Smith-Purcell Radiation in the Sub-mm Wavelength Region

Spontaneous Smith-Purcell radiation at wavelengths of 100 and 220m has been observed. The angles of observation were 17° and 28° and the electron beam energies 1.9 and 1.56MeV, respectively. The radiated power was about 320nW at 17° and 92nW at 28°. These values are in reasonable agreement with what is theoretically expected if the emission process is due to the acceleration of image charges induced on the grating surface by the electrons of the beam.     

Electrical and chemical characteristics of nano-meter gold encapsulated in mesoporous and microporous channels and cages of FSM-16 and Y zeolites

The dc and ac conductivities as well as the dielectric constant () were measured for different zeolites encapsulated gold (AuCl₃) samples at different temperatures (300-500 K) and various frequencies (5 kHz-1 MHz). The conductivity was found to change in the order Au/FSM-27>Au/NaY>Au/FSM-47. Sorbed water contained inside zeolites assists greatly the proton mobility (zeolite protons) and the ion mobility (Na⁺ and Au⁺) and hence enhance the electric conduction in the temperature range 300-373 K. Raising the temperature over 373 K induces dehydration effect that assists the metallic gold formation and thus a dramatic loss in conductivity was revealed. The conduction mechanism was expected to be partially ionic and partially electronic. The IR study showed that the exposure of Au zeolites to CO gas produced a characteristic band of Au⁺-CO at 2180 cm⁻¹ that tends to decrease with temperatures and even vanishes at 376 K in favor of Au⁰-CO at 2128 cm⁻¹. Similarly, a phase transition at 338 K, that occurs in the range 300-376 K, was confirmed by DTA to further emphasize the temperature regions of either Au⁺ cations (338 K) or Au⁰ (376 K) formation.     

Dielectric spectroscopy on Bi3Zn2Sb3O14 ceramic: an approach based on the complex impedance

The dielectric properties and loss of Bi_1.5ZnSb_1.5O₇ a poor-semiconducting ceramic were investigated by impedance spectroscopy, in the frequency range from 5 Hz to 13 MHz. Electric measurements were performed from 100 to 700 °C. Pyrochlore type phase was synthesized by the polymeric precursor method. Dense ceramic with 97% of the theoretical density was prepared by sintering via constant heating rate. The dielectric permittivity dependence as a function of frequency and temperature showed a strong dispersion at frequency lower than 10 kHz. The losses exhibit slight dependence with the frequency at low temperatures presenting a strong increase at temperatures higher than 400 °C. A decrease of the loss magnitude occurs with increasing frequency. Relaxation times were extracted using the dielectric functions Z″(ω) and M″(ω). The plots of the relaxation times τ_Z′ and τ_M″ as a function of temperature follow the Arrhenius law, where a single slope is observed with activation energy values equal to 1.38 and 1.37 eV, respectively.     

Solubility of Lanthanide Chlorides ( Ln Cl3) in Alkali Metal Chlorides ( M Cl): Thermodynamics and Electrical Conductivity of the M 3 Ln Cl6 Compounds

Summary.  Several compounds may exist in LnCl₃–MCl mixtures. Those corresponding to the M ₂ LnCl₅ and MLn ₂Cl₇ stoichiometries are formed in a few systems only, with diverse stability strongly dependent on both the corresponding lanthanide and alkali metal. On the other hand, M ₃ LnCl₆ that occur in most systems have a far larger stability range and melt congruently. These latter compounds were investigated in the present work by differential scanning calorimetry and electrical conductivity measurements. The thermodynamic and transport properties were correlated to structural features and related to the mechanism of compound formation. Corresponding author. E-mail: Marcelle.Gaune-Escard@polytech.univ-mrs.fr Received October 2, 2002; accepted November 6, 2002 Published online April 24, 2003 RID="a" ID="a" This paper is dedicated to Professor H. Gamsj?ger on the occasion of his birthday     

Constructing irregular surfaces to enclose macromolecular complexes for mesoscale modeling using the discrete surface charge optimization (DISCO) algorithm

Salt-mediated electrostatics interactions play an essential role in biomolecular structures and dynamics. Because macromolecular systems modeled at atomic resolution contain thousands of solute atoms, the electrostatic computations constitute an expensive part of the force and energy calculations. Implicit solvent models are one way to simplify the model and associated calculations, but they are generally used in combination with standard atomic models for the solute. To approximate electrostatics interactions in models on the polymer level (e.g., supercoiled DNA) that are simulated over long times (e.g., milliseconds) using Brownian dynamics, Beard and Schlick have developed the DiSCO (Discrete Surface Charge Optimization) algorithm. DiSCO represents a macromolecular complex by a few hundred discrete charges on a surface enclosing the system modeled by the Debye-Hückel (screened Coulombic) approximation to the Poisson-Boltzmann equation, and treats the salt solution as continuum solvation. DiSCO can represent the nucleosome core particle (>12,000 atoms), for example, by 353 discrete surface charges distributed on the surfaces of a large disk for the nucleosome core particle and a slender cylinder for the histone tail; the charges are optimized with respect to the Poisson-Boltzmann solution for the electric field, yielding a approximately 5.5% residual. Because regular surfaces enclosing macromolecules are not sufficiently general and may be suboptimal for certain systems, we develop a general method to construct irregular models tailored to the geometry of macromolecules. We also compare charge optimization based on both the electric field and electrostatic potential refinement. Results indicate that irregular surfaces can lead to a more accurate approximation (lower residuals), and the refinement in terms of the electric field is more robust. We also show that surface smoothing for irregular models is important, that the charge optimization (by the TNPACK minimizer) is efficient and does not depend on the initial assigned values, and that the residual is acceptable when the distance to the model surface is close to, or larger than, the Debye length. We illustrate applications of DiSCO's model-building procedure to chromatin folding and supercoiled DNA bound to Hin and Fis proteins. DiSCO is generally applicable to other interesting macromolecular systems for which mesoscale models are appropriate, to yield a resolution between the all-atom representative and the polymer level.     

