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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Posterminaries: More Or Less Modern, Alexander H. King Nov 2007

Posterminaries: More Or Less Modern, Alexander H. King

Alexander H. King

It is yet another sign that I am aging. More and more often when young researchers hand me a written report of their research, I find myself criticizing their introductory section: “You need to start your literature survey with the original papers on this topic. Go and read…” followed by a citation to some classic of the learned literature.


Growth-Temperature Optimization For Low Carrier-Density In0.75Ga0.25As-Based High Electron Mobility Transistors On Inp, Paul J. Simmonds, H. E. Beere, D. A. Ritchie, S. N. Holmes Oct 2007

Growth-Temperature Optimization For Low Carrier-Density In0.75Ga0.25As-Based High Electron Mobility Transistors On Inp, Paul J. Simmonds, H. E. Beere, D. A. Ritchie, S. N. Holmes

Paul J. Simmonds

Two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) were formed in undoped In0.75Al0.25As / In0.75Ga0.25As / In0.75Al0.25As quantum wells. The optimal growth temperature for this structure is 410°C, with peak 2DEG electron mobility and density values of μ = 221000 cm2/V s and n = 1.36 × 1011 cm−2 at 1.5 K. This electron mobility is equal to the highest previously published for these undoped structures but with a factor of 2 reduction in n. This has been achieved through the use of a significantly thinner InAlAs …


Quantum Dot Resonant Tunneling Diodes For Telecom Wavelength Single Photon Detection, H. W. Li, Paul J. Simmonds, H. E. Beere, B. E. Kardynał, D. A. Ritchie, A. J. Shields Sep 2007

Quantum Dot Resonant Tunneling Diodes For Telecom Wavelength Single Photon Detection, H. W. Li, Paul J. Simmonds, H. E. Beere, B. E. Kardynał, D. A. Ritchie, A. J. Shields

Paul J. Simmonds

Single photon detection was realized at a telecom wavelength with quantum dot resonant tunneling diodes grown on an InP substrate. The structure contains a AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs quantum well with InAs quantum dots grown on the top AlAs barrier. The single photon detection efficiency of the device under 1310 nm illumination was measured to be about 0.35% ± 0.07% with a dark count rate of 1.58×10-6 ns-1. This corresponds to an internal efficiency of 6.3%.


Quantum Dot Resonant Tunneling Diode For Telecommunication Wavelength Single Photon Detection, H. W. Li, B. E. Kardynał, P. See, A. J. Shields, P. Simmonds, H. E. Beere, D. A. Ritchie Aug 2007

Quantum Dot Resonant Tunneling Diode For Telecommunication Wavelength Single Photon Detection, H. W. Li, B. E. Kardynał, P. See, A. J. Shields, P. Simmonds, H. E. Beere, D. A. Ritchie

Paul J. Simmonds

The authors present a quantum dot (QD) based single photon detector operating at a fiber optic telecommunication wavelength. The detector is based on an AlAs/In0.53Ga0.47As/AlAs double-barrier resonant tunneling diode containing a layer of self-assembled InAs QDs grown on an InP substrate. The device shows an internal efficiency of about 6.3% with a dark count rate of 1.58 × 10−6 ns−1 for 1310 nm photons.


Control Of Porosity In Fluoride Thin Films Prepared By Vapor Deposition, Alexander H. King Jul 2007

Control Of Porosity In Fluoride Thin Films Prepared By Vapor Deposition, Alexander H. King

Alexander H. King

We have measured the porosity in thin films of lithium fluoride (LiF), magnesium fluoride (MgF2), barium fluoride (BaF2), and calcium fluoride (CaF2) as a function of the substrate temperature for films deposited by thermal evaporation onto glass substrates. The amount of porosity in the thin films was measured using an atomic force microscope and a quartz crystal thickness monitor. The porosity was very sensitive to the substrate temperature and decreased as the substrate temperature increased. Consistent behavior was observed among all of the materials in this study.


Posterminaries: Full Circle, Alexander H. King Jul 2007

Posterminaries: Full Circle, Alexander H. King

Alexander H. King

A few years ago, I was walking near the old Union Station in Pittsburgh with a colleague only slightly younger than myself, when we happened upon some large-scale relics of the steel industry displayed for public viewing. “You don’t see too many of those in public parking lots,” I offered. “Um… what is it?” was the response. I suppose I was just a little surprised that a prominent materials scientist did not recognize a Bessemer converter—arguably the principal source of wealth during the U.S. industrial revolution—but this conversation took place back when steel was in decline, and many university Materials …


Density Functional Study Of Structural Trends For Late-Transition-Metal 13-Atom Clusters, Lin-Lin Wang, Duane D. Johnson Jun 2007

Density Functional Study Of Structural Trends For Late-Transition-Metal 13-Atom Clusters, Lin-Lin Wang, Duane D. Johnson

