Growth of Pure Zinc Blende GaAs Nanowires: Effect of Size and Density of Au Nanoparticles

Pure zinc blende GaAs nanowires were grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition on GaAs（111）B substrates via Au catalyzed vapor-liquid-solid mechanism. The diameter, size distribution, and density of Au particles can be changed by varying the Au film thickness. We find that the grown nanowires are of rod-like shapes and pure zinc blende structure; moreover, the growth rate depends on the density of Au particles and it is independent of its diameters. It can be concluded that the nanowire was grown with main contributions from the direct impingement of vapor species onto the Au-Ga droplets and contributions from adatom diffusion can be negligible. The results indicate that the droplet acts as a catalyst rather than an adatom collector.     

Growth mechanisms for wire-like epitaxial gold silicide islands on Si(1 1 0) surfaces

Epitaxial islands grown on various substrates are usually strained because of differences in lattice constants of the materials of the island and the substrate. Shape transition in the growth of strained islands has been proposed as a mechanism for strain relief and a way to form self-organized quantum wires. Shape transition usually leads to an elongated island growth. However, an elongated island growth may also be due to an anisotropic diffusion of material, the anisotropy being imposed by the symmetry of the substrate surface. In the present example, growth of gold silicide wire-like nanostructures on a Si(1 1 0) surface has been investigated by photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM). Growth of elongated unidirectional gold silicide islands, with an aspect ratio as large as 12:1, has been observed by PEEM following gold deposition on the Si substrate and subsequent annealing at the Au-Si eutectic temperature. Distribution of the width and the length of the gold silicide islands as a function of island area shows a feature similar to that for the shape transition. However, detailed investigations reveal that the elongated growth of gold silicide islands is rather mainly due to anisotropic diffusion of gold due to the twofold symmetry of the (1 1 0) surface of the Si substrate.     

Aggregation of particles settling in shear-thinning fluids

We have experimentally studied the coaxial settling of three identical non-Brownian spheres in a shear-thinning fluid at small Reynolds numbers. While settling, the particles create corridors of reduced viscosity in their wake and, if they are initially close enough to one another, they can form stable clusters. By analogy with previous results obtained on two-particle interaction in the first part of this work, we show that the particle velocities can be satisfactorily described using a first-order expression and assuming that the reduced viscosity remains constant. We report systematic experiments performed at different initial separation distances between particles and the use of our simple model allows the prediction of the settling behaviour and in particular the conditions for clusters formation. We thus show that particle aggregation can occur even for large initial distances between particles and within times that are small compared to the time scales in Newtonian fluids. Received 10 July 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: talini@fast.u-psud.fr     

Planarity and stability of shock driven directly by the ninth laser beam from “Shenguang-II" laser facility

Using the ninth laser beam (converted to 2ω) of “Shenguang-II” laser facility and the beam smoothing technology of lens-array [Appl. Opt. 25, 377 (1986); Phys. Plasmas. 9, 3201 (1995)], a shock wave with 700 μm (the root-mean-square of shock breakout time (RMS) RMS ≈ 6.32 ps) flat top was created. An Al-Al four-step target was designed to do research on shock wave stability in an Al target. And the shock stability experiment with the Al-Al four-step target indicated that the shock wave steadily propagated in the Al target of thickness of about 20–45 μm under the power density of ~ 1.0×10¹⁴ W/cm².     

Hammerstein system represention of financial volatility processes

We show new modeling aspects of stock return volatility processes, by first representing them through Hammerstein Systems, and by then approximating the observed and transformed dynamics with wavelet-based atomic dictionaries. We thus propose an hybrid statistical methodology for volatility approximation and non-parametric estimation, and aim to use the information embedded in a bank of volatility sources obtained by decomposing the observed signal with multiresolution techniques. Scale dependent information refers both to market activity inherent to different temporally aggregated trading horizons, and to a variable degree of sparsity in representing the signal. A decomposition of the expansion coefficients in least dependent coordinates is then implemented through Independent Component Analysis. Based on the described steps, the features of volatility can be more effectively detected through global and greedy algorithms. Received 31 December 2001     

Reprint of : Absorbing/Emitting Phonons with one dimensional MOSFETs

We consider nanowires in the field effect transistor device configuration. Modeling each nanowire as a one dimensional lattice with random site potentials, we study the heat exchanges between the nanowire electrons and the substrate phonons, when electron transport is due to phonon-assisted hops between localized states. Shifting the nanowire conduction band with a metallic gate induces different behaviors. When the Fermi potential is located near the band center, a bias voltage gives rise to small local heat exchanges which fluctuate randomly along the nanowire. When it is located near one of the band edges, the bias voltage yields heat currents which flow mainly from the substrate towards the nanowire near one boundary of the nanowire, and in the opposite direction near the other boundary. This opens interesting perspectives for heat management at submicron scales: arrays of parallel gated nanowires could be used for a field control of phonon emission/absorption.     

A note on the screening of hydrodynamic interactions, in electrophoresis, and in porous media

We consider two situations where hydrodynamic interactions are said to be “screened”: hydrodynamics in a gel or in a porous medium, and electrophoresis in an electrolyte. We focus on the corresponding Green functions, and show that the flow fields are similar in the two cases. Contrarily to statements often made, the fluid velocity decays algebraically with distance (), i.e. not exponentially. We point out that the pressure fields are different in the two cases. Received 23 March 2000     

Acoustic behaviour of high pressure air-filled porous media

This paper deals with the acoustic behaviour of porous media when the saturating fluid is high pressured. These observations are performed by ultrasonic transmission through a porous sample with variations of the static pressure of the saturating fluid. Previous works have experimentally demonstrated that a high frequency asymptotic equivalent fluid model allows to model the behaviour of such media for low pressure (between 0.2 and 6 bars). In this paper, in order to characterize high damping materials, measurements are performed for higher static pressure (up to 18 bars). It is shown that the behaviour of transmission coefficient and speed with pressure follows Biot’s theory. Moreover, measurements are dependant on temperature variations. Temperature variations have been accounted for in this study, but this does not explain entirely the high sensitivity of the transmission coefficient with static pressure. It remains that the mechanical properties of the porous medium vary strongly with the thermodynamic variables.     

Hydrodynamic screening and axisymmetric turbulence in the transient sedimentation of a dilute suspension at small Reynolds number

A theory of settling of a dilute suspension of identical spherical particles in a viscous incompressible fluid is developed on the basis of the equations of transient Stokesian dynamics. The equations describe hydrodynamic interactions between particles moving under the influence of a constant force, starting to act at a particular instant of time. For a dilute suspension, a monopole approximation can be used. It is argued that the growth of velocity fluctuations is bounded by a combination of two effects, destructive interference of the flow patterns of individual particles, and a rearrangement of particle positions leading to a time-dependent microstructure of the suspension. After a long time, the microstructure tends to a steady state. The corresponding structure factor is described phenomenologically. The corresponding pair correlation function and the velocity correlation functions describing axisymmetric turbulence on the length scale of the mean distance between particles are evaluated.