Effect of aerosil dispersions on the nematic-to-isotropic interface

The effect of silica aerosils on the kinetics of the first-order nematic-isotropic (NI) phase transition is phenomenologically described in the framework of the time-dependent Landau-Ginzburg equation. A steady-state solution to the equation is presented such that the NI interface may propagate with a solitary-like wave profile under constant quenching. The results provide a plausible basis for the interpretation of the dynamical effects of quenched disorder in the liquid-crystal systems, caused by randomly interconnected porous media, such as aerosils. In the low silica aerosil ρ_s ( ≤0.1 g/cm^3) regime, the calculated values of the interface velocity v(T,ρ_s), the interface thickness κ(T,ρ_s), and the critical radius of a spherical nucleus of new nematic phase in a bulk isotropic environment, composed of polar molecules, such as 4-n-octyl- 4^′- cyanobiphenyl and 4-n-heptyl- 4^′- cyanobiphenyl shows that the effect of silica aerosils on the kinetics is reflected in a shifting of the set of temperature-dependent curves to lower temperature values.-1     

Polymer-assisted complexing controlled orientation growth of ZnO nanorods

The growth of the oriented zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods on silicon substrates based on a simple novel chemical transformation and thermal hydrolysis by using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as self-assembling complex polymer was introduced in this paper. All the polymers were removed after chemical oxidation and only the carbonized grid backbones remained that confines the ZnO nanorod’s diameter and enhance the absorption and diffusion of ZnO at the tips of the nanorods during growth. The ZnO nanorods are investigated by FTIR, XRD and FE-SEM. The results indicated that these nanorods have fine hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure and their diameter varies from 20 to 90 nm and the length up to about 1 μm. A polymer-localized ZnO growth model is proposed, which well explains the growth behavior of ZnO nanorods.This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected issue number.     

Rotational spectrum of cyclohexyl sarin

The rotational spectrum of cyclohexyl sarin (also known as GF) has been measured in a jet-cooled expansion using Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. Two spectra have been observed, each having splittings associated with the internal rotation of the CH₃P group. The observed V₃ barriers are similar in magnitude to those reported for other organophosphonate nerve agents. The two conformational structures of GF have been identified from comparisons of the observed rotational constants and dipole moment magnitudes with ab initio predictions at the MP2/6311G (d,p) level. These two structures are distinguished by the placement of the fluorophosphonate group at the equatorial and axial positions of the cyclohexane ring. The data also suggest that both conformers prefer a positioning of the FP group with the PO oxygen in an eclipsed orientation relative to the C₁ hydrogen on the ring.     

Modeling and simulation of mechanical properties of nano-particle filled materials

With the recent advances in nanoscale science and engineering, materials containing reinforcement with superior mechanical properties can be found in many advanced products. The accurate prediction of the mechanical properties of this class of composite materials is important to ensure the reliability of the products. Characterization methods based contact probe such as nano-indentation and scratch tests havebeen developed in recent years to measure the mechanical properties of the new class of nanomaterials. This paper presents a constitutive modeling framework for predicting the mechanical properties of nanoparticle reinforced composite materials. The formulation directly considers the effects of inter-nanoparticle interaction and performs a statistical averaging to the solution of the problem of two-nanoparticle interaction. Final constitutive equations are obtained in analytical closed form with no additional material parameters. The predictions from the proposed constitutive model are compared with experimental measurement from nano-indentation tests. This constitutive model for nanoparticle reinforced composites can be used to determine the volume concentration of the reinforcing nanoparticles in nano-indentation test.     

速度调制分子离子光谱信号对实验参量依赖关系研究

介绍速度调制分子离子光谱实验中光谱线强度对放电电流和混合气体各分量气压等实验参量的依赖关系,并测量得该光谱仪的测量极限为1.56×10-6 .     

Aluminum Complexes with a Donor Polymer: New Route to Organic/Inorganic Polymer Hybrids

The formation of alumina particles from aluminum salts in the presence of poly(1-vinylimidazole) was investigated by quantitative ²⁷Al NMR, potentiometry and FTIR spectra. The interaction of poly(1-vinylimidazole) with aluminum chloride and nitrate in an aqueous medium stabilizes [AlO₄Al₁₂(OH)₂₄]⁷⁺ and less ordered polymeric particles. The addition of NaOH (NaOH: Al 2) results in water-insoluble organic/inorganic hydrogen-bonded composites. Stabilization of the complexes is realized by cooperative hydrogen N···H—O—Al bonds, without N Al donor-acceptor interactions.     

Light scattering by longitudinal acoustic modes in supercooled molecular liquids II: microscopic derivation of the phenomenological equations

The constitutive equations for the orientational dynamics of a liquid formed of linear molecules are derived microscopically. The resulting generalised Langevin equations coincide with the phenomenological approach of Dreyfus et al. [1]. Formally exact expressions are given for the phenomenological coefficients and various constraints are shown to be consequences of this microscopic approach. Received 14 August 2002 Published online 4 February 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: franosch@hmi.de     

Phase transformations in highly excited clusters

In this communication we analyze the behavior of excited drops that undergo fragmentation. We focus our attention on two scenarios: in the first one the system is free to expand, while in the second one it is confined inside a spherical volume. It is shown that the caloric curve of free expanding systems does not display a vapor branch. In the case of constrained ones, they behave as undergoing a first order phase transition at low densities while as a second order one at high densities. The transition from liquid-like to vapor-like behavior is signaled both by the caloric curves and thermal response functions.     

Maximum norm stability of difference schemes for parabolic equations on overset nonmatching space-time grids

In this paper, theoretical results are described on the maximum norm stability and accuracy of finite difference discretizations of parabolic equations on overset nonmatching space-time grids. We consider parabolic equations containing a linear reaction term on a space-time domain which is decomposed into an overlapping collection of cylindrical subregions of the form , for . Each of the space-time domains are assumed to be independently grided (in parallel) according to the local geometry and space-time regularity of the solution, yielding space-time grids with mesh parameters and . In particular, the different space-time grids need not match on the regions of overlap, and the time steps can differ from one grid to the next. We discretize the parabolic equation on each local grid by employing an explicit or implicit -scheme in time and a finite difference scheme in space satisfying a discrete maximum principle. The local discretizations are coupled together, without the use of Lagrange multipliers, by requiring the boundary values on each space-time grid to match a suitable interpolation of the solution on adjacent grids. The resulting global discretization yields a large system of coupled equations which can be solved by a parallel Schwarz iterative procedure requiring some communication between adjacent subregions. Our analysis employs a contraction mapping argument.

Applications of the results are briefly indicated for reaction-diffusion equations with contractive terms and heterogeneous hyperbolic-parabolic approximations of parabolic equations.