Duane D. Johnson

Because reactivity increases as particle size decreases and competition between numerous structures are possible, which affects catalytic and magnetic properties, we study the structural trends of late-transition-metal 13-atom clusters using density functional theory within the generalized gradient approximation to exchange-correlation functional. We consider open structural motifs, such as bilayer and cubic (recently found to have lower energy), and find new bilayer candidates that are even lower in energy. To study the influence of d-orbital filling on structural trends, we focus on Pt, Pd, and Rh clusters and find several new, low-energy structures for Pt13 and Pd13 from searches using a …


Numerical Simulation Of The Filling And Curing Stages In Reaction Injection Moulding, Using Ansys Cfx, Rui Igreja Jun 2007

Numerical Simulation Of The Filling And Curing Stages In Reaction Injection Moulding, Using Ansys Cfx, Rui Igreja

Rui Igreja

Commonly used methods for injection moulding simulation involve a considerable number of simplifications, leading to a significant reduction of the computational effort but, in some cases also to limitations. In this work, Reaction Injection Moulding (RIM) simulations are performed with a minimum of simplifications, by using the general purpose CFD software package Ansys CFX, designed for numerical simulation of fluid flow and heat and mass transfer. The Ansys CFX’s homogeneous multiphase flow model, which is generally considered to be the appropriate choice for modelling free surface flows where the phases are completely stratified and the interface is well defined, is …


Growth By Molecular Beam Epitaxy Of Self-Assembled Inas Quantum Dots On Inalas And Ingaas Lattice-Matched To Inp, Paul J. Simmonds, H W. Li, H E. Beere, P See, A J. Shields, D A. Ritchie May 2007

Growth By Molecular Beam Epitaxy Of Self-Assembled Inas Quantum Dots On Inalas And Ingaas Lattice-Matched To Inp, Paul J. Simmonds, H W. Li, H E. Beere, P See, A J. Shields, D A. Ritchie

Paul J. Simmonds

The authors report the results of a detailed study of the effect of growth conditions, for molecular beam epitaxy, on the structural and optical properties of self-assembled InAs quantum dots (QDs) on In0.524Al0.476As. InAs QDs both buried in, and on top of, In0.524Al0.476As were analyzed using photoluminescence (PL) and atomic force microscopy. InAs QD morphology and peak PL emission wavelength both scale linearly with deposition thickness in monolayers (MLs). InAs deposition thickness can be used to tune QD PL wavelength by 170 nm/ML, over a range of almost 700 nm. Increasing growth …


Interface Reorientation During Coherent Phase Transformations, Valery I. Levitas, I. B. Ozsoy, D. L. Preston Apr 2007

Interface Reorientation During Coherent Phase Transformations, Valery I. Levitas, I. B. Ozsoy, D. L. Preston

Valery I. Levitas

The universal thermodynamic driving force for coherent plane interface reorientation (IR) during first-order phase transformations (PT) in solids is derived. The relation between the rates of IR and interface propagation (IP) and the corresponding driving forces are derived for combined athermal and drag interface friction. The coupled evolution of IR and IP during cubic-tetragonal and tetragonal-orthorhombic PTs under three-dimensional loading is studied. An instability in the interface orientation is shown to have the features of a first-order PT.


First-Principles Prediction Of Phase-Segregating Alloy Phase Diagrams And A Rapid Design Estimate Of Their Transition Temperatures, Nikolai A. Zarkevich, Teck L. Tan, Duane D. Johnson Mar 2007

First-Principles Prediction Of Phase-Segregating Alloy Phase Diagrams And A Rapid Design Estimate Of Their Transition Temperatures, Nikolai A. Zarkevich, Teck L. Tan, Duane D. Johnson

Nikolai A. Zarkevich

We calculate the transition temperature versus concentration (Tc vs c) phase diagrams of several phase-segregating alloys [fcc Ca-Sr, Au-Pt, and Rh-(Pd,Cu,Ag,Au)] using a multiscale method combining first-principles calculations and Monte Carlo via the cluster expansion (CE). We study Pd-Rh, with its well-known high-T miscibility gap, to verify the method’s reliability. We predict that Ca-Sr segregates at low temperatures. We then show that a rapid estimate of Tc is obtained from enthalpies analytically derived from a CE, and, using thermodynamic integration, we determine under what circumstances this mean-field estimate is accurate compared to Monte Carlo results. Also, we discuss how an …


The Effect Of Nanoparticle Shape On Polymer-Nanocomposite Rheology And Tensile Strength, Scott Knauert, Jack Douglas, Francis Starr Jan 2007

The Effect Of Nanoparticle Shape On Polymer-Nanocomposite Rheology And Tensile Strength, Scott Knauert, Jack Douglas, Francis Starr

Francis Starr

No abstract provided.


