Electrical relaxation in pure and alkali metal thiocyanate complexed poly(ethylene oxide)

Audio frequency complex admittance and DSC studies have been performed on pure poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and PEO complexed with alkali metal thiocyanates over the temperature range 5.5–380K. The dielectric constant of the complexed materials is found to be greater than for pure PEO. A discontinuity in the conductivity is found which increases in temperature as the size of the cation increases. In every case, the discontinuity is associated with a feature in the DSC results. Next, some evidence is given that water may enhance the formation of amorphous complexed PEO. In pure PEO, α_a and γ relaxations are observed in good agreement with previous work. A thermal anomaly is found corresponding to α_a. In addition, α_c is identified in pure PEO. Very little difference is found for the γ relaxation between pure PEO and PEO-LiSCN and PEO-NaSCN. For PEO-KSCN, three distinct peaks are found in the γ relaxation region. These results are consistent with a tg⁺t ? tg^-t transition interpretation for γ where the cations reside within the helical channels at low temperatures.     

Radiative events as a probe of dark forces at GeV-scale <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript> colliders

High-luminosity e ⁺ e ⁻ colliders at the GeV scale (flavor factories) have been recently recognized to be an ideal environment to search for a light weakly coupled vector boson U (dark photon) emerging in several new physics models. At flavor factories a particularly clean channel is the production of the U boson in association with a photon, followed by the decay of the U boson into lepton pairs. Beyond the approximations addressed in previous works, we perform an exact lowest order calculation of the signal and background processes of this channel. We also include the effect of initial- and final-state QED corrections neglected so far, to show how they affect the distributions of experimental interest. We present new results for the expected statistical significance to a dark photon signal at KLOE/KLOE-2 and future super-B factories. The calculation is implemented in a new release of the event generator BabaYaga@NLO, which is available for full event simulations and data analysis.     

Electrical and differential scanning calorimetry studies of poly(ethylene oxide) complexed with alkaline-earth thiocyanates

Audio-frequency dielectric relaxation measurements and differential scanning calorimetry studies have been performed on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) complexed with calcium and barium thiocyanate. The measurements were performed over the temperature range 5.5-300 K. The relaxation spectrum for the complexed material consists of two peaks. The activation enthalpy for the peak corresponding to the γ relaxation of pure PEO depends upon the size of the dopant cation. The activation enthalpy for the second peak is independent of the nature of the dopant cation and is very similar to that observed for the α_c relaxation observed in pure PEO. Furthermore, the room-temperature electrical conductivity of the complexed materials is much smaller than that for pure PEO and hence very much less than for PEO-complexed with alkali-metal salts. However, above T_g the conductivity rises rapidly and is larger for the barium-thiocyanate-complexed PEO than for the calcium-complexed material. Finally, the DSC studies show that one effect of the ions is to shift the glass transition to higher temperatures.     

Dielectric relaxation in poly(ethylene oxide) complexed with alkali metal perchlorates

Audio frequency complex admittance measurements over the temperature range 5.5–350 K have been performed on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) complexed with lithium and sodium perchlorates. No evidence of an α_a relaxation was seen in any sample. In the Li-complexed material, the γ relaxation occurs at about 174 K and 1000 Hz which is the same as for pure PEO. In the Na-complexed materials, there appear to be more than one peak in this region, and the relative peak heights are concentration dependent. The result is that at the 8:1 doping level, there is a broad, skewed relaxation whose peak occurs at about 203 K and 1000 Hz, while at 4.5:1 NaClO₄ the relaxation appears much closer to a normal peak with a maximum at 185 K for the 1000 Hz data. Combined with previous results for thiocyanate complexed PEO, these results show that distortions in the polymer chain depend on both the cation and anion. Next, two new relaxations are observed at low temperatures. The first, occuring at 60–100 K is very weak and is common to all PEO samples. The second occuring at very low temperatures, is only found for perchlorate complexed PEO and is attributed to the localized motion of perchlorate-induced defects on the exterior of the chains. The high temperature electrical conductivity for PEO₈:NaClO₄ is found to be larger than PEO_4.5:NaClO₄ in agreement with the trend observed by other workers for PEO complexed with different alkali metal salts.     

