Temperature and excitation wavelength dependencies of 3-pentanone absorption and fluorescence for PLIF applications

The temperature and excitation wavelength dependencies of 3-pentanone absorption and fluorescence were studied in support of planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) imaging of temperature and mixture fraction in flows of practical interest. The temperature dependencies (300–875 K) of absorption and fluorescence were measured for gaseous 3-pentanoneat atmospheric pressure in a nitrogen bath gas using 248, 266, and 308 nm excitation. The results indicate that the fluorescence signal per unit mole fraction using 248 nm excitation is highly temperature-sensitive below 600 K, while the signal from 308 nm excitation is not temperature sensitive below 500 K. For quantitative measurements over a broad range of temperatures, one must choose excitation schemes carefully to balance the trade-off between measurement sensitivity and the amount of signal at the expected conditions. As an example of such a choice and to show the capabilities of ketone PLIF techniques, we include temperature and mixture fraction images of a 300–650 K heated air jet using near-simultaneous 308 and 266 nm excitation. Received: 29 May 2002 / Revised version: 5 November 2002 / Published online: 26 February 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +1-650/723-1748, E-mail: jkoch@stanford.edu RID="**" ID="**"E-mail: hanson@me.stanford.edu     

A Raman and dielectric study of ferroelectric ceramics

Dielectric and Raman scattering experiments were performed on various ceramics with composition Ba(Ti_1-xZr_x)O₃. Such lead-free, environmental-friendly materials were shown, from dielectric measurements, to exhibit behaviours extending from conventional to relaxor ferroelectrics on increasing the zirconium concentration. The evolution of the Raman spectra was studied as a function of temperature for various compositions, and the spectroscopic signature of the corresponding phases was determined. In the relaxor state, the variation of the integrated intensity of the Raman lines with temperature showed a plateau at low temperature. This anomaly was also detected as a peak in depolarization current measurements, and attributed to ergodicity breaking which characterizes usual relaxor systems. Raman results hint at locally rhombohedral polar nanoregions resulting from the random fields associated with Zr ions. Received 25 September 1998     

Relativistic NJL model with light and heavy quarks

We study the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with light and heavy quarks in a relativistic approach. We emphasize relevant regularization issues as well as the transition from light to heavy quarks. The approach of the electromagnetic meson form factor to the Isgur-Wise function in the heavy-quark limit is also discussed.     

Stretched exponential relaxation on the hypercube and the glass transition

We study random walks on the dilute hypercube using an exact enumeration Master equation technique, which is much more efficient than Monte Carlo methods for this problem. For each dilution p the form of the relaxation of the memory function q(t) can be accurately parametrized by a stretched exponential over several orders of magnitude in q(t). As the critical dilution for percolation is approached, the time constant tends to diverge and the stretching exponent drops towards 1/3. As the same pattern of relaxation is observed in a wide class of glass formers, the fractal like morphology of the giant cluster in the dilute hypercube appears to be a good representation of the coarse grained phase space in these systems. For these glass formers the glass transition may be pictured as a percolation transition in phase space. Received 16 June 2000 and Received in final form 13 October 2000     

Amorphization and grain size effect on milled PbTiO3 studied by Raman scattering and visible photoluminescence emission

Raman scattering and photoluminescence (PL) studies on milled PbTiO₃ are presented in this paper. The results suggest that the visible PL emission could be related to both the localized states in the interface between the amorphous layer and the crystalline core and the amorphous layer itself. The Raman spectrum of PbTiO₃ milled for a long time showed the vibrational density of states, and a detailed analysis of the soft mode allowed us to conclude that the PbTiO₃ crystalline core did not experience any structural phasetransition. Received: 2 February 2001 / Accepted: 23 July 2001 / Published online: 17 October 2001     

