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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Hybrid Quantum And Molecular Mechanics Embedded Cluster Models For Chemistry On Silicon And Silicon Carbide Surfaces, James R. Shoemaker Oct 1997

Hybrid Quantum And Molecular Mechanics Embedded Cluster Models For Chemistry On Silicon And Silicon Carbide Surfaces, James R. Shoemaker

Theses and Dissertations

Fabrication of silicon carbide SiC semiconductor devices are of interest for aerospace applications because of their high-temperature tolerance. Growth of an insulating SiO2 layer on SiC is a poorly understood process, and sometimes produces interface defects that degrade device performance. Accurate theoretical models of surface chemistry, using quantum mechanics QM, do not exist because of the huge computational cost of solving Schroedingers equation for a molecular cluster large enough to represent a surface. Molecular mechanics MM, which describes a molecule as a collection of atoms interacting through classical potentials, is a fast computational method, good at predicting molecular structure, …


Study Of The Long-Term Desorption Of Trichloroethylene From Clay Soils Using Infrared Spectroscopy, Mary P. Stager Dec 1995

Study Of The Long-Term Desorption Of Trichloroethylene From Clay Soils Using Infrared Spectroscopy, Mary P. Stager

Theses and Dissertations

Slow desorption of contaminants from soil presents one of the greatest challenges to modeling contaminant fate and transport and implementing effective remediation technologies. The kinetics of long-term desorption of trichloroethylene (TCE) from powdered clay soils were studied to determine the desorption rates and mechanism. Infrared absorption spectroscopy was used to monitor the concentration of TCE desorbed from contaminated flint clay for 71 hours. Observed gas phase TCE concentrations as a function of time were compared to that predicted by a one-site Langmuir desorption mechanism. The Langmuir model, with a single type of bonding site, did not account for the release …