Maximum drift velocity of electrons in selectively doped InAlAs/InGaAs/InAlAs heterostructures with InAs inserts

The dependence of the electron mobility and drift velocity on the growth conditions, thickness, and doping of an InAs insert placed at the center of the quantum well in a selectively doped InAlAs/InGaAs/InAlAs heterostructure has been investigated. Record enhancement of the maximum drift velocity to (2–4) × 10⁷ cm/s in an electric field of 5 × 10³ V/cm has been obtained in a 17-nm-wide quantum well with an undoped 4-nm-thick InAs insert. In the structures with additional doping of the InAs insert, which facilitates an increase in the density of electrons in the quantum well to 4.0 × 10¹² cm^?2, the maximum drift velocity is as high as 2 × 10⁷ cm/s in an electric field of 7 × 10³ V/cm.     

BPC – A binary priority countdown protocol

In modern wireless ad hoc networks, with a high speed PHY, every collision means a significant loss of useful bandwidth. In the last few years different binary contention protocols have been introduced to address this problem. In this work we propose a novel binary contention protocol called binary priority countdown (BPC) protocol, whose goal is to reduce collisions as well as contention time. BPC uses a new priority countdown mechanism which exploits the efficiency of binary countdown, but the priority countdown process is not constrained to a single binary countdown round. This way, the priority space is not defined by the length of binary countdown round, like in other binary countdown protocols proposed in the literature, and arbitrary medium access priorities can be decremented through multiple binary countdown rounds if necessary. The ability of a new priority countdown mechanism to count down any priority number without changing the length of a binary countdown round, allows independent management of priority space. This “independence” of priority space introduces new optimization and adaptation possibilities. Collision memory effect is recognized and described. BPC protocol reveals connection between unary, binary and digit contention protocols. All three groups of protocols can now be seen as members of the same class of contention algorithms. Preliminary simulation results are shown.     

Aryl acrylate porous functional polymer supports from water‐in‐oil‐in‐water multiple emulsions

Porous functional polymer supports are a class of material of wide interest due to the possibility of immobilising reactive species. A simplified procedure was applied for the preparation of porous polymer supports using a water‐in‐oil‐in‐water multiple emulsion. The primary emulsion was a high internal phase emulsion, having a volume fraction of water phase up to 95%. Two reactive acrylates, namely 4‐nitrophenyl acrylate and 2,4,6‐trichlorophenyl acrylate, were (separately) incorporated in the oil phase in order to obtain porous reactive polymer supports. Both acrylates were crosslinked with either divinylbenzene or ethylene glycol dimethacrylate, and beads of size ca 60 µm were obtained after the polymerisation of droplets suspended into the secondary aqueous phase. In the case of 4‐nitrophenyl acrylate and divinylbenzene as a crosslinker, particles with a star shape, the core being ca 60 µm in diameter and the arms ca 180 µm in length, were obtained. The polymers were functionalised with morpholine, tris(2‐aminoethyl)amine, piperidine or piperazine yielding supports with loadings of reactive groups of between 2.6 and 6.6 mmol g^?1. The results show that multiple emulsions can be precursors for porous polymer preparation. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry     

Cohesive Crack Model with Rate-Dependent Opening and Viscoelasticity: II. Numerical Algorithm, Behavior and Size Effect

In the preceding companion paper (Bažant and Li, 1995), the solution of an aging viscoelastic law was structure containing a cohesive crack with a rate-dependent stress-displacement softening law was reduced to a system of one-dimensional integro-differential equations involving compliance functions for points on the crack faces and the load point. An effective numerical algorithm for solving these equations, which dramatically reduces the computer time compared to the general two-dimensional finite element solution, is presented. The behavior of the model for various loading conditions is studied. It is shown that the model can closely reproduce the available experimental data from fracture tests with different loading rates spanning several orders of magnitude, and tests with sudden changes of the loading rate. Influence of the loading rate on the size effect and brittleness is also analyzed and is shown to agree with experiments. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Co-Magneli phases electrocatalysts for hydrogen/oxygen evolution

