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We investigate the effects of (N,N'-diphenyl)-N,N'-bis(1-naphthyl)-1,1'-biphenyl-4,4'-diamine (NPB) buffer layers on charge collection in inverted ZnO/MEH-PPV hybrid devices. The insertion of a 3-nm NPB thin layer enhances the efficiency of charge collection by improving charge transport and reducing the interface energy barrier, resulting in better device performances. S-shaped light J—V curve appears when the thickness of the NPB layer reaches 25 nm, which is induced by the inefficient charge extraction from MEH-PPV to Ag. Capacitance—voltage measurements are performed to further investigate the influence of the NPB layer on charge collection from both simulations and experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fe K-shell ionization cross sections induced by 2.4–6.0 MeV Xe20+ are measured and compared with different binary-encounter-approximation (BEA) models. The results indicate that the BEA model corrected both by the Coulomb repulsion and by the effective nuclear charge (Zeff) agrees well with the experimental data. Comparison of Fe K-shell X-ray emission induced by 5 MeV xenon ions with different initial charge states (20+, 22+, 26+, 30+) verifies the applicability of the effective nuclear charge (Zeff) correction for the BEA model. It is found that Zeff correction is reasonable to describe direct ionization induced by xenon ions with no initial M-shell vacancies. However, when the M shell is opened, the Zeff corrected BEA model is unable to explain the inner-shell ionization, and the electron transfer by molecular-orbital promotion should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the fabrication of silicon micro-hemispheres by adopting the conventional laser ablation of single crystalline silicon in the vacuum condition without using any catalysts or additives. The highly oriented structures of silicon micro-hemispheres exhibit many periodic nanoscale rings along their outer surfaces. We consider that the self-organized growth of silicon micro-structures is highly dependent on the laser intensity and background air medium. The difference between these surface modifications is attributed to the amount of laser energy deposited in the silicon material and the consequent cooling velocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have investigated coexisting four-wave mixing and six-wave mixing (SWM) in ultra-thin, micrometre and long vapour cells. There exists competition between Dicke-narrowing features and polarization interference in the micrometre cell. The oscillation behaviour of SWM signal intensities and linewidths results from destructive interference. With a larger destructive interference, the SWM signal in ultra-thin cells shows a narrow spectrum, in contrast to the long cell case. Due to the Dicke-narrowing features, a narrow spectrum can be obtained, and such spectra can be used for high precision measurements and metrological standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect (MCE) of EuTi1 − xNbxO3 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2) compounds are investigated. Owing to electronic doping, parts of Ti ions are replaced by Nb ions, the lattice constant increases and a small number of Ti4+ (3d0) ions change into Ti3+ (3d1). It is the ferromagnetism state that is dominant in the derivative balance. The values of the maximum magnetic entropy change () are 10.3 J/kg · K, 9.6 J/kg · K, 13.1 J/kg · K, and 11.9 J/kg · K for EuTi1 − xNbxO3 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2) compounds and the values of refrigeration capacity are 36, 33, 86, and 80 J/kg as magnetic field changes in a range of 0 T–1 T. The EuTi1 − xNbxO3 (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2) compounds with giant reversible MCE are considered as a good candidate for magnetic refrigerant working at low-temperature and low-field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the similarities and differences among three queue rules, the first-in-first-out (FIFO) rule, last-in-first-out (LIFO) rule and random-in-random-out (RIRO) rule, on dynamical networks with limited buffer size. In our network model, nodes move at each time step. Packets are transmitted by an adaptive routing strategy, combining Euclidean distance and node load by a tunable parameter. Because of this routing strategy, at the initial stage of increasing buffer size, the network density will increase, and the packet loss rate will decrease. Packet loss and traffic congestion occur by these three rules, but nodes keep unblocked and lose no packet in a larger buffer size range on the RIRO rule networks. If packets are lost and traffic congestion occurs, different dynamic characteristics are shown by these three queue rules. Moreover, a phenomenon similar to Braess’ paradox is also found by the LIFO rule and the RIRO rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction of MeV molecular ions with thin layer graphene and graphite foils was studied by using a high-resolution electrostatic analyzer. A large number of fragment protons were observed at zero degree (along the beam direction) when the beam was passing through the monolayer graphene foil, which indicates that the electron of the molecular ions can be stripped easily even by the monolayer graphene foil. More trailing than leading protons were found in the energy spectrum, which means significant wake effect was observed in the monolayer graphene foil. The ratio of the numbers of trailing protons over leading protons first increased with the thickness for the much thinner graphene foils, and then decreased with the thickness for the much thicker graphite foils, which indicates that the bending effect of the wake field on the trailing proton varied with the foil thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MnZn ferrite coating formed on the surface of iron-based soft magnetic powders via facile and modified sol–gel process has been fabricated to obtain better magnetic performance due to its higher permeability compared with traditional nonmagnetic