Monte Carlo simulations of electron dynamics in N2/CO2 mixtures

Motivated by experimental investigations of electrical discharges in N₂/CO₂/H₂O, Monte Carlo (MC) electron dynamics simulations in atmospheric N₂/CO₂ mixtures were performed. The goal was to obtain electron energy distribution functions (EEDFs), mean free path, drift velocity, collision frequency and mean energy of electrons, rate coefficients of electron-impact reactions, ionisation and attachment coefficients, as functions of the reduced electric field strength (E/N) and of the concentration of individual gas components. The results obtained by MC simulations were fitted with polynomials of up to the 3rd order with reasonable accuracy for E/N above 80 Td. The studied parameters below 80 Td were strongly non-linear as functions of E/N. This is mostly due to the influence of elastic collisions of electrons with CO₂ molecules prevailing in CO₂-dominant mixtures for E/N < 40 Td, and vibrational excitation collisions of N₂ species prevailing in N₂-dominant mixtures for E/N from 40 to 80 Td. The effect of these electron-impact processes was specific for each of the studied parameters.     

Ionic conduction and effect of cation doping in Tl<Subscript>4</Subscript>HgI<Subscript>6</Subscript>

The ionic conduction properties of undoped and doped Tl₄HgI₆ were investigated using electrical conductivity, dielectrics, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffraction techniques. The heavy Tl⁺-ions diffusion was activated at high temperature, whereas low conductivity at the lower temperature suggested electronic contribution in undoped Tl₄HgI₆. The partial replacement of heavy Tl⁺ ion by suitable cations (Ag⁺ and Cu⁺) enhanced the conductivity by several orders of magnitude, whereas diminution in conductivity results with increasing dopants’ concentration in Tl₄HgI₆. These results can be interpreted in terms of a lattice contraction and vacancy–vacancy interaction (leading to the cluster formation), respectively. The dielectric values of undoped Tl₄HgI₆ system gradually increasing with temperature, followed by a sharp change, were observed around 385 K and can be explained on the basis of increasing number of space charge polarization and ions jump orientation effects. The activation energy of undoped and doped Tl₄HgI₆ systems were calculated, and it was found that ionic conductivity activation energy for 5 mol% of cation dopants is much lower than that of undoped one, and also 10 mol% doped Tl₄HgI₆ systems.     

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用Matlab软件对大气压均匀辉光放电等离子体(OAUGDP)激励器系统的电特性进行了仿真。在仿真模型中,等离子体放电被建模成一个电压控制的电流源:当加在气隙上的电压超过等离子体产生电压时,该受控电流源接通;电流源的输出电流和所加电压之间遵循幂律。建立了一个OAUGDP激励器系统中等离子体放电的电路模型。仿真结果与实际激励器系统的实验数据很吻合。仿真结果表明,在不同的运行条件下,放电电流与电压之间遵循不同的指数幂律,仿真放电电流波形也不同。     

Effects of process parameters on electrical properties of n-type Bi2Te3 prepared by mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering

n-Type Bi₂Te₃ thermoelectric materials were prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS) using mechanically alloyed powders. Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity of the resultant materials were measured, with emphasis on the effects of sintering process parameters on the electrical properties. The power factor was improved from 1.5 to 1.6 mW/mK² when the SPS pressure was increased from 20 to 50 MPa at 623 K, and was further increased to 2.1 mW/mK² under 50 MPa by raising the SPS temperature from 623 to 673 K. The maximum power factor was obtained for the sample sintered under optimized SPS process parameters, in which the sintering temperature and the sintering pressure are 673 K and 50 MPa, respectively.     

Low-energy effects in brane worlds: Liennard–Wiechert potentials and Hydrogen Lamb shift

Testing extra dimensions at low-energies may lead to interesting effects. In this work a test point charge is taken to move uniformly in the 3D subspace of a (3 + n)-brane embedded in a (3 + n + 1)-space with n compact and one warped infinite spatial extra dimensions. We found that the electromagnetic potentials of the point charge match standard Liennard–Wiechert’s at large distances but differ from them close to it. These are finite at the position of the charge and produce finite self-energies. We also studied a localized Hydrogen atom and take the deviation from the standard Coulomb potential as a perturbation. This produces a Lamb shift that is compared with known experimental data to set bounds for the parameter of the model. This work provides details and extends results reported in a previous Letter. We are pleased to dedicate this work to Professor Octavio Obregón on occasion of his 60th birthday. H. A. Morales-Técotl is an associate member of the Abdus Salam ICTP, Trieste Italy.