Study of the peak effect phenomenon in single crystals of 2H-NbSe2

The weakly pinned single crystals of the hexagonal 2H-NbSe₂ compound have emerged as prototypes for determining and characterizing the phase boundaries of the possible order-disorder transformations in the vortex matter. We present here a status report based on the ac and dc magnetization measurements of the peak effect phenomenon in three crystals of 2H-NbSe₂, in which the critical current densities vary over two orders of magnitude. We sketch the generic vortex phase diagram of a weakly pinned superconductor, which also utilizes theoretical proposals. We also establish the connection between the metastability effects and pinning.     

The influence of a transverse magnetic field on a subnormal glow discharge in air

In subnormal glow discharge under d.c. excitation at different pressure in a varying transverse magnetic field (0 to 30 G) some measurements have been carried out for various initial average tube currents. The voltage across the discharge increases and average tube current and residual current decreases in the magnetic field. With the help of Beckman’s expression [4] for the axial field and the electron density distribution in a transverse magnetic field the observed variation of current and voltage can be satisfactorily explained. The variation of axial electric field with transverse magnetic field can be represented to a fair degree of accuracy by the derived equation. The behaviour of residual current with magnetic field has been observed in these oscillations.     

Integral equation formulation for buoyancy-driven convection problems

An integral equation formulation for buoyancy-driven convection problems is developed and illustrated. Buoyancy-driven convection in a bounded cylindrical geometry with a free surface is studied for a range of aspect ratios and Nusselt numbers. The critical Rayleigh number, the nature of the cellular motion, and the heat transfer enhancement are computed using linear theory. Green's functions are used to convert the linear problem into linear Fredholm integral equations. Theorems are proved which establish the properties of the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the linear integral operator which appears in these equations.     

Hyper-Rayleigh light scattering in the third harmonic generation in silver island films

Hyper-Rayleigh scattering in the third harmonic generation (incoherent optical third harmonic) was experimentally observed in spatially inhomogeneous, quasi-two-dimensional structures formed by silver island films. A comprehensive analysis of the linear and nonlinear light scattering in combination with the results of atomic-force microscopy revealed the fractal nature of the island films studied in the experiment.     

Temperature dependence of angular characteristics of boron nitride sputtering

The angular dependence of the sputtering yield and the spatial distribution of particles ejecting from a boron nitride polycrystal with a wurtzite structure in the temperature range from 0 to 2800°C under bombardment with 300 eV xenon ions are calculated by the molecular dynamics method. A reduction of steepness of the curves of angular dependence of boron nitride sputtering with increasing temperature is revealed. Features of the obtained distributions are analyzed on the basis of mechanisms of interaction of slow heavy ions with surface target atoms.     

Factorization of One-Generated Formations

A large class of one-generated factorable foliated formations including composition, bicanonical, and other formations is described. V. A. Vedernikov suggested to study foliated formations with directions such that , where and are also some directions, from a unified point of view. We study one-generated factorable foliated formations with directions from the interval [,], where and are the directions of the bicanonical and composition formations, respectively. In particular, all irreducible factorizations of one-generated composition formations are studied.     

Determination of isoniazid and hydrazine by capillary electrophoresis with amperometric detection at a Pt-particle modified carbon fiber microelectrode

Capillary electrpphoresis (CE)/electrochemical detection (EC) for the simultane-ous determination of hydrazine and isoniazid has been developed.The electrochemical method uses a novel modified electrode dispersed with ultrafine platinum particles on the surface of a 30μm carbon fiber microelectrode.The unique characteristic of the Pt-particles modified carbon fiber microelectrode is its excellent stability.The current measurement for hydrazine is more sensitive than that of isoniazid.Selective determination of trace amount of free hydrazine in isoniazid and its formulation can be achieved at applied potential of 0.5V.     

Investigating the vortex melting phenomenon in BSCCO crystals using magneto-optical imaging technique

Using a novel differential magneto-optical imaging technique we investigate the phenomenon of vortex lattice melting in crystals of Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈ (BSCCO). The images of melting reveal complex patterns in the formation and evolution of the vortex solid-liquid interface with varying field (H)/temperature (T). We believe that the complex melting patterns are due to a random distribution of material disorder/inhomogeneities across the sample, which create fluctuations in the local melting temperature or field value. To study the fluctuations in the local melting temperature/field, we have constructed maps of the melting landscape T _m(H, r), viz., the melting temperature (T _m) at a given location (r) in the sample at a given field (H). A study of these melting landscapes reveals an unexpected feature: the melting landscape is not fixed, but changes rather dramatically with varying field and temperature along the melting line. It is concluded that the changes in both the scale and shape of the landscape result from the competing contributions of different types of quenched disorder which have opposite effects on the local melting transition.     

Surface-enhanced optical third-harmonic generation in Ag island films

Surface-enhanced optical third-harmonic generation (THG) is observed in silver island films. The THG intensity from Ag nanoparticles is enhanced by more than 2 orders of magnitude with respect to the THG intensity from a smooth and homogeneous silver surface. This enhancement is attributed to a local plasmon excitation and resonance of the local field at the third-harmonic wavelength. The diffuse and depolarized component of the enhanced THG is associated with the third-order hyper-Rayleigh scattering in a two-dimensional random array of silver nanoparticles.     

Effect of correlation of interacting particle masses on metal and compound sputtering

The dependence of sputtering coefficients of polycrystals of some metals and binary compositions on the mass of bombarding ions with the energies in the range 200–2000 eV was studied by the molecular dynamics technique. The dependence of sputtering on target parameters was investigated. Targets with both similar and different densities, lattice constants, and surface binding energies were considered. Sputtering coefficients, source depths, mean energies, and the number of sputtered particle generations were calculated. Peculiarities of the obtained dependences are explained.