insulation coatings. The influence of the MnZn ferrite contents on the magnetic performance of the soft magnetic composites (SMCs) has been studied. As the MnZn insulation content increases, the core loss first experiences a decreasing trend that is followed by progressive increase, while the permeability follows an increasing trend and subsequently degrades. The optimized magnetic performance is achieved with 2.0 wt% MnZn ferrite, which results from the decrement of inter-particle eddy current losses based on loss separation. A uniform and compact coating layer composed of MnZn ferrite and oxides with an average thickness of is obtained by utilizing ion beam technology, and the interface between the powders and the coating shows satisfied adhesiveness compared with the sample directly prepared by mechanical mixing. The evolution of the coating layers during the calcination process has been presented based on careful analysis of the composition and microstructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method, we conduct a numerical simulation to study the hydrodynamic binary coalescence of droplets under air flow in a hydrophobic rectangular microchannel. Two distinct regimes, coalescence followed by sliding motion and that followed by detaching motion, are identified and discussed. Additionally, the detailed hydrodynamic information behind the binary coalescence is provided, based on which a dynamic mechanical analysis is conducted to reveal the hydrodynamic mechanisms underlying these two regimes. The simulation results indicate that the sliding motion of droplets is driven by the drag force and restrained by the adhesion force induced by the interfacial tension along the main flow direction. The detachment (i.e., upward motion) of the droplet is driven by the lift force associated with an aerodynamic lifting pressure difference imposed on the coalescent droplet, and also restrained by the adhesion force perpendicular to the main flow direction. Especially, the lift force is mainly induced by an aerodynamic lifting pressure difference imposed on the coalescent droplet. Two typical regimes can be quantitatively recognized by a regime diagram depending on Re and We. The higher Re and We respectively lead to relatively larger lift forces and smaller adhesion forces acting on the droplet, both of which are helpful to detachment of the coalesced droplet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detailed information of the electronic structure is the key to understanding the nature of charge density wave (CDW) order and its relationship with superconducting order in the microscopic level. In this paper, we present a high resolution laser-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) study on the three-dimensional (3D) hole-like Fermi surface around the Brillouin zone center in a prototypical quasi-one-dimensional CDW and superconducting system ZrTe3. Double Fermi surface sheets are clearly resolved for the 3D hole-like Fermi surface around the zone center. The 3D Fermi surface shows a pronounced shrinking with increasing temperature. In particular, the quasiparticle scattering rate along the 3D Fermi surface experiences an anomaly near the charge density wave transition temperature of ZrTe3 (∼63 K). The signature of electron–phonon coupling is observed with a dispersion kink at ∼20 meV; the strength of the electron–phonon coupling around the 3D Fermi surface is rather weak. These results indicate that the 3D Fermi surface is also closely connected to the charge-density-wave transition and suggest a more global impact on the entire electronic structure induced by the CDW phase transition in ZrTe3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a numerical study on the simultaneous reconstruction of temperature and volume fraction fields of soot and metal-oxide nanoparticles in an axisymmetric nanofluid fuel sooting flame based on the radiative energy images captured by a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. The least squares QR decomposition method was introduced to deal with the reconstruction inverse problem. The effects of ray numbers and measurement errors on the reconstruction accuracy were investigated. It was found that the reconstruction accuracies for volume fraction fields of soot and metal-oxide nanoparticles were easily affected by the measurement errors for radiation intensity, whereas only the metal-oxide volume fraction field reconstruction was more sensitive to the measurement error for the volume fraction ratio of metal-oxide nanoparticles to soot. The results show that the temperature, soot volume fraction, and metal-oxide nanoparticles volume fraction fields can be simultaneously and accurately retrieved for exact and noisy data using a single CCD camera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different discharge morphologies in atmospheric Ar and He plasmas are excited by using a pulsed microwave hairpin resonator. Ar plasmas form an arched plasma plume at the opened end of the hairpin, whereas He plumes generate only a contracted plasmas in between both tips of metal electrodes. Despite this different point, their discharge processes have three similar characteristics: (i) the ionization occurs at the main electrode firstly and then develops to the slave electrode, (ii) during the shrinking stage the middle domain of the discharge channels disappears at last, and (iii) even at zero power input (in between pulses) a weak light region always exists in the discharge channels. Both experimental results and electromagnetic simulations suggest that the discharge is resonantly excited by the local enhanced electric fields. In addition, Ar ionization and excitation energies are lower than those of He, the effect of Ar gas flow is far greater than that of He gas, and the contribution of accelerated electrons only locates at the domain with the strongest electric fields. These reasons could be used to interpret the different characteristic plume morphologies of the proposed atmospheric Ar and He plasmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural, magnetic