Search results for "Metastable"

Nucleation and cavitation in parahydrogen

2012

We have used a density functional approach to investigate thermal homogeneous nucleation and cavitation in parahydrogen. The effect of electrons as seeds of heterogeneous cavitation in liquid parahydrogen is also discussed within the capillary model. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ab Initio Structure Determination of Vaterite by Automated Electron Diffraction

2012

tion that is fundamental for understanding material properties. Still, a number of compounds have eluded such kinds of analysis because they are nanocrystalline, highly disordered, with strong pseudosymmetries or available only in small amounts in polyphasic or polymorphic systems. These materials are crystallographically intractable with conventional Xray or synchrotron radiation diffraction techniques. Single nanoparticles can be visualized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) up to sub�ngstrom resolution, [2] but obtaining 3D information is still a difficult task, especially for highly beam-sensitive materials and crystal structures with long cell parameters. Elec…

Uncovering the metastable γ-Ag2WO4 phase: a joint experimental and theoretical study

2017

The synthesis of metastable solid phases is a pivotal starting point for innovative materials research. Here, we report the synthesis by means of a precipitation method of the metastable cubic γ-Ag2WO4 phase under ambient conditions. Different experimental techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) with Rietveld refinement, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), micro-Raman/ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) diffuse reflectance, photoluminescence spectroscopies, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were employed. To complement the experimental data, the geometry, morphology, vibrational and electronic structure of γ-Ag2WO4 were characterized and evaluated using first-princip…

Intermolecular interactions in metastable protein solutions.

2011

Phase dynamics in graphene-based Josephson junctions in the presence of thermal and correlated fluctuations

2014

In this work we study by numerical methods the phase dynamics in ballistic graphene-based short Josephson junctions. The supercurrent through a graphene junction shows a non-sinusoidal phase-dependence, unlike a conventional junction ruled by the well-known d.c. Josephson relation. A superconductor-graphene-superconductor system exhibits superconductive quantum metastable states similar to those present in normal current-biased JJs. We explore the effects of thermal and correlated fluctuations on the escape time from these metastable states, when the system is stimulated by an oscillating bias current. As a first step, the analysis is carried out in the presence of an external Gaussian whit…

Co-precipitation synthesis of neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium oxides nanopowders: Quantitative phase investigation as a function of joint isotherma…

2007

Abstract Neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium nanopowders with nominal Nd:Y:Al ratio equal to X:3–X:5 (where X = 0, 0.006, 0.012, 0.024, 0.048, 0.081, 0.096, 0.171, 0.192, 0.384, 0.540 and 0.720) were prepared by the co-precipitation method and subjected to five cumulative stages of isothermal treatment in the temperature range from 900 to 1050 °C. The phase evolution of the oxides were investigated quantitatively by the X-ray powder diffraction approach using the Rietveld method of analysis. An almost single phase cubic garnet structure was attained at temperatures as low as 900 °C for specimens with neodymium loading less than ca. 6 at.% with respect to total (Nd + Y) atoms. Isothermal treat…

The bistable system: an archetypal model for complex systems

2011

Bistable systems often play the role of archetypal models to understand the dynamical behavior of complex systems. Examples range from microphysics to macrophysics, bìology, chemistry and also econophysics. Moreover the statistical mechanics is essential to study the physical properties of complex systems and to investigate stochastic systems in which the microscopic degrees of freedom behave collectively over large scales. We investigate the nonlinear relaxation in a bistable system in classical and quantum systems. (i) As a first classical system, the role of the multiplicative and additive noise in the mean life time of the metastable state of an asymmetric bistable system is investigate…

Effects of Lévy noise on the dynamics of sine-Gordon solitons in long Josephson junctions

2015

We numerically investigate the generation of solitons in current-biased long Josephson junctions in relation to the superconducting lifetime and the voltage drop across the device. The dynamics of the junction is modelled with a sine-Gordon equation driven by an oscillating field and subject to an external non-Gaussian noise. A wide range of $\alpha$-stable L\'evy distributions is considered as noise source, with varying stability index $\alpha$ and asymmetry parameter $\beta$. In junctions longer than a critical length, the mean switching time (MST) from superconductive to the resistive state assumes a values independent of the device length. Here, we demonstrate that such a value is direc…

Stabilization by dissipation and stochastic resonant activation in quantum metastable systems

2018

In this tutorial paper we present a comprehensive review of the escape dynamics from quantum metastable states in dissipative systems and related noise-induced effects. We analyze the role of dissipation and driving in the escape process from quantum metastable states with and without an external driving force, starting from a nonequilibrium initial condition. We use the Caldeira–Leggett model and a non-perturbative theoretical technique within the Feynman–Vernon influence functional approach in strong dissipation regime. In the absence of driving, we find that the escape time from the metastable region has a nonmonotonic behavior versus the system-bath coupling and the temperature, produci…

Enhancement of stability in randomly switching potential with metastable state

2004

The overdamped motion of a Brownian particle in randomly switching piece-wise metastable linear potential shows noise enhanced stability (NES): the noise stabilizes the metastable system and the system remains in this state for a longer time than in the absence of white noise. The mean first passage time (MFPT) has a maximum at a finite value of white noise intensity. The analytical expression of MFPT in terms of the white noise intensity, the parameters of the potential barrier, and of the dichotomous noise is derived. The conditions for the NES phenomenon and the parameter region where the effect can be observed are obtained. The mean first passage time behaviours as a function of the mea…