Changes in the structure of composite colloid-polymer xerogels after cold isostatic pressing

Monolithic gels, prepared from different mixtures of colloidal silica in a sol solution containing tetraethoxysilane under powerful ultrasonic agitation (sonosols), were compacted at an isostatic pressure of 390 MPa. Then N₂ adsorption-desorption data were used to construct structural models of the gels using Monte-Carlo calculations on the basis of random close-packing (RCP) premises. Structural information on these composites obtained before compaction indicates that the characteristic uniform structure of silica colloid gel undergoes profound modification when it is mixed with silica sonogel. From a structural point of view, the behaviour under compaction of the sonogel phase, which exhibits a significant degree of microporosity, depends on the relative concentration of the colloidal phase. Two hierarchic levels of micropores were discerned. After compression, the size of the elementary particles—and their aggregates—of the sonogel phase increases from 1.6 to 2.1 nm radius when the colloidal phase content is increased from 30 to 82% by weight. For an intermediate content, 50% of the volume reduction is caused by compression of the sonogel phase at the micropore level.     

Discharge characteristic of very high frequency capacitively coupled argon plasma

The discharge characteristics of capacitively coupled argon plasmas driven by very high frequency discharge are studied. The mean electron temperature and electron density are calculated by using the Ar spectral lines at different values of power(20 W–70 W) and four different frequencies(13.56 MHz, 40.68 MHz, 94.92 MHz, and 100 MHz). The mean electron temperature decreases with the increase of power at a fixed frequency. The mean electron temperature varies nonlinearly with frequency increasing at constant power. At 40.68 MHz, the mean electron temperature is the largest. The electron density increases with the increase of power at a fixed frequency. In the cases of driving frequencies of 94.92 MHz and 100 MHz, the obtained electron temperatures are almost the same, so are the electron densities. Particle-in-cell/MonteCarlo collision(PIC/MCC) method developed within the Vsim 8.0 simulation package is used to simulate the electron density, the potential distribution, and the electron energy probability function(EEPF) under the experimental condition.The sheath width increases with the power increasing. The EEPF of 13.56 MHz and 40.68 MHz are both bi-Maxwellian with a large population of low-energy electrons. The EEPF of 94.92 MHz and 100 MHz are almost the same and both are nearly Maxwellian.     

Reconstruction and interpretation of photon Doppler velocimetry spectrum for ejecta particles from shock-loaded sample in vacuum

The photon Doppler velocimetry(PDV) spectrum is investigated in an attempt to reveal the particle parameters of ejecta from shock-loaded samples in a vacuum. A GPU-accelerated Monte–Carlo algorithm, which considers the multiplescattering effects of light, is applied to reconstruct the light field of the ejecta and simulate the corresponding PDV spectrum.The influence of the velocity profile, total area mass, and particle size of the ejecta on the simulated spectra is discussed qualitatively. To facilitate a quantitative discussion, a novel theoretical optical model is proposed in which the singlescattering assumption is applied. With this model, the relationships between the particle parameters of ejecta and the peak information of the PDV spectrum are derived, enabling direct extraction of the particle parameters from the PDV spectrum.The values of the ejecta parameters estimated from the experimental spectrum are in good agreement with those measured by a piezoelectric probe.     

Influences of flexible defect on the interplay of supercoiling and knotting of circular DNA

Knots are discovered in biophysical systems, such as DNA and proteins. Knotted portions in knotted DNA are significantly bent and their corresponding bending angles are comparable with or larger than the sharp bending angle resulting in flexible defects. The role of flexible defects in the interplay of supercoiling and knotting of circular DNA were predicted by a Monte Carlo simulation. In knotted DNA with a particular knot type, a flexible defect noticeably enhances the supercoiling of the knotted DNA and the decreasing excitation energy makes the knotted portion more compact. A reduction in twist rigidity and unwinding of flexible defects are incorporated into the numerical simulations, so that interplay of supercoiling and knotting of circular DNA is studied under torsional conditions. Increasing unwinding not only results in a wider linking number distribution, but also leads to a drift of the distribution to lower values. A flexible defect has obvious effects on knotting probability. The summation of equilibrium distribution probability for nontrivial knotted DNA with different contour length does not change with excitation energy monotonically and has a maximum at an intermediate value of excitation energy around 5 kBT. In the phase space of knot length and gyration radius of knotted DNA, knot length does not anticorrelate with its gyration radius, which is attributed to the flexible defect in the knotted portion, which leads to the release of bending energy and inhibited the competition between entropy and bending energy.     

