Search results for "METASTABILITY"
showing 10 items of 262 documents
Mechanisms for the Decay of Unstable and Metastable Phases: Spinodal Decomposition, Nucleation and Late-Stage Coarsening
1989
The basic concepts on the kinetics of phase separation in alloys are introduced, and the current status of the theory is briefly reviewed. Particular emphasis is given to questions such as the conditions under which the linearized theory of spinodal decomposition is valid, the significance of spinodal curves, the possible description of coarsening in terms of power laws and structure-factor scaling, and non-equilibrium percolation phenomena.
Pressure induced increase in Tc for the organic-based magnet FeII(TCNE)2 (TCNE=tetracyanoethylene)
2013
Abstract Pressure dependent magnetization and 57Fe Mossbauer studies were performed on Fe(TCNE)[C4(CN)8]1/2·zCH2Cl2 (TCNE = tetracyanoethylene). Pressure did not influence the Mossbauer parameters in paramagnetic state. Mossbauer data reveals the onset of magnetic ordering at 130 K and significant enhancement of the magnetic ordering temperature from 100 to 150 K accompanied by an increase of the spontaneous magnetization, which is higher than reported from the magnetic data, and application of pressure induces the reversible formation of a new, metastable magnetic species. These changes suggest an increase of the dimensionality of magnetic interaction, i.e., stronger interlayer coupling. A…
Frustration of structural fluctuations upon equilibration of shear melts
2002
Abstract We report on the formation of amorphous solids from aquaeous suspensions of charged colloidal spheres. Comprehensive light scattering and microscopic studies show that in these systems the nucleation rate density continuously increases to very high values. At the highest particle densities of 47.5 μm −3 (packing fraction Φ =0.146) an amorphous state is observed of only short range order, finite static shear modulus and frozen long time dynamics. This state is composed of a piling of––as we propose pre-critical––nuclei. Differences from the Hard Sphere case are discussed in some detail. There the arrest of density fluctuations is observed and described by Mode Coupling scenarios. In…
Photomagnetic properties of an Iron(II) low-spin complex with an unusually long-lived metastable LIESST state
2007
A comprehensive study of the photomagnetic behavior of the [Fe(L222N5)(CN)2].H2O complex has been carried out. This complex is characterized by a low-spin (LS) iron(II)-metal center up to 400 K and exhibits at 10 K the well-known Light-Induced Excited Spin State Trapping (LIESST) effect. The critical LIESST temperature (T(LIESST)) has been measured to be 105 K. The kinetics of the transition from the metastable high-spin (HS) state to the low-spin state have been determined and used for reproducing the experimental T(LIESST) curve. This study represents a second example of a fully low-spin iron(II)-metal complex up to 400 K, which can be photoexcited at low temperature with an atypical long…
Do metric fluctuations affect the Higgs dynamics during inflation?
2017
We show that the dynamics of the Higgs field during inflation is not affected by metric fluctuations if the Higgs is an energetically subdominant light spectator. For Standard Model parameters we find that couplings between Higgs and metric fluctuations are suppressed by $\mathcal{O}(10^{-7})$. They are negligible compared to both pure Higgs terms in the effective potential and the unavoidable non-minimal Higgs coupling to background scalar curvature. The question of the electroweak vacuum instability during high energy scale inflation can therefore be studied consistently using the Jordan frame action in a Friedmann--Lema\^itre--Robertson--Walker metric, where the Higgs-curvature coupling …
Evidence for Photoinduced Hole Coupling in BaTiO3:Co
1995
A possible photoinduced correlation mechanism in BaTiO 3 : Co is described. The underlying microscopic process is a local hole photoinjection at a Co 3+ site close to a preexisting metastable hole, The Jahn-Teller field at the Co 2+ site transfers this pair of holes in the next cell along the rhombic direction [111] before normal polaronic or band conduction. The spatial extension of this correlation depends on a characteristic «delocalization» length. This unstable conductive state appears to be possibly frozen in a permanent way below T c
On structural phase transitions inn-butylammonium chloroantimonate(III) and chlorobismuthate(III) crystals: x-ray, differential scanning calorimetry,…
1997
Numerous structural phase transitions are detected in new crystals of the n-butylammonium compounds: , and by means of differential scanning calorimetry, dilatometric and dielectric dispersion (1 kHz - 1 MHz) studies. For the transitions the basic thermodynamic data are determined. Interesting dielectric properties are found in a metastable form of the crystals. Debye-like dispersion of the electric permittivity between 30 and 800 MHz is observed around the 310 K phase transition for this crystal. The activation energy of the reorientation of the n-butylammonium cations is found to be 16 kJ . The structure of ( form) has been refined to R = 0.0439 and shows isolated units and two non-equiva…
Heterogeneous and homogeneous crystal nucleation in a colloidal model system of charged spheres at low metastabilities
2011
We have studied the nucleation kinetics in the bulk as well as at the container walls of a charged sphere colloidal model system under salt-free conditions close to the fluid–crystal phase boundary. We determined time resolved nucleation rate densities for heterogeneous nucleation on the wall, the corresponding nucleation rate densities for homogeneous nucleation and compare the resulting nucleation barrier heights. The homogeneous barrier height decreases exponentially with increasing metastability, while the heterogeneous barrier displays a sharp transition from a constant value close to the phase boundary to zero at higher metastability. As a consequence the microstructure evolution is d…
Microscopic investigations of homogeneous nucleation in charged sphere suspensions.
2005
We studied the homogeneous nucleation kinetics of an aqueous suspension of charged colloidal spheres under de-ionized conditions. Samples of equilibrium crystalline structure were shear molten and the metastable melt left to solidify after cessation of shear. At low particle number densities n, corresponding to low metastability of the melt, nucleation was monitored directly via video microscopy. We determined the nucleation rates gamma(t) by counting the number of newly appearing crystals in the observation volume per unit time. Using a suitable discrete adaptation of Avrami's [J. Chem. Phys. 7, 1003 (1939); ibid.8, 212 (1940); ibid.9, 177 (1941)] model for solidification via homogeneous n…
Selective Photoswitching of the Binuclear Spin Crossover Compound{[Fe(bt)(NCS)2]2(bpm)}into Two Distinct Macroscopic Phases
2005
The low-spin (LS-LS, $S=0$) diamagnetic form of the binuclear spin crossover complex ${[\mathrm{Fe}(\mathrm{bt})(\mathrm{NCS}{)}_{2}{]}_{2}(\mathrm{bpm})}$ was selectively photoconverted into two distinct macroscopic phases at different excitation wavelengths (1342 or 647.1 nm). These long-lived metastable phases have been identified, respectively, as the symmetry-broken paramagnetic form (HS-LS, $\mathrm{S}=2$) and the antiferromagnetically coupled (HS-HS, $S=0$) high-spin form of the compound. The selectivity may be explained by the strong coupling of the primary excited states to the paramagnetic state.