Interaction Of Water With Cap-Ended Defective And Non-Defective Small Carbon Nanotubes, Jose L. Rivera, J. L. Rico, Francis W. Starr Jan 2007

Interaction Of Water With Cap-Ended Defective And Non-Defective Small Carbon Nanotubes, Jose L. Rivera, J. L. Rico, Francis W. Starr

Francis Starr

No abstract provided.


Self-Assembling Dna Dendrimers: A Numerical Study, L. Largo, Francis Starr, F. Sciortino Jan 2007

Self-Assembling Dna Dendrimers: A Numerical Study, L. Largo, Francis Starr, F. Sciortino

Francis Starr

No abstract provided.


Thermal Effects On Mechanical Grinding-Induced Surface Texture In Tetragonal Piezoelectrics, Wonyoung Chang, Alexander H. King, Keith J. Bowman Jan 2007

Thermal Effects On Mechanical Grinding-Induced Surface Texture In Tetragonal Piezoelectrics, Wonyoung Chang, Alexander H. King, Keith J. Bowman

Alexander H. King

The effect of temperature on grinding-induced texture in tetragonal lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and lead titanate (PT) has been investigated using in situ x-ray diffraction (XRD) with an area detector. In contrast with previous results on electrical poling, mechanically-ground PT and soft PZT materials retain strong ferroelastic textures during thermal cycling, even after excursions to temperatures slightly above the Curie temperature. The relationship between the residual stresses in the surface region, caused by grinding, and those resulting from domain wall motion is elucidated by in situ texture measurements obtained during thermal cycling.


How Surface Stresses Lead To Size-Dependent Mechanics Of Tensile Deformation In Nanowires, M. Ravi Shankar, Alexander H. King Jan 2007

How Surface Stresses Lead To Size-Dependent Mechanics Of Tensile Deformation In Nanowires, M. Ravi Shankar, Alexander H. King

Alexander H. King

It has been proposed that surface and interface stresses can modify the elastic behavior in nanomaterials such as nanowires. The authors show that surface stresses modify the tensile response of nanowires only when nonlinear elastic effects become important leading to cross terms between the applied stress and the surface stress. These effects are only significant when the radius of the nanowire is of the order of a few nanometers. The resulting alteration of tensile stiffness, though effected in part by the nonlinear elastic modulus, is particularly wrought by a modification of the stress state in the deformed nanowire.


Energy Pathways And Directionality In Deformation Twinning, S. Kibey, J. B. Liu, Duane D. Johnson, H. Sehitoglu Jan 2007

Energy Pathways And Directionality In Deformation Twinning, S. Kibey, J. B. Liu, Duane D. Johnson, H. Sehitoglu

Duane D. Johnson

We present ab initiodensity functional theory calculations of twinning energy pathways for two opposite twinning modes, (111)[112¯] and (111)[1¯1¯2], in fcc materials to examine the directional nature of twinning which cannot be explained by classical twin nucleationmodels or the “twinnability” criterion. By accounting for these energy pathways in a multiscale model, we quantitatively predict the critical twinning stress for the (111)[1¯1¯2] mode to be substantially higher compared to the favorable (111)[112¯] mode (whose predicted stresses are in agreement with experiment), thus, ruling out twinning in the (111)[1¯1¯2] mode.


Markov Chain Monte Carlo Defect Identification In Nde Images, Aleksandar Dogandžić, Benhong Zhang Jan 2007

Markov Chain Monte Carlo Defect Identification In Nde Images, Aleksandar Dogandžić, Benhong Zhang

Aleksandar Dogandžić

We derive a hierarchical Bayesian method for identifying elliptically‐shaped regions with elevated signal levels in NDE images. We adopt a simple elliptical parametric model for the shape of the defect region and assume that the defect signals within this region are random following a truncated Gaussian distribution. Our truncated‐Gaussian model ensures that the signals within the defect region are higher than the baseline level corresponding to the noise‐only case. We derive a closed‐form expression for the kernel of the posterior probability distribution of the location, shape, and defect‐signal distribution parameters (model parameters). This result is then used to develop Markov …


Digital Elevation Accuracy And Grid Cell Size: Effects On Computed Topographic Attributes, Rob H. Erskine, Timothy R. Green Dec 2006

Digital Elevation Accuracy And Grid Cell Size: Effects On Computed Topographic Attributes, Rob H. Erskine, Timothy R. Green

Timothy R. Green

Terrain attributes are commonly used to explain the spatial variability of agronomic, pedologic, and hydrologic variables. The terrain attributes studied here (elevation, slope, aspect, and curvature) are estimated readily from digital elevation models (DEMs), but questions remain about how the accuracy and sample spacing of the elevation data affect the estimated attributes. The main objective of this study was to quantify differences in each terrain attribute due to factors affecting DEM accuracy and grid cell size. Three data sources were compared: (i) real-time kinematic global positioning system (RTKGPS); (ii) satellite-differentially corrected global positioning system (DGPS); and (iii) U.S. Geological Survey …