Influence of the Coulomb forces on the thermodynamic and transport properties of non stoichiometric cerium dioxide

Abstract

In this study, it is demonstrated that the Coulomb interactions explains the essential of experimental thermodynamic and transport thermodynamic results.     

非视线紫外光大气传输模型的建立及验证

基于蒙特卡罗方法建立了非视线紫外光传输模型。利用此模型模拟了不同传输距离、不同发射和接收仰角等多种传输条件下的传输情况,并在同等条件下进行了相关实验。结果表明,在相同条件下,信号强度模拟曲线与实验曲线的变化趋势相同且吻合较好,但具有一定的误差。进一步分析指出,模型中大气散射系数、吸收系数、分子散射比、传输测试距离等参数的误差影响了模拟结果的准确,以及模拟与实验曲线的吻合程度。     

Dynamics of gold clusters on amorphous carbon films induced by annealing in a transmission electron microscope

The change of the size distribution of Au clusters induced by annealing was studied in situ by transmission electron microscopy. Starting from statistically distributed Au clusters on a thin amorphous carbon film, “islands” are formed within a few months storage at room temperature, which consist of Au clusters with sizes <4 nm embedded in a thin Au film. These islands cover originally areas with sizes around 25 × 70 nm². If the temperature is increased in the transmission electron microscope two different processes can be clearly distinguished that lead to the coarsening of the cluster size distribution: cluster coalescence and (contactless) Ostwald ripening. The degree and rate of the coarsening are found to depend on the underlying surface (Au film or amorphous carbon) and the exposure to the high-flux high-energy electron beam, which can be estimated to lead to high-temperature excursions in a cluster on a 10⁻¹² s time scale. The experimental findings are confirmed by Monte-Carlo simulations using the many-body Gupta potentials in order to calculate the Au/Au interaction. Moreover, the results of MC simulations suggest an electron-beam induced formation of a “quasi-two-dimensional gas” of small highly mobile Au species on the Au film, which promotes Ostwald ripening.     

Convergence of a non-failable mean-field particle system

The existing literature contains many examples of mean-field particle systems converging to the distribution of a Markov process conditioned to not hit a given set. In many situations, these mean-field particle systems are failable, meaning that they are not well defined after a given random time. Our first aim is to introduce an original mean-field particle system, which is always well defined and whose large number particle limit is, in all generality, the distribution of a process conditioned to not hit a given set. Under natural conditions on the underlying process, we also prove that the convergence holds uniformly in time as the number of particles goes to infinity. As an illustration, we show that our assumptions are satisfied in the case of a piece-wise deterministic Markov process.     

Necessary and sufficient conditions for existence of stationary solutions of some nonlinear stochastic systems

At the state of statistical stationarity, the response of a nonlinear system under multiplicative random excitations can be either trivial or non-trivial, depending on the spectral levels of the excitations and the values of certain system parameters. Assuming that the random excitations are Gaussian white noises, the two types of response may be investigated by way of their stationary densities, which are obtainable for first order dynamical systems and for higher order dynamical systems belonging to the class of generalized stationary potential. Alternatively, the Lyapunov exponents can be computed for perturbation from either the trivial or non-trivial solution, since a negative sign for the greatest Lyapunov exponent provides both the necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of sample functions with probability one. It is shown in two specific examples, that the boundary at which the greatest Lyapunov exponent changes its sign coincides with the boundary for regularity (or being normalizable) for the probability density in both the trivial and non-trivial solutions. Thus, the stability conditions in the strong sense of probability one and the weak sense in distribution are identical in these cases.