properties, and electronic structures of hexagonal FeCoSn compounds with as-annealed bulk and ribbon states were investigated by x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), magnetic measurements, and first-principles calculations. Results indicate that both states of FeCoSn show an Ni2In-type hexagonal structure with a small amount of FeCo-rich secondary phase. The Curie temperatures are located at 257 K and 229 K, respectively. The corresponding magnetizations are 2.57 μB/f.u. and 2.94 μB/f.u. at 5 K with a field of 50 kOe (1 Oe = 79.5775 A⋅m−1). The orbital hybridizations between 3d elements are analyzed from the distribution of density of states (DOS), showing that Fe atoms carry the main magnetic moments and determine the electronic structure around Fermi level. A peak of DOS at Fermi level accounts for the presence of the FeCo-rich secondary phase. The Ni2In-type hexagonal FeCoSn compound can be used during the isostructural alloying for tuning phase transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giant reversible magnetocaloric effects and magnetic properties in Eu0.9R0.1TiO3 (R = La, Ce) are investigated. The antiferromagnetic ordering of pure EuTiO3 can significantly change to be ferromagnetic as substitution of La (x = 0.1) and Ce (x = 0.1) ions for Eu2+ ions. The values of and RC are evaluated to be 10.8 J/(kgK) and 51.8 J/kg for Eu0.9Ce0.1TiO3 and 11 J/(kgK) and 39.3 J/kg for Eu0.9La0.1TiO3 at a magnetic field change of 10 kOe, respectively. The large low-field enhancements of and RC can be attributed to magnetic phase transition. The giant reversible MCE and large RC suggest that Eu0.9R0.1TiO3 (R = La, Ce) compounds could be promising materials in low temperature and low magnetic field refrigerants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in EuTi1−xCoxO3 (x = 0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, 0.1) compounds have been investigated. When the Ti4+ ions were substituted by Co2+ ions, the delicate balance was changed between antiferromagnetic (AFM) and ferromagnetic (FM) phases in the EuTiO3 compound. In EuTi1−xCoxO3 system, a giant reversible MCE and large refrigerant capacity (RC) were observed without hysteresis. The values of were evaluated to be around 10 J⋅kg−1⋅K−1 for EuTi0.95Co0.05O3 under a magnetic field change of 10 kOe. The giant reversible MCE and large RC suggests that EuTi1−xCoxO3 series could be considered as good candidate materials for low-temperature and low-field magnetic refrigerant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulations of guiding of low-energy ions through a single nanocapillary in insulating polymers are reported. The nanocapillary has a diameter of 100 nm and a length of 10 μm. Different from previous work, in our simulations a hyperbolic function is used to describe the decay of the charges deposited on the capillary surface. The present simulations reproduce the self-organized charge-up process occurring in the capillary. It is shown that lower-energy ions undergo more oscillations to get guiding equilibrium than those of higher-energy ions, resulting in a longer charging time, which is in good agreement with previous experimental results. Moreover, the experimentally observed mass independence of ion guiding is proved in our simulations. In particular, it is found that the maximum of the repulsive field within the capillary is independent of the ion energy as well as the tilt angle. To counterbalance the increasing of the transversal energy caused by increasing the tilt angle or incident energy, the effective length of the repulsive field is expanded in a self-organizing manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital measurement and processing is an important direction in the measurement and control field. The quantization error widely existing in the digital processing is always the decisive factor that restricts the development and applications of the digital technology. In this paper, we find that the stability of the digital quantization system is obviously better than the quantization resolution. The application of a border effect in the digital quantization can greatly improve the accuracy of digital processing. Its effective precision has nothing to do with the number of quantization bits, which is only related to the stability of the quantization system. The high precision measurement results obtained in the low level quantization system with high sampling rate have an important application value for the progress in the digital measurement and processing field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have carried out high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission measurements on the Ce-based heavy fermion compound CePt2In7 that exhibits stronger two-dimensional character than the prototypical heavy fermion system CeCoIn5. Multiple Fermi surface sheets and a complex band structure are clearly resolved. We have also performed detailed band structure calculations on CePt2In7. The good agreement found between our measurements and the calculations suggests that the band renormalization effect is rather weak in CePt2In7. A comparison of the common features of the electronic structure of CePt2In7 and CeCoIn5 indicates that CeCoIn5 shows a much stronger band renormalization effect than CePt2In7. These results provide new information for understanding the heavy fermion behaviors and unconventional superconductivity in Ce-based heavy fermion systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report comprehensive angle-resolved photoemission investigations on the electronic structure of single crystal multiple-layer FeSe films grown on CaF2 substrate by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. Measurements on FeSe/CaF2 samples with different superconducting transition temperatures of 4 K, 9 K, and 14 K reveal electronic difference in their Fermi surface and band structure. Indication of the nematic phase transition is observed from temperature-dependent measurements of these samples; the nematic transition