Peacock feather supported self assembled ZnO nanostructures for tuning photonic properties

Barbules of the peacock feather have been used as the natural template for developing assemblies of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanospheres. The different colored barbules consisting of various photonic crystals (extracted from eye-pattern) were characterized in terms of the stop-bands identified in the respective Reflectance spectra. The stop-bands of the photonic crystals are found to get red-shifted after the loading of ZnO nanospheres and was reasoned to the modification of photonic band gap. The ZnO nanosphere decorated barbules show well defined photoluminescence response with dominant defect related emission of ZnO. The artificially grown inorganic structures on natural templates form a basis of new hybrid system that can help in exploiting photonic band gap engineering and light wave modulation with high selectivity.     

Semileptonic (Λ b → Λcev) decay in a field theoretic quark model

The semileptonic decay width of heavy baryons such as (Λ _b → Λcev) has been estimated in the framework of a nonrelativistic field theoretic quark model where four component quark field operators along with a harmonic oscillator wave function are used to describe translationally invariant hadronic states. The present estimation does not make an explicit use of heavy quark symmetry and has a reasonable agreement with the experimentally measured decay width, polarisation ratio and form factors with the harmonic oscillator radii and quark momentum distribution inside the hadron as free parameters.     

Level structures of 95,97Mo — A comparative study

High-spin states of ^95,97Mo (Z=42, N=53,55) nuclei have been investigated through ⁸²Se(¹⁸O, xn) reaction at Eb=60 MeV. The level scheme in ⁹⁵Mo has been observed upto ≏ 10 MeV in the present experiment. The level structure shows mainly single particle character. In ⁹⁷Mo, the ground state level sequence has been extended to ≏ 4.5 MeV while the previous information had been up to 2.4 MeV. A negative parity band built on 1437 keV (11/2⁻) excited state has been extended to 5.5 MeV. The structure seems to show a coexistence of single particle and collective modes of excitation. Properties of both the nuclei have been compared with shell model calculations using OXBASH.     

Spin fluctuation and local magnetism of isolated Fe impurities in Pd<Subscript>1−x</Subscript>V<Subscript>x</Subscript> alloys studied by time differential perturbed angular distribution spectroscopy

The magnetic moment and spin fluctuation temperature of isolated Fe impurity atoms in Pd_1?xV_x (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.15) alloys have been studied by time differential perturbed angular distribution (TDPAD) technique. With increasing V content in Pd matrix, a large non-linear reduction of the local magnetic moment accompanied with an exponential increase of the spin fluctuation temperature T_SF has been observed. At and beyond x = 0.12, the Fe atoms are found to be nonmagnetic. As an important new feature, T_SF is observed to vary quadratically with composition dependent changes in host spin polarization.     

High spin rotational bands in 65Zn

The nucleus ₃₀ ⁶⁵ Zn was studied using the ⁵²Cr(¹⁶O, 2pn)⁶⁵Zn reaction at a beam energy of 65 MeV. The level scheme is extended up to an excitation energy of 10.57 MeV for spin-parity (41/2?) with several newly observed transitions placed in it.     

Analysis of $B^{0}_{d} \to \phi K^{{*0}} $ decay mode with supersymmetry

Motivated by the recent measurement of a low longitudinal polarization fraction in the decay mode , which appears not to be in agreement with the standard model expectation, we analyze this mode in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with the mass insertion approximation. Within the standard model, with the factorization approximation, the longitudinal polarization is expected to be . We find that this anomaly can be explained in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with either the LR or the RL mass insertion approximation. PACS. 13.25.Hw, 11.30.Er, 12.60.Jv Received: 9 May 2005, Revised: 26 July 2005, Published online: 30 August 2005     

Impact of Membrane Types and Catalyst Layers Composition on Performance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells

Performance of a low temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is highly dependent on the kind of catalysts, catalyst supports, ionomer amount on the catalyst layers (CL), membrane types and operating conditions. In this work, we investigated the influence of membrane types and CL compositions on MEA performance. MEA performance increases under all practically relevant load conditions with reduction of the membrane thickness from 50 to 15 μm, however further decrease in membrane thickness from 15 to 10 μm leads to reduction in cell voltage at high current loads. A thick anode CL is found to be beneficial under wet operating conditions assuming more pore space is provided to accommodate liquid water, whereas under dry operating conditions, an intermediate thickness of the anode CL is beneficial. When studying the impact of catalyst layer thickness, too thin a catalyst layer again shows reduced performance due to increased ohmic resistance ruled out the performance of the MEAs which have identical Pt crystallite sizes on the cathode CLs i. e. the thinnest the cathode CL, the highest the voltage were achieved at a defined current load. Adaptation of the operating conditions is highly anticipated to achieve the highest MEA performance.     

A potential Co36Fe36Si4B20Nb4 nanocrystalline alloy for high temperature soft magnetic applications

The paper addresses the structural, crystallization, soft magnetic and Curie temperature behaviour of Co₃₆Fe₃₆Si₄B₂₀Nb₄ alloy. The material, prepared in the form of ribbons by melt-spinning technique, was amorphous in the as-cast state. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed two stages of crystallization whereas thermal variation of electrical resistivity (TER) carried out to a higher range of temperature indicated three stages of crystallization. The first crystallization stage, which occurred at 845?K and 825?K in DSC and TER, respectively, was due to the formation of nanophase (CoFe)₂Si as evidenced by X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The formation of these nanoparticles reduced the magnetocrystalline anisotropy, thereby revealing good soft magnetic properties in the samples annealed between 825?K and 875?K with coercivity less than 49.9?A?m^?1 (627?mOe) and susceptibility?～?0.72?×?10³. In this optimum nanocrystalline state, the material also exhibited a high Curie temperature above 1100?K, opening the scope of the present nanocrystalline alloy for high temperature applications.