EPR study of RLi2O.V2O5, RNa2O.V2O5, RCaO.V2O5, and RBaO.V2O5 modified vanadate glass systems

Experimental EPR spectra in several modified vanadate glass systems reveal hyperfine structure (hfs) lines whose widths vary with the molar ratio of modifier to vanadium pentoxide, R. In the RNa₂O.V₂O₅ system, for example, hfs lines show no resolution at low R values (near 0.1); by contrast, these lines exhibit dramatic narrowing as R approaches 0.5. In the model proposed here, this narrowing is due to an increase in hopping time for small polarons associated with V⁴⁺ ions in these systems. Increases in polaron hopping times are accompanied by increases in electron spin-spin relaxation times T₂'s, and, an associated narrowing of EPR linewidths. Experiments confirm that spectral widths are limited by electron T₂'s due to the fact that EPR linewidths do not vary with temperature down to 4.2 K. Resolved spectra in RNa₂O.V₂O₅ at R = 0.5 reveal a hyperfine coupling parameter of 0.0177 ± 0.0008 T, corresponding to an upper-limit polaron hopping frequency of 487 ± 20 MHz. By similar analyses, the systems of RCaO.V₂O₅, RBaO.V₂O₅, and RLi₂O.V₂O₅ exhibit comparable polaron hopping frequencies limits of 480 ± 20 MHz, 469 ± 20 MHz, and 468 ± 20 MHz, respectively, when R is near 1.0. In addition to the relaxation effects discussed here, results of modeling of resolved spectra to obtain hyperfine coupling constants A_|| and A_┴, and g_┴ values g_|| and g_┴ are presented and discussed.     

锂铅合金释氚实验研究

由于锂铅合金因具有高增殖比、低活泼性和可能作为冷却剂的特点,被认为是最有潜力的能源堆包层氚增殖材料。在理论模型描述熔融锂铅合金氚释放行为的基础上,开展了中子辐照后Li₁₇Pb₈₃合金的离线氚释放实验。结果表明: 释放氚的化学形式99％以上为难溶于水的成分（HT或T2）; 氚滞留时间随载气中氢分压的增加而减小,氢分压达到1000 Pa后变为常数,且与实体积无关;氚释放速率对温度的依赖性符合Arrhenius定律。以此为基础得到的氚在熔融锂铅中的动力学参数结果,虽与文献值有差异,但同样证明了在633—973 K的范围内, 氚从液态锂铅到气相的整个释放过程中起决定作用的是氚在合金内的扩散和气\|液界面的多相反应重组。Lithium\|lead alloy is considered to be one of the most prominent tritium breeding materials for the fusion reactor blanket because of its high breeding ratio, and low reactivity and possible use as coolant. An out\|of\|pile experiment of tritium release from Li₁₇Pb₈₃ alloy was performed after neutron irradiation on the base of mathematical model to describe tritium release behavior from an eutectic lithium\|lead alloy. The results suggest that the dominant chemical form of the released tritium (>99%) was the water\| insoluble component (HT or T2). Tritium residence time decreased with increasing H₂pressure in carrier gas up to 1000 Pa, and above this concentration limit it became constant and not influenced by the plenum volume. The temperature dependence of the tritium release rate can be described by an Arrhenius law. Consequently, the present results on the kinetic parameters of tritium in molten Li₁₇Pb₈₃alloy are considered to be different from the values in literature, but it is the same that the overall release process is governed by the diffusion of tritium atoms in the Li₁₇Pb₈₃and by the heterogeneous reaction at the gas\|eutectic interface of the tritium atom recombination at temperatures from 633 to 973 K.     

Vacuum-annealed Cu contacts for graphene electronics

We present transfer length method measurements of the contact resistance between Cu and graphene, and a method to significantly reduce the contact resistance by vacuum annealing. Even in samples with heavily contaminated contacts, the contacts display very low contact resistance post annealing. Due to the common use of Cu, and its low chemical reactivity with graphene, thermal annealing will be important for future graphene devices requiring non-perturbing contacts with low contact resistance.     