temperature is 140–160 K, much higher than K for the bulk FeSe. Potassium deposition is applied onto the surface of these samples; the nematic phase is suppressed by potassium deposition which introduces electrons to these FeSe films and causes a pronounced electronic structure change. We compared and discussed the electronic structure and superconductivity of the FeSe/CaF2 films by PLD method with the FeSe/SrTiO3 films by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) method and bulk FeSe. The PLD-grown multilayer FeSe/CaF2 is more hole-doped than that in MBE-grown multiple-layer FeSe films. Our results on FeSe/CaF2 films by PLD method establish a link between bulk FeSe single crystal and FeSe/SrTiO3 films by MBE method, and provide important information to understand superconductivity in FeSe-related systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-line phase-contrast computed tomography (IL-PC-CT) imaging is a new physical and biochemical imaging method. IL-PC-CT has advantages compared to absorption CT when imaging soft tissues. In practical applications, ring artifacts which will reduce the image quality are commonly encountered in IL-PC-CT, and numerous correction methods exist to either pre-process the sinogram or post-process the reconstructed image. In this study, we develop an IL-PC-CT reconstruction method based on anisotropic total variation (TV) minimization. Using this method, the ring artifacts are corrected during the reconstruction process. This method is compared with two methods: a sinogram preprocessing correction technique based on wavelet-FFT filter and a reconstruction method based on isotropic TV. The correction results show that the proposed method can reduce visible ring artifacts while preserving the liver section details for real liver section synchrotron data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A combined experimental and numerical study is undertaken to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of single-phase droplet collision in a shear flow. The passing-over motion of interactive droplets is observed, and the underlying hydrodynamic mechanisms are elucidated by the analysis of the motion trajectory, transient droplet deformation and detailed hydrodynamic information (e.g., pressure and flow fields). The results indicate that the hydrodynamic interaction process under shear could be divided into three stages: approaching, colliding, and separating. With the increasing confinement, the interaction time for the passing-over process is shorter and the droplet processes one higher curvature tip and more stretched profile. Furthermore, the lateral separation Δy/R1 exhibits larger decrease in the approaching stage and the thickness of the lubrication film is decreased during the interaction. As the initial lateral separation increases, the maximum trajectory shift by the collision interaction is getting smaller. During the collision between two droplets with different sizes, the amplitude of the deformation oscillation of the larger droplet is decreased by reducing the size ratio of the smaller droplet to the bigger one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alloy nanoparticles exhibit higher catalytic activity than monometallic nanoparticles, and their stable structures are of importance to their applications. We employ the simulated annealing algorithm to systematically explore the stable structure and segregation behavior of tetrahexahedral Pt–Pd–Cu–Au quaternary alloy nanoparticles. Three alloy nanoparticles consisting of 443 atoms, 1417 atoms, and 3285 atoms are considered and compared. The preferred positions of atoms in the nanoparticles are analyzed. The simulation results reveal that Cu and Au atoms tend to occupy the surface, Pt atoms preferentially occupy the middle layers, and Pd atoms tend to segregate to the inner layers. Furthermore, Au atoms present stronger surface segregation than Cu ones. This study provides a fundamental understanding on the structural features and segregation phenomena of multi-metallic nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the energetic behaviors of interstitial and substitution carbon (C)/nitrogen (N) impurities as well as their interactions with the vacancy in vanadium by first-principles simulations. Both C and N impurities prefer the octahedral site (O-site). N exhibits a lower formation energy than C. Due to the hybridization between vanadium-d and N/C-p, the N-p states are located at the energy from −6.00 eV to −5.00 eV, which is much deeper than that from −5.00 eV to –3.00 eV for the C-p states. Two impurities in bulk vanadium, C–C, C–N, and N–N can be paired up at the two neighboring O-sites along the 〈111〉 direction and the binding energies of the pairs are 0.227 eV, 0.162 eV, and 0.201 eV, respectively. Further, we find that both C and N do not prefer to stay at the vacancy center and its vicinity, but occupy the O-site off the vacancy in the interstitial lattice in vanadium. The possible physical mechanism is that C/N in the O-site tends to form a carbide/nitride-like structure with its neighboring vanadium atoms, leading to the formation of the strong C/N–vanadium bonding containing a covalent component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of multipole resonance in the interaction between a spherical metallic nanoparticle (MNP) and an emitting dipole is studied with the Mie theory. The results show that the absorption peak of the MNP with respect to the field of the emitting dipole is blue-shifted with the decrease of the spacing between MNP and emitting dipole due to the enhanced multipole resonance. At a short distance, the enhanced multipole terms of scattering are not obvious compared with the dipole term. For the decay rate of the emitting dipole, multipole resonance brings about the enhancement of it largely at short spacing. For the radiative decay rate, the behavior is quite different. The dipole term is dominant at a short spacing, and the multipole term is dominant at a larger spacing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]