Effective statistical weights of bound states in plasmas

Based on recent advances in the study of the statistics of interparticle distances and angles in plasmas, we develop an approach for the determination of the effective statistical weights of atomic (ionic) quantum states in ideal and nonideal plasmas. This approach allows one to account naturally for the effects of both the perturbation of the bound states by the neighboring ions and for the binding energy reduction due to the screening of the Coulomb interaction. We analyze the roles of tunneling and overbarrier escape of the optical electron from the parent ion potential well. The effects of neighbor ions and free electrons on these processes, and the simultaneous presence of several perturber ion species in the plasma are treated. We show that the present approach offers significantly more accurate effective-statistical-weight values in comparison to the existing theoretical treatments, and yields physical expressions for the empirical factors of the existing theories. Examples of calculations of effective statistical weights are given. The effects of the atomic (ionic) states collectivization on the collisional-radiative kinetics of dense plasmas are discussed. Received 10 August 2001     

High temperature phase transition in monohydrated L-asparagine crystal

Raman scattering has been used to investigate monohydrated L-asparagine single crystals for temperatures above 300 K in the spectral region between 20 and 3500 cm⁻¹. It is found that several phonon peaks characterizing the orthorhombic room temperature phase are notably suppressed in intensity for temperatures higher than ∼363 K. This is evidence of a new phase in this hydrogen-bonded crystalline system, and the transition is compared with both the high-pressure and the low-temperature phase transitions undergone by the crystal.     

Emission analysis of expanding laser produced lithium plasma plume in presence of ambient gas

Atomic analysis of the emission from laser-produced plasma from bulk lithium (Li) block has been made. The observed changes in the emission from lithium neutral and ionic species have been explained by considering various atomic processes. We demonstrate that the excitation process in case of neutral lithium Li (I) is electron impact excitation whereas for singly ionized lithium Li (II), radiative recombination is the dominant mechanism. We also show that the ionized species are dominant in the LPP plume.     

Polymer translocation in a double-force arrangement

Using Langevin dynamics simulations, we investigate the translocation dynamics of an externally driven polymer chain through a nanopore, where a pulling force F is exerted on the first monomer whilst there is an opposing force F _E < F within the pore. Such a double-force arrangement has been proposed recently to allow better dynamical control of the translocation process in order to sequence biopolymers. We find that in the double-force arrangement translocation becomes slower as compared to the case under a single monomer pulling force of magnitude F - F _E , but scaling of the translocation time as a function of the chain length ∼ N ² does not change. The waiting time (m) for monomer m to exit the pore is found to be a monotonically increasing function of the bead number almost until m N , which indicates relatively well-defined slowing down and control of the chain velocity during translocation. We also study the waiting time distributions for the beads in the chain, and characterize in detail fluctuations in the bead positions and their transverse position coordinates during translocation. These data should be useful in estimating position-dependent sequencing errors in double-force experiments.     

Individual bottle brush molecules in dense 2D layers restoring high degree of extension after collapse-decollapse cycle: Directly measured scaling exponent

We prepared dense films of adsorbed brush-like macromolecules on mica substrate by transfer of compressed Langmuir monolayers from water subphase. The main macromolecular contours in the dense films were clearly resolved by SFM. The films were subjected to successive treatments by ethanol and water vapours. In accordance with previous results for isolated macromolecules, the films underwent collapse and subsequent decollapse morphological transformations in the changing vapour environment. Statistical analysis of the macromolecular dimensions in the films allowed us to measure the values of the scaling exponent determining the correlation between mean lateral and linear dimensions of the macromolecules. The analysis showed that the macromolecular conformations in the film as transferred were similar to the previously described conformations of the same macromolecules deposited directly on mica as isolated chains at much lower surface densities. The determined was close to the 0.75 value corresponding to the 2D SAW statistics. We assumed that the molecules retained the high degree of extension during the compression step due to suppressed reorganisation of the side chains. Differently from previous observations for isolated macromolecules, the restored conformations in the dense films after collapse-decollapse cycle were more extended with the of about 0.73 value. A theoretical explanation of the high degree of re-extension is proposed.