Digital flow control of electroosmotic pump: Onsager coefficients and interfacial parameters determination

Electroosmosis and streaming potential are two complementary electrokinetic processes related by the Onsager relation. In particular, an electroosmotic pump (EOP) is potentially useful for a variety of engineering and bio-related applications. By fabricating samples consisting of dry-etched cylindrical pores (50 μm in length and 3.5 μm in diameter) on silicon wafers, we demonstrate that the use of digital control via voltage pulses can resolve the flow regulation and stability issues associated with the EOP, so that the intrinsic characteristics of the porous sample medium may be revealed. Through the consistency of the measured electroosmosis (EO) and the streaming potential (SP) coefficients as required by the Onsager relation, we deduce the zeta potential and the surface conductivity, both physical parameters pertaining to the liquid-solid interface.     

Effects of doping on the surface energies of nanocrystals and evidence from studies at high pressure

Zn_1−XMn_XS (X=0.85% and 1.26%) nanoparticles have been synthesized using a specially designed equipment and we have studied the influence of doping Mn²⁺ on the surface energy of ZnS. The high pressure behaviors of ZnS nanocrystals with different dopant contents have been investigated using angle-dispersive synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction up to 45.1 GPa. Theoretical calculations show that doping with Mn²⁺ increases the surface energy of the nanocrystals. The theoretical result has been further corroborated by our experimental observation of an increase in the phase transition pressure of Mn²⁺ doped ZnS nanocrystals in diamond-anvil-cell studies.     

Effects of copper and oxygen vacancies on the ferromagnetism of Mn- and Co-doped Cu2O

The ferromagnetic properties of Mn- and Co-doped Cu₂O with copper and oxygen vacancies (V_Cu and V_O) are studied by first-principles calculations. The results indicate that Mn-doped Cu₂O has an antiferromagnetic state in the near configuration, while it has a ferromagnetic state for the far configuration. On the contrary, Co-doped Cu₂O possess a ferromagnetic state regardless of the distance between the two Co atoms. The observed ferromagnetism can be attributed to the 90° ferromagnetic super-exchange mechanism. The presence of V_O can enhance the ferromagnetism, whereas V_Cudepresses it.     

Freudenthal duality and generalized special geometry

Freudenthal duality, introduced in Borsten et al. (2009) [1] and defined as an anti-involution on the dyonic charge vector in d=4 space-time dimensions for those dualities admitting a quartic invariant, is proved to be a symmetry not only of the classical Bekenstein-Hawking entropy but also of the critical points of the black hole potential.Furthermore, Freudenthal duality is extended to any generalized special geometry, thus encompassing all N>2 supergravities, as well as N=2 generic special geometry, not necessarily having a coset space structure.     

Algebraic semantics and model completeness for Intuitionistic Public Announcement Logic

In the present paper, we start studying epistemic updates using the standard toolkit of duality theory. We focus on public announcements, which are the simplest epistemic actions, and hence on Public Announcement Logic (PAL) without the common knowledge operator. As is well known, the epistemic action of publicly announcing a given proposition is semantically represented as a transformation of the model encoding the current epistemic setup of the given agents; the given current model being replaced with its submodel relativized to the announced proposition. We dually characterize the associated submodel-injection map as a certain pseudo-quotient map between the complex algebras respectively associated with the given model and with its relativized submodel. As is well known, these complex algebras are complete atomic BAOs (Boolean algebras with operators). The dual characterization we provide naturally generalizes to much wider classes of algebras, which include, but are not limited to, arbitrary BAOs and arbitrary modal expansions of Heyting algebras (HAOs). Thanks to this construction, the benefits and the wider scope of applications given by a point-free, intuitionistic theory of epistemic updates are made available. As an application of this dual characterization, we axiomatize the intuitionistic analogue of PAL, which we refer to as IPAL, prove soundness and completeness of IPAL w.r.t. both algebraic and relational models, and show that the well known Muddy Children Puzzle can be formalized in IPAL.     

Mirror and synchronous couplings of geometric Brownian motions

The paper studies the question of whether the classical mirror and synchronous couplings of two Brownian motions minimise and maximise, respectively, the coupling time of the corresponding geometric Brownian motions. We establish a characterisation of the optimality of the two couplings over any finite time horizon and show that, unlike in the case of Brownian motion, the optimality fails in general even if the geometric Brownian motions are martingales. On the other hand, we prove that in the cases of the ergodic average and the infinite time horizon criteria, the mirror coupling and the synchronous coupling are always optimal for general (possibly non-martingale) geometric Brownian motions. We show that the two couplings are efficient if and only if they are optimal over a finite time horizon and give a conjectural answer for the efficient couplings when they are suboptimal.