N.M.R. study of collective molecular motions in smectogen liquid crystals

Abstract

The proton spin relaxation dispersion, T ₁(v), was studied by field-cycling techniques over a broad Larmor frequency range in the nematic and smectic phases of several liquid crystals (4,4′-bis-heptyloxyazoxybenzene, 4-cyano-4′-8-alkylbiphenyl, 4-cyano-4′-9-alkylbiphenyl, 4-cyano-4′-11-alkylbiphenyl and 4-cyano-4′-9-alkoxybiphenyl) with different sites of the nitrogen atom. The results can be explained quantitatively in terms of nematic and smectic order fluctuations (T ₁ ∝ v ^1/2, T ₁ ∝ v ¹), molecular self-diffusion, molecular rotations and up to six cross-relaxation resonances due to a nitrogen-proton coupling The order fluctuations contribution and the transition from the v ^1/2 to the v ¹ dispersion profile occurs always at Larmor frequencies in the kilohertz range. Some additional measurements of the frequency dependence of the dipolar relaxation time T _1D(v), are not in accord with existing theories.     

Three-dimensional high-inductance birdcage coil for NQR applications

A birdcage coil capable of operating simultaneously and independently in three orthogonal dimensions has been developed. A co-rotational end-ring mode producing an RF field in the longitudinal direction was utilized in addition to the two common transverse orthogonal modes. Two conductor turns were used for each of the coil's windows, increasing its inductance by a factor of four, thereby, making the coil suitable for low-frequency applications. Two or three-frequency detection can be easily carried out with this device. Orthogonality of the coil's channels allows arbitrarily close frequency positioning of each resonant mode, potentially useful in wide-line NQR studies, in which simultaneous excitation/detection of signals from three adjacent regions of a single wide line can be performed. The coil's performance was evaluated using a three-dimensional scheme, in which a circularly polarized experiment was combined with a linearly polarized measurement at another frequency, resulting in SNR improvement by 55%.     

Water dynamics in ionic magnetic colloids studied by H nuclear magnetic resonance

In a previous nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study we observed that the NMR spectra of water in both surfacted and ionic ferrofluids are asymmetric and several orders of magnitude wider than the one of pure water. It has been proposed that this effect is produced by extremely strong magnetic field gradients in the intergrain volume and/or by surface interactions between the carrier liquid molecules and the grains surface. In the case of aqueous ionic ferrofluids the latter possibility should be interpreted as electric interactions between water (polar) molecules and the charges in the grain surface.

In this work we study a series of ionic and surfacted ferrofluids prepared at different magnetic grain concentrations and sizes, and with different surface charge densities. Our experiments clearly show that the sign and the density of the electric charge on the magnetic grains have no influence on NMR spectra. On the other hand, spectral widths increase with the magnetic grain concentration.     

Control of density fluctuations and electron transport in the reversed-field pinch

Contrary to what has been observed thus far collision-induced light scattering (CILS) can be completely polarized. This exceptional behavior characterizes the very far wing of the binary CILS spectrum by gaseous helium. This conclusion is drawn from an experimental study of the depolarization ratio of He (2) in a much extended, previously unexplored, spectral domain. Our analysis shows that this property, unique thus far, is mainly due to an almost perfect cancellation between polarization and exchange pair polarizability contributions to the depolarized spectrum, taking place at internuclear distances shorter than the atomic diameter.     

Dynamics of the field-induced formation of hexagonal zipped-chain superstructures in magnetic colloids

Combining nuclear magnetic resonance and molecular dynamics simulations, we unravel the long-time dynamics of a paradigmatic colloid with strong dipole-dipole interactions. In a homogeneous magnetic field, ionic ferrofluids exhibit a stepwise association process from ensembles of monomers over stringlike chains to bundles of hexagonal zipped-chain patches. We demonstrate that attractive van der Waals interactions due to charge-density fluctuations in the magnetic particles play the key role for the dynamical stabilization of the hexagonal superstructures against thermal dissociation. Our results give insight into the dynamics of self-organization in systems dominated by dipolar interactions.     

Qualitative properties of modified equations

Suppose that a consistent one-step numerical method of orderr is applied to a smooth system of ordinary differential equations.Given any integer m 1, the method may be shown to be of orderr + m as an approximation to a certain modified equation. Ifthe method and the system have a particular qualitative propertythen it is important to determine whether the modified equationsinherit this property. In this article, a technique is introducedfor proving that the modified equations inherit qualitativeproperties from the method and the underlying system. The techniqueuses a straightforward contradiction argument applicable toarbitrary one-step methods and does not rely on the detailedstructure of associated power series expansions. Hence the conclusionsapply, but are not restricted, to the case of Runge-Kutte methods.The new approach unifies and extends results of this type thathave been derived by other means: results are presented forintegral preservation, reversibility, inheritance of fixed points.Hamiltonian problems and volume preservation. The techniquealso applies when the system has an integral that the methodpreserves not exactly, but to order greater than r. Finally,a negative result is obtained by considering a gradient systemand gradient numerical method possessing a global property thatis not shared by the associated modified equations.