Metallic Impurities within Residual Catalyst Metallic Nanoparticles Are in Some Cases Responsible for “Electrocatalytic” Effect of Carbon Nanotubes

It′s what′s on the inside that counts : In some cases, the metallic impurities within residual catalyst metallic nanoparticle impurities, which remain in carbon nanotubes even after their purification, are responsible for the “electrocatalytic” properties of carbon nanotubes. This is demonstrated by using double‐walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) containing cobalt residual catalyst nanoparticle impurities, which themselves contain iron‐based impurities.

     

Investigation of influential factors on the purification of zone‐refined germanium ingot

Zone refining is one of the most important procedures to purify germanium crystals for the fabrication of detectors in our laboratory. In order to properly zone refine high‐purity germanium crystals, it is important to develop perfect cleaning procedures for raw materials, quartz tubes, and the containers holding raw materials. Additionally, vacuum levels, container types, the correct combination of ambient gases, the speed of zone travel, and the ratio of ingot length to molten zone length, all need to be carefully studied in order to obtain the best results possible. In this work, we investigate a number of influential factors in perfecting high‐purity germanium crystal growth, specifically: cleaning procedures, boat composition, vacuum levels in the chamber, zone travel speed, and the ratio of ingot length to molten zone length. Using the van der Pauw Hall technique, we were able to measure the electrical properties of zone‐refined ingots and analyze the origin and distribution of three main impurity elements (boron, aluminum and phosphorus) thereby allowing us to study potential contamination sources. After detailed analysis on the various influential factors, we were able to optimize the zone‐refining procedures.     

A New Carrier for Direct Spectrographic Determination of Trace Alkalies and Alkaline Earths in High Purity Thorium Oxide

Abstract

A d.c. arc emission spectrographic method is described for the determination of sub ppm levels of Ba, Li and Sr and ppm levels of Cs, K and Na in high purity thorium oxide. The method which employs RbCl as carrier is simple and rapid and does not involve the use of any special atmosphere for exciting the sample. It was observed that RbCl shows definite improvement over AgCl in carrier action. The carrier distillation technique reported makes possible the following range of estimations: Li: 0.02 – 5.0 ppm, Ba, Sr: 0.5 – 20 ppm, Cs: 2–50 ppm, K,Na: 5–100 ppm. The detection limit obtained by this method for Li and Sr is lower than that obtained by the earlier carrier-distillation methods reported as well as other direct sensitive techniques of Zeidel and Avni for the analysis of Tho₂. The precision of the method ranges from 8% for Cs to 17% for Ba. Volatilization studies on the choice of carrier material are presented.     

The GAS-Chromatographic Determination of Volatile Impurities in γ -Aminobutyric Acid Derivatives

Abstract

The rapid gas-chromatographic analysis of the volatile impurities content in the synthetic preparations of the γ -aminobutyric acid and its derivatives was developed.     

Determination of nucleation kinetics of potassium tetraborate tetrahydrate

In this study, the metastable zone width of potassium tetraborate tetrahydrate was determined for four different temperatures and cooling rates. The induction period of potassium tetraborate tetrahydrate in aqueous solution was examined according to polythermal method by using visual observation. The induction period, which changes inversely proportional to the nucleation rate has been used to determine the interfacial tension between the potassium tetraborate tetrahydrate and aqueous solution. By using interfacial tension, the nucleation parameters such as Gibbs free energy change for the formation of critical nucleus, ΔG*, free energy of formation, ΔG, radius of critical nucleus, r and number of molecules in the critical nucleus, i* has been calculated. The effect of Li⁺ and Ca²⁺ impurities on metastable zone width has been studied. The metastable zone width of aqueous solution of potassium tetraborate tetrahydrate decreases with increasing impurity concentrations. The equilibrium saturation concentration change is high in the presence of Ca²⁺ ions while it is low in the presence of Li⁺ ions. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A comparative study of nonrelativistic and relativistic 5d atoms as impurities in silicon

A comparison is made between calculations performed nonrelativistically and relativistically for W, Re, Os, Ir, Pt, Au and Hg as substitutional impurities in silicon. The calculations were carried out using the relativistic extended Hückel method. The direct and indirect relativistic effects upon the 5d-like levels and band-gap levels are analysed.     

Hyperfine Fields of Light Interstitial Impurities in Ni

The magnetic hyperfine interaction of light interstitial impurities in Ni have been studied by means of the Korringa–Kohn–Rostoker (KKR) band structure method. This method allows to deal with the impurity problem by solving the corresponding Dyson equation for the Green’s function. It also allows to account for lattice relaxations. For this purpose a new technique was developed that allows to handle in principle arbitrary lattice distortions. Corresponding calculations have been performed for the magnetic hyperfine fields of the light interstitial impurities H to Ne in Ni. By minimising the force on the nearest neighbour host atoms their equilibrium position was determined. The resulting hyperfine fields for the equilibrium configuration are found to be in rather good agreement with available experimental data.     

Off-center substitutional ions in alkali-halide crystals

The potential wells of alkali and halogen ions as impurities in alkali halides are investigated by means of a deformation-dipole model with single-ion parameters. The calculations indicate that Li⁺ is off center in seven and F^? in six of the sixteen rocksalt-type crystals considered. In about half of the off-center systems the configuration has D_4h symmetry if the impurity is kept at its lattice position. The minimum-energy configuration of the off-center system KCl:Li⁺ is calculated in detail, and the influence of hydrostatic pressure is investigated. Our results are in qualitative agreement with experiment.     

Mass dependence of the ground state of charged particles in a silicon crystal

We report a quantum-mechanical study of the ground state of a positively charged particle in an otherwise perfect Si crystal. Particles with intermediate masses between the positron and the deuteron are considered. We find that there are two substantially different limit behaviours, depending on the mass value, ranging from the extreme localization in the high-electronic-density region of the deuteron wave function to the almost uniform extension of the positron one, which on the contrary attributes the maximum of probability to the interstitial region. Moreover, we underline the behaviour of the intermediate mass particles, μ⁺ and π⁺, which exhibit a significant degree of delocalization of their wave functions.