Electrical generation of pure spin current with oscillating spin-orbit interaction

We propose an electrical scheme for the generation of a pure spin current without a charge current in a two-terminal device, which consists of a scattering region of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with Rashba (R) and/or Dresselhaus (S) spin-orbit interaction (SOI) and two normal leads. The SOI is modulated by a time-dependent gate voltage to pump a spin current. Based on a tight-binding model and the Keldysh Green’s function technique, we obtain the analytical expression of the spin current. It is shown that a pure spin current can be pumped out, and its magnitude could be modulated by device parameters such as the oscillating frequency of the SOI, as well as the SOI strength. Moreover, the spin polarisation direction of the spin current could also be tuned by the strength ratio between RSOI and DSOI. Our proposal provides not only a fully electrical means to generate a pure spin current but also a way to control the spin polarisation direction of the generated spin current.     

Application of atmospheric pressure microwave plasma source for production of hydrogen via methane reforming

In this paper, results of hydrogen production via methane pyrolysis in the atmospheric pressure microwave plasma with CH₄ swirl are presented. A waveguide-based nozzleless cylinder-type microwave plasma source (MPS) was used to convert methane into hydrogen. The plasma generation was stabilized by a CH₄ swirl having a flow rate of 87.5 L min^-1. The absorbed microwave power was 1.5–5 kW. The hydrogen production rate and the corresponding energy efficiency were 866 g (H₂) h^-1 and 577 g (H₂) kWh^-1 of microwave energy absorbed by the plasma, respectively. These parameters are better than our previous results when nitrogen was used as a swirl gas and much better than those typical for other plasma methods of hydrogen production (electron beam, gliding arc, plasmatron).     

Ultrafast Electron Diffraction with Spatiotemporal Resolution of Atomic Motion

Ultrafast electron diffraction （UED） is a rapidly advancing technique capable of recording the atomic-detail structural dynamics in real time. We report the establishment of the first UED system in China. Employing this UED apparatus, both the coherent and the concurrent thermal lattice motions in an aluminium thin-film, trigged by ultrafast laser heating, have been observed. These results demonstrate its ability to directly measure a sub-milli-angstrom lattice spacing change on a sub-picosecond time scale.     

First-principles calculations on elasticity of under pressure

First-principles calculations of the crystal structure and the elastic properties of OsN₂ have been carried out with the plane-wave pseudopotential density functional theory method. The calculated values are in very good agreement with experimental data as well as with some of the existing model calculations. The dependence of the elastic constants c_ij, the aggregate elastic moduli (B,G,E), Poisson’s ratio, and the elastic anisotropy on pressure has been investigated. Moreover, the variation of the Debye temperature and the compressional and shear elastic wave velocities with pressure P up to 60 GPa at 0 K have been investigated for the first time.     

c-director relaxation around a vortex of strength +1 in free-standing smectic-C films

The relaxation of director fields in freely suspended smectic films is studied experimentally by means of polarizing microscopy, and analyzed by solving the torque balance equation under appropriate initial and boundary conditions. We consider in particular the role of anchoring conditions of the c-director at particles and defects in the film. The structure of regular relaxation patterns allows to determine the elastic anisotropy of smectic materials. The splay elastic constant can exceed the bend constant by a factor of two and more. A remarkable consequence of this anisotropy is the stick-slip-like relaxation around a central defect of topological strength s = + 1.     

Strain gradient solution for a finite-domain Eshelby-type anti-plane strain inclusion problem

A solution for the finite-domain Eshelby-type inclusion problem of a finite elastic body containing an anti-plane strain inclusion of arbitrary cross-sectional shape prescribed with a uniform eigenstrain and a uniform eigenstrain gradient is derived in a general form using a simplified strain gradient elasticity theory (SSGET). The formulation is facilitated by an extended Betti’s reciprocal theorem and an extended Somigliana’s identity based on the SSGET and suitable for anti-plane strain problems. The disturbed displacement field is obtained in terms of the SSGET-based Green’s function for an infinite anti-plane strain elastic body. The solution reduces to that of the infinite-domain anti-plane strain inclusion problem when the boundary effect is not considered. The problem of a circular cylindrical inclusion embedded concentrically in a finite cylindrical elastic matrix undergoing anti-plane strain deformations is analytically solved by applying the general solution, with the Eshelby tensor and its average over the circular cross section of the inclusion obtained in closed forms. This Eshelby tensor, being dependent on the position, inclusion size, matrix size, and a material length scale parameter, captures the inclusion size and boundary effects, unlike existing ones. It reduces to the classical linear elasticity-based Eshelby tensor for the circular cylindrical inclusion in an infinite matrix if both the strain gradient and boundary effects are suppressed. Numerical results quantitatively show that the inclusion size effect can be quite large when the inclusion is small and that the boundary effect can dominate when the inclusion volume fraction is high. However, the inclusion size effect is diminishing with the increase of the inclusion size, and the boundary effect is vanishing as the inclusion volume fraction becomes sufficiently low.     

THE ADAPTIVE IMMERSED INTERFACE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR ELASTICITY INTERFACE PROBLEMS

In this paper, we propose adaptive finite element methods with error control for solving elasticity problems with discontinuous coefficients. The meshes in the methods do not need to fit the interfaces. We establish a residual-based a posteriori error estimate which is $λ$-independent multiplicative constants; the Lamé constant $λ$ steers the incompressibility. The error estimators are then implemented and tested with promising numerical results which will show the competitive behavior of the adaptive algorithm.     

Construction of multi-dimensional isotropic kernels for nonlocal elasticity based on phonon dispersion data

Kernels for non-local elasticity are in general obtained from phonon dispersion relations. However, non-local elastic kernels are in the form of three-dimensional (3D) functions, whereas the dispersion relations are always in the form of one-dimensional (1D) frequency versus wave number curves corresponding to a particular wave direction. In this paper, an approach to build 2D and 3D kernels from 1D phonon dispersion data is presented. Our particular focus is on isotropic media where we show that kernels can be obtained using Fourier–Bessel transform, yielding axisymmetric kernel profiles in reciprocal and real spaces. These kernel functions are designed to satisfy the necessary requirements for stable wave propagation, uniformity of nonlocal stress and stress regularization. The proposed concept is demonstrated by developing some physically meaningful 2D and 3D kernels that will find useful applications in nonlocal mechanics. Relative merits of the kernels obtained via proposed methods are explored by fitting 1D kernels to dispersion data for Argon and using the kernel to understand the size effect in non local energy as seen from molecular simulations. A comparison of proposed kernels is made based on their predictions of stress field around a crack tip singularity.     

Elasticity solutions for functionally graded rectangular plates with two opposite edges simply supported

England (2006) [13] proposed a novel method to study the bending of isotropic functionally graded plates subject to transverse biharmonic loads. His method is extended here to functionally graded plates with materials characterizing transverse isotropy. Using the complex variable method, the governing equations of three plate displacements appearing in the expansions of displacement field are formulated based on the three-dimensional theory of elasticity for a transverse load satisfying the biharmonic equation. The solution may be expressed in terms of four analytic functions of the complex variable, in which the unknown constants can be determined from the boundary conditions similar to that in the classical plate theory. The elasticity solutions of an FGM rectangular plate with opposite edges simply supported under 12 types of biharmonic polynomial loads are derived as appropriate sums of the general and particular solutions of the governing equations. A comparison of the present results for a uniform load with existing solutions is made and good agreement is observed. The influence of boundary conditions, material inhomogeneity, and thickness to length ratio on the plate deflection and stresses for the load x²yq are studied numerically.