Crystallization and morphology of poly(vinylidene fluoride)/poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) blends. I. Spherulitic morphology and growth by polarized microscopy

The development of the poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) morphology in the presence of already existent poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) spherulites was studied by two‐stage solidification with two separate crystallization temperatures. PVDF formed irregular dendrites at lower temperatures and regular, banded spherulites at elevated temperatures. The transition temperature of the spherulitic morphology from dendrites to regular, banded spherulites increased with increasing PVDF content. A remarkable amount of PHB was included in the PVDF dendrites, whereas PHB was rejected into the remaining melt from the banded spherulites. When PVDF crystallized as banded spherulites, PHB could consequently crystallize only around them, if at all. In contrast, PHB crystallized with a common growth front, starting from a defined site in the interfibrillar regions of volume‐filling PVDF dendrites. It formed by itself dendritic spherulites that included a large number of PVDF spherulites. For blends with a PHB content of more than 80 wt %, for which the PVDF dendrites were not volume‐filling, PHB first formed regular spherulites. Their growth started from outside the PVDF dendrites but could later interpenetrate them, and this made their own morphology dendritic. These PHB spherulites melted stepwise because the lamellae inside the PVDF dendrites melted at a lower temperature than those from outside. This reflected the regularity of the two fractions of the lamellae because that of those inside the dendrites of PVDF was controlled by the intraspherulitic order of PVDF, whereas that from outside was only controlled by the temperature and the melt composition. The described morphologies developed without mutual nucleating efficiency of the components. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 873–882, 2003     

Distributed Transmit Antenna Selection (DTAS) Under Performance or Energy Consumption Constraints

Motivated by the transmit antenna selection (TAS) concept, used in Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output systems, we argue for distributed transmit antenna selection (DTAS), which corresponds to a method of selecting a subset of available relays in cooperative diversity systems. Assuming amplify and forward relays, the proposed selection method represents a low-complexity tool for determining the optimum relaying set. Two optimization problems are studied: the error probability minimization subject to total energy consumption constraints, and the dual one, the total energy consumption minimization under error performance constraints. Numerical examples verify the advantage of the proposed method in adapting the number of relaying terminals to the desired performance-consumption tradeoff.     

Investigation into Polarization of Unloaded and Loaded Microstrip Square-Ring Antennas

The polarization characteristic of unloaded and loaded square-ring microstrip antennas is investigated. Several different loading types like single-stub, dual-stub, notch, gap and shorting-pin are considered and their effects are studied. Loading enables feeding using a 50-Omega probe. The simulation and measurement results show that the loading techniques excite a loaded TMy ₁₁ mode that is orthogonal to the unloaded TMx ₁₁ mode. This indicates that by loading the ring antenna its polarization can be switched adaptively. However, the purity of the loaded and unloaded modes depends on the loading type. For some loading types like gap and shorting-pin, the excitation of the unloaded mode seems negligible, in comparison to the loadings by stub and notch. For the stub and notch loaded antennas the unloaded mode is also present, and its excitation efficiency is frequency dependent. Thus, their polarization plane, which is due to both loaded TMy ₁₁ and unloaded TMx ₁₁ modes, also becomes frequency dependant. The results of this investigation can be useful in selecting the loading methods for high-impedance microstrip ring antennas, and control of their impedance and polarization. The knowledge of the antenna polarization is essential in communications, and its dependence on the loading type can be used as an important parameter in design of adaptive antennas and sensors.     

Structure and properties of the mesophase of syndiotactic polystyrene. II. Effect of stepwise extraction on the preparation of the mesophase

In this study, a novel stepwise extraction method has been examined. The guest molecules housed between the helices of the clathrate δ form of syndiotactic polystyrene can be removed completely with this method. A systematic study of the preparation of a solvent‐free mesophase (emptied clathrate) membrane, its helical and residual solvent contents, and its structural transformations has been performed. In this first attempt, an enhancement in the TTGG helical content has been observed in the extracted membrane, and a conceptual mechanism is proposed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 269–273, 2003     

Comments on “A New Model of Two Directional Jc Distributions for Bi 2Sr2CaCu2O 8 Materials”

The authors comments on the claim of Takahashi et al. that the distribution model, utilizing the mixture of Gaussian distributions, for the local critical current density of superconducting materials they proposed is a new idea. The authors points out the the method have been known since 1886.     

Optical properties of doped bismuth telluride crystals in the region of plasma effects

The optical properties of bismuth telluride crystals doped with donor-and acceptor-type impurities are studied. The fact that energy corresponding to the resonance frequency of plasma oscillations of free charge carriers (plasmons) approaches the band-gap energy is detected in the infrared spectral region, where the main elementary excitations in the electronic system of these materials are observed. The mentioned approach of energies varies the intensity of electron-plasmon interaction, which affects the recombination processes in the materials widely used for the fabrication of thermoelectric energy converters.     

An efficient electron-beam-pumped semiconductor laser for the green spectral range based on II–VI multilayer nanostructures

Emission characteristics of an electron-beam-pumped Cd(Zn)Se/ZnMgSSe semiconductor laser are studied. The laser’s active region consists of a set of ten equidistant ZnSe quantum wells containing fractional-monolayer CdSe quantum-dot inserts and a waveguide formed by a short-period superlattice with the net thickness of ～0.65 μm. Lasing occurs at room temperature at a wavelength of 542 nm. Pulsed power as high as 12 W per cavity face and an unprecedentedly high efficiency of ～8.5% are attained for the electron-beam energy of 23 keV.     

Structural and Superconducting Property Variations with Nominal Mg Non‐Stoichiometry in MgxB2 and Its Enhancement of Upper Critical Field

By applying a combination of characterisation tools, changes in structural and superconducting properties with nominal Mg non‐stoichiometry in Mg_xB₂ are found. The non‐stoichiometry produces enhanced in‐field critical current densities (J_c's) and upper critical field / irreversibility field (H_c2/H_irr(T)) values. Upper critical fields of ～ 21 T (4.2 K) were obtained in nominal Mg‐deficient samples compared to ～ 17 T (4.2 K) for near‐stoichiometric samples.     

A 3-D Enlarged Cell Technique (ECT) for the Conformal FDTD Method

In this paper, we present an enlarged cell technique (ECT) to avoid the time step reduction encountered in the conformal finite-difference time-domain (CFDTD) method due to small irregular cells truncated by metallic boundaries. We focus our efforts on the discussion of the accuracy and stability of the ECT and its comparison with other conformal methods, especially the one called the uniformly stable conformal (USC) method. We also provide a simplified ECT, which is much easier to implement. In the ECT, a stability criterion is first constructed to identify instable irregular cells, i.e., those having so small an area to cause instability. Those instable cells are then enlarged into their adjacent cells to obtain a large, stable area. Careful treatment is performed on the communication between the intruding and intruded cells in terms of electromotive force by keeping the total electromotive force conservative. This technique is verified by several 3-D numerical experiments. Results show that the ECT is second-order accurate and numerically stable at the regular Courant time step limit.     

Total classes of composition systems of discrete signals in isomorphous Galois fields

It is proposed a rule of total classes of composition systems of discrete frequency signals (CDF-signals) construction in extended Galois fields. It is carried out modeling and research a correlation properties of CDF-signals, and determined their practical attraction.