Status and accuracy of the Monte Carlo generators for luminosity measurements

The status and accuracy of the precision Monte Carlo generators used for luminosity measurements at flavour factories is reviewed.It is shown that,thanks to a considerable,long-term effort in tuned comparisons between the predictions of independent programs,as well as in the validation of the generators against the presently available calculations of the next-to-next-to-leading order QED corrections to Bhabha scattering,the theoretical accuracy reached by the most precise tools is of about one per mille.This error estimate is valid for realistic experimental cuts,appears to be quite robust and is already sufficient for very accurate luminosity measurements.However,recent progress and possible advances to further improve it are also discussed.     

Molecular dynamic study of dielectric polarization and ferroelectricity in a model polar polymer

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to explore the polarization response of a lamellar crystal consisting of folded chains of a highly simplified model polar polymer. The system is based on a united atom model of polyethylene with constrained bond lengths and bond angles, and it is endowed with artificial partial charges placed on the united atoms to give it a simple polar character. Simulations performed with various temperatures, electric field directions, and electric field application histories reveal a complicated sequence of reorientation processes, including pronounced ferroelectric behavior. The sequence includes a weak, temperature‐independent prompt response, and a slow‐rising delay regime with stretched exponential behavior and thermally‐activated reorientation parameters consistent with trans‐gauche (TG) barrier crossings in the amorphous phase. When the delay regime has progressed sufficiently, a primary large‐amplitude response due to organized rotation of large subsegments in the crystalline phase occurs in a rapid manner that requires relatively few TG barrier crossings. A final, extremely slow rise in residual polarization completes the sequence. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 740–759     

Measurement of beam-loaded resonant frequency and quality factor ina gyroklystron input cavity using noise emissions

The spectral shape of noise emissions from a 35-GHz gyroklystron input cavity is used to directly measure the cavity resonant frequency and quality factor under beam-loaded conditions. The quality factors obtained with this technique at a number of magnetic fields are found to be consistent with quality factors obtained from reflection coefficient measurements made at the identical operating points. The measured variation in quality factor is used to identify various regimes of operation based on input cavity coupling. Comparisons between the measurements and simulations are in good agreement in resonant frequency, but moderate discrepancies in quality factor exist     

True reference nanosensor realized with silicon nanowires

Conventional gate oxide layers (e.g., SiO(2), Al(2)O(3), or HfO(2)) in silicon field-effect transistors (FETs) provide highly active surfaces, which can be exploited for electronic pH sensing. Recently, great progress has been achieved in pH sensing using compact integrateable nanowire FETs. However, it has turned out to be much harder to realize a true reference electrode, which--while sensing the electrostatic potential--does not respond to the proton concentration. In this work, we demonstrate a highly effective reference sensor, a so-called reference FET, whose proton sensitivity is suppressed by as much as 2 orders of magnitude. To do so, the Al(2)O(3) surface of a nanowire FET was passivated with a self-assembled monolayer of silanes with a long alkyl chain. We have found that a full passivation can be achieved only after an extended period of self-assembling lasting several days at 80 °C. We use this slow process to measure the number of active proton binding sites as a function of time by a quantitative comparison of the measured nonlinear pH-sensitivities to a theoretical model (site-binding model). Furthermore, we have found that a partially passivated surface can sense small changes in the number of active binding sites reaching a detection limit of δN(s) ≈ 170 μm(-2) Hz(-1/2) at 10 Hz and pH 3.     

100-150 MW designs of two- and three-cavity gyroklystron amplifiersoperating at the fundamental and second harmonics in X- andKu-bands

Efficient 100-150 MW X- and Ku-band microwave sources with pulselengths of 1 μs are being developed for driving future linear colliders. Two- and three-cavity co-axial designs of relativistic gyroklystron amplifiers are presented here which fulfill these requirements. Numerical simulations predict over 40% efficiency, 45-50 dB gain, and 100-160 MW power level for the gyroklystron designs operating at fundamental (8.568 GHz) and second harmonic (17.136 GHz). It is shown that introducing a penultimate (buncher) cavity significantly improves efficiency and gain of the second-harmonic amplifier     

Detection of transient events in the presence of background noise

We describe a method to detect and count transient burstlike signals in the presence of a significant stationary noise. To discriminate a transient signal from the background noise, an optimum threshold is determined using an iterative algorithm that yields the probability distribution of the background noise. Knowledge of the probability distribution of the noise then allows the determination of the number of transient events with a quantifiable error (wrong-positives). We apply the method, which does not rely on the choice of free parameters, to the detection and counting of transient single-molecule fluorescence events in the presence of a strong background noise. The method will be of importance in various ultra sensing applications.