The subject of this work is the use of non-stoichiometric titanium oxides – Magneli phases as support material of Co-based electrocatalysts aimed for hydrogen/oxygen evolution reaction. Commercial micro-scaled Ebonex (Altraverda, UK) was mechanically treated for 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 h and further Co metallic phase was grafted by sol-gel method. Morphology of Co/Ebonex electrocatalysts was observed by means of TEM and SEM microscopy, while electrochemical behavior by means of cyclic voltammetry and steady-state galvanostatic method.     

New halide glasses of the CdX2-PbX2-KI (X=Cl,Br) systems

The glass forming regions and some properties of the CdBr₂-PbBr₂-KI (10 to 50 mol % CdBr₂, 10 to 70 mol % PbBr₂, 20 to 40 mol % KI), CdCl₂-PbBr₂-KI (10 to 50 mol % CdCl₂, 10 to 80 mol % PbBr₂, 10 to 70 mol % KI) and CdCl₂-PbCl₂-KI (20 to 50 mol % CdCl₂, 10 to 70 mol % PbCl₂, 5 to 60 mol % KI) ternary systems were studied. Glasses exhibit remarkably high transmittance (up to 80%) in the visible and IR region (down to 250 cm^–1 for CdBr₂-PbBr₂-KI, 300 cm^–1 for CdCl₂-PbBr₂-KI and 400 cm^–1 for CdCl₂-PbCl₂-KI for 1 mm thick plates). The values of glass transition temperature lie between 343 to 353 K and crystallization temperature between 343 to 403 K.     

Electron transport properties in GaAs at high electric fields

Electron distribution function, drift velocity, mean energy, valley population fractions and diffusion coefficient were calculated at high, up to 100 kV/cm, electric fields. Calculations were carried out by the Monte Carlo method. The three-valley model of GaAs conduction band was used. The obtained results were compared with the experimental data.     

Cavitation in Liquid Helium Observed in a Flow Due to a Vibrating Quartz Fork

A quartz fork vibrating at high amplitude is used to study cavitation in He I and He II along the saturated vapor pressure (SVP) curve and at slightly elevated pressures. Cavitation is observed as a breakdown of the resonance response at critical velocity when slowly sweeping the frequency of the drive across the resonance and confirmed by visual observation of a bubble occurring in He II in the space between the prongs of the fork. On decreasing the temperature from 4.2 K along the SVP curve the critical velocity slowly increases from about 0.4 m/s to 1 m/s, until a steep increase up to about 2 m/s occurs within about 20 mK just below the superfluid transition. We discuss our results, including the measured dependence of the critical velocity versus overpressure at fixed bath temperature.      

Vitamin C and plasma triglycerides in experimental animals and in humans

A chronic latent vitamin C deficiency in guinea pigs enhances triglyceride concentration in blood plasma but does not markedly alter the composition of fatty acids in serum and hepatal triglycerides. An addition of 0·5% ascorbic acid to the diet of golden hamsters tends to normalise alimentary hypertriglyceridemia provoked by a high-glucose fat-free diet not containing vitamin C. A daily administration of 2 × 500 mg of an effervescent ascorbic acid for three months to subjects aged between 50 and 75 who were in a state of a seasonal vitamin C deficiency resulted in a significant depression of triglyceridemia. The hypotriglyceridemic effect of ascorbic acid depended on the starting plasma concentration of triglycerides: the higher the initial triglyceridemia, the more striking the hypotriglyceridemic effect. An administration of 2 × 500 mg of effervescent ascorbic acid every 24 h to a selected group of subjects with an initial triglyceridemia above 200 mg % for the duration of one year brought about a very significant decline of triglyceridemia, and this still persisted six weeks following cessation of ascorbic acid administration. An intervention of vitamin C at the level of triglyceride splitting enzymes is presumed.