Light transmission by polymer-dispersed liquid crystals

Light transmission of nematic liquid crystals dispersed in a polymeric matrix is investigated. The paper gives a theoretical analysis of light transmission by the liquid crystal-polymer and liquid crystaldye-polymer systems based on determination of the total cross section of extinction. The mathematical model is considered in the anomalous diffraction approximation. The theoretical calculations are in good agreement with experimental data obtained for films based on cyanodiphenyl dispersed into a polyvinyl acetate matrix.Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences. Translated fromZhurnal Strukturnoi Khimii, Vol. 34, No. 6, pp. 118–122, November–December, 1993.Translated by L. Chernomorskaya     

Electrochemistry of metal adlayers on metal chalcogenides

Electrodeposition of metal adlayers on semiconductor metal chalcogenides (CdSe, CdS, PbTe, PbSe, PbS, Bi₂Te₃) is reviewed. Cathodic underpotential deposition of metal adlayer on metal chalcogenide is the electrochemically irreversible surface limited reaction. The irreversibility of the upd increases in the row from tellurides to selenides and further to sulfides. The underpotential shift on chalcogenide nanoparticles increases with particle size. Metal upd on chalcogenides is applied as a means of measurement of electroactive surface area of chalcogenide electrodes. The method is especially advantageous for multicomponent systems with other component not supporting upd, such as CdSe-TiO₂, CdSe-ZnO. Differences of voltammetric profiles of Pb upd on Bi₂Te₃ and Te are applied for detection of Bi₂Te₃ surface contamination by elemental tellurium. The further tasks in the electrochemistry of metal adlayers are their incorporation as interlayers in layered chalcogenides and electrodeposition of superlattices.

Graphical abstract

     

Role of local geometry in the spin and orbital structure of transition metal compounds

We analyze the role of local geometry in the spin and orbital interaction in transition metal compounds with orbital degeneracy. We stress that the tendency observed in the most studied case (transition metals in O₆ octahedra with one common oxygen—common corner of neighboring octahedra—and with ~180° metal–oxygen–metal bonds), that ferro-orbital ordering renders antiferro-spin coupling and, vice versa, antiferro-orbitals give ferro-spin ordering, is not valid in the general case, in particular, for octahedra with a common edge and with ~90° M–O–M bonds. Special attention is paid to the “third case,” that of neighboring octahedra with a common face (three common oxygens), which has largely been disregarded until now, although there are many real systems with this geometry. Interestingly enough, the spin-orbit exchange in this case turns out to be simpler and more symmetric than in the first two cases. We also consider, which form the effective exchange takes for different geometries in the case of strong spin–orbit coupling.     

Determination of the orbital moment and crystal-field splitting in LaTiO3

Utilizing a sum rule in a spin-resolved photoelectron spectroscopic experiment with circularly polarized light, we show that the orbital moment in LaTiO3 is strongly reduced from its ionic value, both below and above the Ne el temperature. Using Ti L2,3 x-ray absorption spectroscopy as a local probe, we found that the crystal-field splitting in the t2g subshell is about 0.12-0.30 eV. This large splitting does not facilitate the formation of an orbital liquid.     

Fabrication and analysis of a directional coupler written in glass by nanojoule femtosecond laser pulses

A directional coupler written in a glass sample by the focused 400-nm output from a 25-fs oscillator is reported. The coupler is single mode; the splitting ratio is 1.9 dB at 633 nm. A refractive-index profile of the waveguide with a magnitude of Dn = 4.5 x 10(-3) was retrieved from a near-field mode pattern.     

Cu-Site Disorder in CuAl2O4 as Studied by XPS Spectroscopy

JETP Letters - The results of full study of X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) of spin-liquid candidate CuAl2O4 including the measurements of high-energy resolved core level (Cu $$2p$$ , Al $$3p$$ ,...     

Peierls mechanism of the metal-insulator transition in ferromagnetic hollandite K2Cr8O16

Synchrotron x-ray diffraction experiment shows that the metal-insulator transition occurring in a ferromagnetic state of a hollandite K(2)Cr(8)O(16) is accompanied by a structural distortion from the tetragonal I4/m to monoclinic P112(1)/a phase with a √2×√2×1 supercell. Detailed electronic structure calculations demonstrate that the metal-insulator transition is caused by a Peierls instability in the quasi-one-dimensional column structure made of four coupled Cr-O chains running in the c direction, leading to the formation of tetramers of Cr ions below the transition temperature. This provides a rare example of the Peierls transition of fully spin-polarized electron systems.     

Possibility of controlling the spatial structure of the beam in the piezoelectric acoustic waveguide

Propagation of the electroacoustic wave in a flat piezoactive finite-thickness layer sandwiched between parallel grounded conducting planes is investigated. General expressions for the waveguide eigenmodes of the layer are obtained, and their dependence on the distance between the layer and the planes is studied. On this basis, a physical mechanism for parametric transformation of acoustic beams is proposed.     

Fragmented metastable states exist in an attractive bose-einstein condensate for atom numbers well above the critical number of the Gross-Pitaevskii theory

It is well known that attractive condensates do not posses a stable ground state in three dimensions. The widely used Gross-Pitaevskii theory predicts the existence of metastable states up to some critical number N(cr)(GP) of atoms. It is demonstrated here that fragmented metastable states exist for atom numbers well above N(cr)(GP). The fragments are strongly overlapping in space. The results are obtained and analyzed analytically as well as numerically. The implications are discussed.