Bursts in single-file motion mediated conduction

We present a cellular automaton (CA) model of particles in a single-file motion with free particle exchange at the boundaries of a one-dimensional channel connected to two infinite reservoirs in order to study the self-transmission of particles with excluded mutual passage. The parallel, local and homogeneous rule sets of the CA algorithm consider two different interactions of varying strength between particles, without any specific particle-channel interaction. CA model results suggest that one hallmark of single-file motion is the conduction bursts at a particular time scale, which have thus far only been discovered for hydrogen bond networked water translocation. The cumulative transport probabilities of particles through single-file channels of different length follow a single profile, which can be obtained through proper scaling of time. The universal features of our results suggest new experiments in single-file channel with fluids other than water.     

Viscosity measurements of water at high temperatures and pressures using dynamic light scattering

The application of dynamic light scattering to measure viscosity of water at high temperatures and pressures is demonstrated. Viscosity was obtained from the translational diffusion coefficient of probe particles dispersed in the medium by the Einstein-Stokes relationship. Measurements were carried out with polystyrene latex, colloidal silica, and colloidal gold. Under a constant pressure of 25 MPa, good agreement was found between the measured and calculated viscosities up to 275 degrees C with the polystyrene latex, 200 degrees C with the colloidal silica, and 297 degrees C with the colloidal gold. It was found that failure of the measurements at high temperatures is ascribed to change in either the dispersion stability or chemical stability of the probe particles. The present results indicate that the technique could also be used for other supercritical fluids having high critical temperature and pressure, such as methanol (T(c) = 239.4 degrees C, P(c) = 8.1 MPa) and ethanol (T(c) = 243.1 degrees C, P(c) = 6.4 MPa).     

Ab initio studies on the electronic structure and properties of aluminum hydrides that are analogues of boron hydrides

Although the boron hydrides are well-known in the literature, the aluminum hydride chemistry is limited to very few systems such as AlH(3), its dimer, and its polymeric form. In view of the recent experimental studies on the possible existence of the aluminum hydrides, herein, we have undertaken a systematic study on the electronic structure and properties of these aluminum hydrides. Under this, we have studied different classes of hydrides, viz., closo (Al(n)H(n+2)), nido (Al(n)H(n+4)), and arachno (Al(n)H(n+6)), similar to the boranes. All the aluminum hydrides are found to have exceptionally large highest-occupied molecular orbital-lowest-unoccupied molecular orbital gaps, low electron affinities, large ionization potentials and also large enthalpy and free energy of atomization. In addition, most of the structures are also found to have high symmetries. These exceptional properties can be indicative of the pronounced stability, and hence, it is expected that other aluminum hydride complexes can indeed be observed experimentally.     

Aromatic superclusters from all-metal aromatic and antiaromatic monomers, [Al4]2- and [Al4]4-

Calculations on the structures of dimers of all-metal aromatic and anti-aromatic molecules such as (Al4(2-)) and (Al4(4-)) reveal that, unlike their organic counterparts such as benzene and cyclobutadiene which form pi-stacked complexes, these molecules form new clusters with no reminiscence of the original units. These clusters have a very large binding energy and can be further stabilized through charge-balance by counterions and solvents.     

Dispersion stability of colloids in sub- and supercritical water

Dispersion stability of colloids has been investigated in sub- and supercritical water by measuring the hydrodynamic diffusion coefficients of the particles by means of dynamic light scattering. It is interestingly found that coagulation of the colloids in sub- and supercritical water is a universal phenomenon irrespective of the material of the colloids. Highly charged colloids were found to be more stable in water against high temperature. Numerical analysis reveals that the stability of the colloids at elevated temperature and pressure is primarily governed by the temperature dependence of the dielectric constant of the medium. The effect of the temperature dependence of the ion product of water (pKw) was found to be very little. Surface charge density and Stern potential may change with respect to temperature due to the readjustment of the ion concentration in the diffuse layer through the enhanced ion product and reduced dielectric constant of water. These are the secondary causes of the particle coagulations in sub- and supercritical water.     

A Comparative Study of the Nonlinear Optical Properties of Cd<Subscript>n</Subscript>X<Subscript>n</Subscript> (X: S,Se and Te) Clusters

We report results of hyperpolarizability calculations on Cd_nX_n (X: S, Se and Te; n = 1–10) clusters. Our results show that the geometric configurations of different types of clusters under investigation are quite similar at specific values of n. Both static and frequency dependent components of first and second order hyperpolarizability tensors of Cd_nS_n, Cd_nSe_n and Cd_nTe_n are compared. It is observed that in general nonlinear optical coefficients show identical variation in all the cluster materials. The present investigation also manifests the improvement of these coefficients due to the introduction of asymptotically correct generalized gradient approximation functional over the local density functional and normal gradient corrected functional. Symmetrized fragment orbital analysis has been performed to provide explanation of the observed hyperpolarizability variation. We also analyse how geometries with closely lying energy values influence the hyperpolarizabilities of these cluster materials.     

Incoherently coupled two component screening photovoltaic solitons in two-photon photorefractive materials under the action of external field

The existence of incoherently coupled two-component steady state photovoltaic solitons in biased two-photon photorefractive materials due to two-photon photorefractive effect has been investigated. In the steady state regime, these incoherently coupled solitons can propagate in bright–bright, dark–dark and bright–dark configurations. The most important finding is that, with the application of electric field, it is possible to generate solitons and control them in those media where soliton formation was hitherto prohibited. Dynamic evolution of these solitons has been examined using numerical simulations, which show that these solitons are stable.     

Amplitude-squared squeezing in spontaneous degenerate hyper Raman process

The approximate analytical solutions of various field modes for spontaneous hyper Raman process are used to obtain the amplitude squared squeezing for pump field mode. We observe that the percentage of squeezing increases with the increase of the order.