Magnetic susceptibility of the compound (CH2)10(NH3)2FeCl4

The magnetic susceptibility of the compound (CH₂)₁₀(NH₃)₂FeCl₄ is measured in the temperature range from liquid nitrogen temperature up to room temperature. The effect of thermal and magnetic history on the data obtained is also discussed. It is shown that the compound is antiferromagnetic with a Néel temperature of 93 K but it appears that the antiferromagnetic intra-layer exchange interaction co-exists with a weak ferromagnetic interlayer interaction.     

Flow injection in-valve-mini-column pretreatment combined with ion chromatography for cadmium, lead and zinc determination

A flow injection (FI) in-valve-mini-column packed with Chelex-100 resin is proposed for on-line sample pretreatment for some metal ions, namely, Cd(II), Pb(II) and Zn(II), prior to simultaneous determination using ion chromatography (IC). A solution containing a mixture of the cations was first passed through the in-valve-mini-column, followed by on-line elution. The eluate was then flowed further to an injection valve and was injected into an ion chromatograph. Conditions of the system were optimized. A single standard calibration was possible. The recoveries of cations were found to be in the range of 95–105%. The developed method was applied to the accurate analysis of zinc ore samples.     

Dissociative photoionization of SiH4 in the 12–19 eV region

Relative photoexcitation spectra of ionic fragments SiH⁺₃, SiH⁺₂, SiH⁺ and Si⁺ originating from photofragmentation of molecular silane (SiH₄) have been measured in the 12–19 eV region using a time-of-flight mass-analytic method combined with synchrotron radiation as a light source. No SiH⁺₄ could be detected in a measurement time of a few microseconds. The excitation spectra show a maximum photoionization efficiency around 13.3 eV for SiH⁺₂ and around 14.8 eV for SiH⁺₃. Correlations between photoionization and dissociation are discussed. The assignment of the autoionization structure between 15 and 18 eV by Börlin et al. has been positively examined and extended to include two vibrational progressions composed of the ν₁ mode with a frequency of 1690 ± 60 cm⁻¹ and the ν₂ mode with 730 ± 80 cm⁻¹.     

Wear resistance of reactive plasma sprayed and laser remelted TiB2-TiC0.3N0.7 based composite coatings against medium carbon steel

Wear resistance of reactive plasma sprayed TiB₂-TiC_0.3N_0.7 based composite coatings and the as-sprayed coating with laser surface treatment was investigated using plate-on-plate tests. Wear tests were performed at different normal loads and sliding speeds under dry sliding conditions in air. The surface morphologies of counterparts against as-sprayed and laser remelted coatings were investigated. The microstructure and chemical composition of wear debris and coatings were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), respectively. The results show that the wear resistance of the laser remelted coating is improved significantly due to their increased microhardness and reduced flaws. The primary wear mechanism of the remelted coating is oxidation wear and its minor wear mechanisms are grain abrasion and fatigue failure during the course of wear test. In contrast, the primary wear mechanism of the as-sprayed coating is grain abrasion at the low sliding speed (370 rpm) and fatigue failure at the high sliding speed (549 rpm). The oxidation wear mechanism is a minor contributor for the as-sprayed coating.     

Intrinsic vacancy-induced nanoscale wire structure in heteroepitaxial Ga2Se3/Si(001)

A highly anisotropic growth morphology is found for heteroepitaxial gallium sesquiselenide (Ga2Se3) on the lattice matched substrate, arsenic-terminated Si(001). Scanning tunneling microscopy of Ga2Se3 films reveals nanoscale, wirelike structures covering the surface in parallel lines, less than 1 nm wide and up to 30 nm long. Core-level photoemission spectroscopy and diffraction reveals the local structure of buried Ga and Se atoms to reflect the bulk, defected zinc-blende structure of beta-Ga2Se3, which contains ordered 110 arrays of Ga vacancies. These ordered vacancy lines are proposed to be responsible for the observed growth anisotropy in heteroepitaxial Ga2Se3.     

Fourier Analysis of the SOR Iteration

The SOR iteration for solving linear systems of equations dependsupon an overrelaxation factor . We show that, for the standardmodel problem of Poisson's equation on a rectangle, the optimal and corresponding convergence rate can be obtained rigorouslyby Fourier analysis. The trick is to tilt the space-time gridso that the SOR stencil becomes symmetrical. The tilted gridalso gives new insight into the relationships between the Gauss-Seideland Jacobi iterations and between the lexicographic and red-blackorderings, and into the modified equation analysis of Garabedian.     

Electron-cluster interactions

Beam depletion spectroscopy has been used to measure absolute total inelastic electron-sodium cluster collision cross sections in the energy range fromE0.1 toE6 eV. The investigation focused on the closed shell clusters Na₈, Na₂₀, and Na₄₀. The measured cross sections show an increase for the lowest collision energies where electron attachment is the primary scattering channel. The electron attachment cross section can be understood in terms of Langevin scattering, connecting this measurement with the polarizability of the cluster. For energies above the dissociation energy the measured electron-cluster cross section is energy independent, thus defining an electron-cluster interaction range. This interaction range increases with the cluster size.     

Finite-temperature density-dependent HF calculation of nuclear matter with gogny interaction

A finite-temperature density-dependent Hartree-Fock method is formulated starting from a variational principle for the thermodynamic potential. Based on this method, we have carried out a nuclear-matter calculation using the Gogny D1 finite-range effective interaction. The equation of state and several other thermal properties of nuclear matter so obtained are found to be rather similar to those given by the Skyrme SkM¹ interaction. The critical temperature and density for the liquid-gas phase transition of nuclear matter are found to be 15.1 MeV and 0.05 fm⁻³, respectively. The effect of the finite-temperature rearrangement potential is discussed     

Ultra-Precise Mass Measurements Using the UW-PTMS

Based on the use of a single ion, isolated at the center of a cryogenically cooled Penning trap, an environment is produced which makes this mass spectrometer remarkably free of systematic errors. The most notable developments in our quest for an ultra-high accuracy instrument were (a) the compensation of the trapping potential, (b) the discovery that motional sidebands could manipulate radial energies, (c) the use of multiply-charged ions that could improve signal-to-noise, and (d) the use of an ultra-stable superconducting magnet/cryostat system with drift <0.010 ppb/h. The dominant systematic errors are associated with radial electric fields caused by image charges in the trap electrodes and with the rf-electrical drive field used to determine the harmonic axial resonance. To illustrate the potential of this improved spectrometer, the four-fold improved measurement of the proton's mass and the eight-fold improved measurement of oxygen's atomic mass will be described. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Linear algorithms for testing the sign stability of a matrix and for findingZ-maximum matchings in acyclic graphs

Summary Ann×n real matrixA=(a _ij ) isstable if each eigenvalue has negative real part, andsign stable (orqualitatively stable) if each matrix B with the same sign-pattern asA is stable, regardless of the magnitudes ofB's entries. Sign stability is of special interest whenA is associated with certain models from ecology or economics in which the actual magnitudes of thea _ij may be very difficult to determine. Using a characterization due to Quirk and Ruppert, and to Jeffries, an efficient algorithm is developed for testing the sign stability ofA. Its time-and-space-complexity are both 0(n ²), and whenA is properly presented that is reduced to 0(max{n, number of nonzero entries ofA}). Part of the algorithm involves maximum matchings, and that subject is treated for its own sake in two final sections.