work in a job shop, need to be scheduled in order to use their resources as efficiently as possible. The most common satellite communications system in use today is known as Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), in which data from earth stations is buffered before being transmitted to the appropriate receiver on a satellite. Cycles of transmission are fixed for all stations. Since the same satellite will be used for routeing data in several different ways, a schedule must be devised to use the receivers, repeaters and transmitters on board to minimize the time needed for completion of a batch of work. This paper is a survey of current scheduling algorithms used for optimizing satellite communications resources. Apart from telecommunications, the methods presented here could be applied to more general scheduling problems with renewable resources but without precedence constraints.     

Dynamic Point Location in General Subdivisions

The dynamic planar point location problem is the task of maintaining a dynamic set S of n nonintersecting (except possibly at endpoints) line segments in the plane under the following operations:

• Locate (: point): Report the segment immediately above , i.e., the first segment intersected by an upward vertical ray starting at ;

• Insert (: segment): Add segment to the collection of segments;

• Delete (: segment): Remove segment from the collection of segments.

We present a solution which requires space O(n) and has query and insertion time O(log n log log n) and deletion time O(log²n). The bounds for insertions and deletions are amortized. A query time below O(log²n) was previously only known for monotone subdivisions and subdivisions consisting of horizontal segments and required nonlinear space.