Towards the synthesis of MAX-phase functional coatings by pulsed laser deposition

Pulsed laser deposition with a Nd:YAG laser was used to grow thin films from a pre-synthesized Ti₃SiC₂ MAX-phase formulated ablation target on oxidized Si(1 0 0) and MgO(1 0 0) substrates. The depositions were carried out in a substrate temperature range from 300 to 900 K, and the pressure in the deposition chamber ranged from vacuum (10⁻⁵ Pa) to 0.05 Pa Argon background pressure. The properties of the films have been investigated by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry for film thickness and stoichiometric composition and X-ray diffraction for the crystallinity of the films. The silicon content of the films varied with the energy density of the laser beam. To suppress especially the silicon re-sputtering from the substrate, the energy of the incoming particles must be below a threshold of 20 eV. Therefore, the energy density of the laser beam must not be too high. At constant deposition energy density the film thickness depends strongly on the background pressure. The X-ray diffraction measurements show patterns that are typical of amorphous films, i.e. no Ti₃SiC₂ related reflections were found. Only a very weak TiC(2 0 0) reflection was seen, indicating the presence of a small amount of crystalline TiC.     

Lagrangian skeletons,periodic geodesic flows and symplectic cuttings

In this paper, we investigate symplectic manifolds endowed with a Morse–Bott function with only two critical submanifolds, one of which is Lagrangian while the other one is symplectic.     

Mine operating accurate stability control with optical fibersensing and Bragg grating technology: the European BRITE/EURAM STABILOSproject

Recent developments of stability control in mines, essentially based on Ge-doped fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) are reported including results about the different aspects of the system: accurate characterizations of FBG, sensor network topology and multiplexing method, user interface design and sensor packaging     

Standards and industrial property

This article is primarily concerned with standards seen as a means for collective appropriation of technological information. It begins with an attempt to throw light on the relationships between standards, patents and licenses. Then we develop a two-stage duopolistic model whereby each firm must decide on a programme of standardization before choosing its level of production. The risks of multiple or inefficient equilibria are strong enough to justify the intervention of standardization organizations to inform and coordinate individual firms. But the paper also explains why some organizations likeetsi try to play a new role by promoting open access to master patents when used in the definition of a standard.     

Task Specific Onium Salts and Ionic Liquids as Soluble Supports in Grieco ’s Multicomponent Synthesis of Tetrahydroquinolines

In this work was presented an application of the use of task specific onium salts (TSOSs) as soluble supports in Grieco’s multicomponent synthesis of tetrahydroquinolines. These soluble supports are of wide applicability and combine advantages of solid phase synthesis without its limitations with those of solution phase chemistry. After a simple washing step, products were cleaved from the supports and obtained in pure form and good yields.     

Iterative methods and high-order difference schemes for 2D elliptic problems with mixed derivative

We derive a fourth-order compact finite difference scheme for a two-dimensional elliptic problem with a mixed derivative and constant coefficients. We conduct experimental study on numerical solution of the problem discretized by the present compact scheme and the traditional second-order central difference scheme. We study the computed accuracy achieved by each scheme and the performance of the Gauss-Seidel iterative method, the preconditioned GMRES iterative method, and the multigrid method, for solving linear systems arising from the difference schemes.     

Some global results for eigenvalue problems governed by a variational inequality

In this paper, we use the Leray-Schauder degree theory to obtain some information about the structure of the solution set of a large class of eigenvalue problems governed by a variational inequality. Applications are given to the unilateral postbuckling of a thin elastic plate.     

H‐self‐adjoint matrices. Application to radiosity

In computer graphics, in the radiosity context, a linear system Φx=b must be solved and there exists a diagonal positive matrix H such that H Φ is symmetric. In this article, we extend this property to complex matrices: we are interested in matrices which lead to Hermitian matrices under premultiplication by a Hermitian positive‐definite matrix H. We shall prove that these matrices are self‐adjoint with respect to a particular innerproduct defined on ?ⁿ. As a result, like Hermitian matrices, they have real eigenvalues and they are diagonalizable. We shall also show how to extend the Courant–Fisher theorem to this class of matrices. Finally, we shall give a new preconditioning matrix which really improves the convergence speed of the conjugate gradient method used for solving the radiosity problem. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.