Search results for "CONDENSED MATTER"
showing 10 items of 13918 documents
The effect of plasticity in crumpling of thin sheets
2008
Bridging the gap between theoretical and experimental work to understand the effect of plasticity on the crumpling of thin sheets into a small volume has proved difficult. A realistic numerical model now makes a distinction between elastic and elasto-plastic behaviour. Crumpling a thin sheet of material into a small volume requires energy for creating a network of deformations such as vertices and ridges1,2. Scaling properties of a single elastic vertex3,4,5 or ridge have been analysed theoretically6,7,8, and crumpling of a sheet by numerical simulations1,9,10. Real materials are however elasto-plastic11,12,13,14,15 and large local strains induce irreversible plastic deformations. Hence, a …
Acoustic spectroscopy of aerogel precursors
2007
We investigate the acoustical properties of silica gels, which are precursors in the aerogel production process. These gels exhibit a strong “ringing gel” behavior, that is they emit a characteristic sound if one knocks against the container. We study this sound emission with a very simple spectroscopic technique and observe resonances which are characteristic for natural frequencies of a cylindrical body. From a fit of the experimental frequency positions to calculated values, we determine a sound velocity of c T = 4 m/s for a gel sample with porosity φ = 97.5%. This low sound velocity can only be interpreted as the transverse sound mode predicted by Biot’s theory for sound propagation in …
Numerical study of silicon crystal ridge growth
2014
Abstract The size of the ridge-like protrusions appearing on the external surface of dislocation-free 〈 100 〉 silicon crystals grown from a melt was studied theoretically. According to existing models the growth of the ridges is caused by the presence of { 111 } crystal planes at the crystal–melt interface. They affect the height of triple phase line, free surface orientation and the crystal growth angle. A numerical 2-dimensional model was proposed for the calculation of the size of the crystal ridges. The model included the effect of the undercooling of the crystal–melt interface on the crystal growth angle. The numerical model estimated the effect of the ridge size on the free surface at…
Deterministic folding in stiff elastic membranes.
2008
Crumpled membranes have been found to be characterized by complex patterns of spatially seemingly random facets separated by narrow ridges of high elastic energy. We demonstrate by numerical simulations that compression of stiff elastic membranes with small randomness in their initial configurations leads to either random ridge configurations (high entropy) or nearly deterministic folds (low elastic energy). For folding with symmetric ridge configurations to appear in part of the crumpling processes, the crumpling rate must be slow enough. Folding stops when the thickness of the folded structure becomes important, and crumpling continues thereafter as a random process.
Persistence of oxidation state III of gold in thione coordination
2017
Ligands N,N'-tetramethylthiourea and 2-mercapto-1-methyl-imidazole form stable Au(III) complexes [AuCl3(N,N'-tetramethylthiourea)] (1) and [AuCl3(2-mercapto-1-methyl-imidazole)] (2) instead of reducing the Au(III) metal center into Au(I), which would be typical for the attachment of sulfur donors. Compounds 1 and 2 were characterized by spectroscopic methods and by X-ray crystallography. The spectroscopic details were explained by simulation of the UV-Vis spectra via the TD-DFT method. Additionally, computational DFT studies were performed in order to find the reason for the unusual oxidation state in the crystalline materials. The preference for Au(III) can be explained via various weak in…
Many-body Green's function theory for electron-phonon interactions: ground state properties of the Holstein dimer
2015
We study ground-state properties of a two-site, two-electron Holstein model describing two molecules coupled indirectly via electron-phonon interaction by using both exact diagonalization and self-consistent diagrammatic many-body perturbation theory. The Hartree and self-consistent Born approximations used in the present work are studied at different levels of self-consistency. The governing equations are shown to exhibit multiple solutions when the electron-phonon interaction is sufficiently strong whereas at smaller interactions only a single solution is found. The additional solutions at larger electron-phonon couplings correspond to symmetry-broken states with inhomogeneous electron de…
Heat capacity and thermal conductivity of multiferroics Bi1-xPrxFeO3
2019
The heat capacity and thermal conductivity of multiferroics Bi1–xPrxFeO3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.50) has been studied in the temperature range of 130–800 K. A slight substitution of praseodymium for bismuth is found to lead to a noticeable shift of the antiferromagnetic phase transition temperature whilst the heat capacity increases. The temperature dependences of the heat capacity and thermal conductivity exhibit additional anomalies during phase transitions. The experimental results suggest that the excess heat capacity can be attributed to the Schottky effect for three-level states. The basic mechanisms of the heat transfer of phonons are highlighted and the dependence of the mean free path on temper…
Low temperature heat capacity of phononic crystal membranes
2016
Phononic crystal (PnC) membranes are a promising solution to improve sensitivity of bolometric sensor devices operating at low temperatures. Previous work has concentrated only on tuning thermal conductance, but significant changes to the heat capacity are also expected due to the modification of the phonon modes. Here, we calculate the area-specific heat capacity for thin (37.5 - 300 nm) silicon and silicon nitride PnC membranes with cylindrical hole patterns of varying period, in the temperature range 1 - 350 mK. We compare the results to two- and three-dimensional Debye models, as the 3D Debye model is known to give an accurate estimate for the low-temperature heat capacity of a bulk sam…
A chitosan/silica hybrid 3D scaffold for simultaneous entrapment of two different hydrophilic substances
2022
We report the preparation of a hybrid chitosan/silica three-dimensional (3D) scaffold loaded simultaneously with two model hydrophilic substances, ibuprofen sodium salt and erioglaucine disodium salt. The first substance is entrapped in situ during the preparation of chitosan submillimetric beads by ionotropic gelation with sodium triphosphate, while the latter is post-loaded during the scaffold formation. Controlled release experiments carried out under neutral conditions demonstrate that the presence of nanostructured silica within the polymer matrix retards the release of both hydrophilic substances and increases the structure stability of the scaffold. Release profiles can be fitted to …
Crystal structure and Hirshfeld surface analysis of (2E)-3-(3-bromo-4-fluorophenyl)-1-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one
2018
The title compound is constructed from two aromatic rings (3-bromo-4-fluorophenyl and 3,4-dimethoxyphenyl), which are linked by a C=C—C(=O)—C enone bridge and form a dihedral angle of 17.91 (17)°. In the crystal, molecules are linked by C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds enclosing rings of (14) graph-set motif to form layers parallel to (10).