Recovery of gold cyanide using inherently conducting polymers

Removal of gold from basic solutions containing [Au(CN)₂]^? has been demonstrated using the inherently conducting polymer polypyrrole. Polymers containing sulfonated aromatic dopants have been found to display a significant ability to remove gold from such solutions. Experiments performed in solutions containing both gold and copper cyanide complexes indicate that the recovery process is not highly selective. However, the polypyrroles used display significantly faster rates of gold recovery than activated carbon. © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry     

Second harmonic generation from a ferroelectric film

We derive an expression for transmittivity (T_SHG) of second harmonic generation (SHG) signals from a ferroelectric (FE) film. Intensities of up and down fields in the medium are investigated in relation to T_SHG. The derivations are made based on undepletion of input fields and nonlinear wave equation derived from the Maxwell equations. We present two cases: film without mirrors and with partial mirrors. Expressions for the newly derived nonlinear susceptibility coefficients of SHG for real crystal symmetry [J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 19 (2002) 2007] are used to get more realistic results. Variations in T_SHG with respect to film thickness are illustrated.     

Evolution and structure of drying material bridges of pharmaceutical excipients: studies on a microscope slide

An experimental procedure was developed to study directly the process by which liquid bridges between small particles in a granule form and solidify. The evolution of saturated solutions of such pharmaceutical excipients as lactose and mannitol in a liquid bridge was studied on a system situated on a microscope slide. Solidification and crystallization kinetics and phase composition during and immediately following bridge formation were observed directly. It was shown that bridges on the microscope slide and in the granule behave very much the same regardless of the different length and diffusion-scales of the two systems.We found that solid bridge formation takes place in several consecutive but distinct steps. In the case of lactose, considerable shrinkage of the initial liquid bridge takes place prior to the onset of crystallization. Further bridge solidification at ambient conditions occurs via simultaneous crystallization and vitrification within minutes. As a result, a “solid” bridge usually contains both a crystalline and a non-crystalline phase, the crystalline phase being predominately α-lactose monohydrate. Most of the non-crystalline phase eventually converts to crystalline β-lactose but the process may take many hours or even days. Results for this process are compared for samples obtained from different manufacturers of commercially available lactose. In the case of mannitol, different polymorphic forms crystallize as the drying/crystallization process progresses. A formed “solid” bridge usually contains several polymorphs of mannitol. The relevance of the behavior of the two model systems (pure lactose and pure mannitol) to a real granulation and tabletting process is discussed.     

Effects of SiN passivation and high-electric field on AlGaN-GaN HFET degradation

The authors report on the effects of silicon nitride (SiN) surface passivation and high-electric field stress (hot electron stress) on the degradation of undoped AlGaN-GaN power HFETs. Stressed devices demonstrated a decrease in the drain current and maximum transconductance and an increase in the parasitic drain series resistance, gate leakage, and subthreshold current. The unpassivated devices showed more significant degradation than SiN passivated devices. Gate lag phenomenon was observed from unpassivated devices and removed by SiN passivation. However, SiN passivated devices also showed gate lag phenomena after high-electric field stress, which suggests possible changes in surface trap profiles occurred during high-electric field stress test.     

High-performance MIM capacitor using ALD high-k HfO/sub 2/-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ laminate dielectrics

For the first time, we successfully fabricated and demonstrated high performance metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors with HfO/sub 2/-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ laminate dielectric using atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. Our data indicates that the laminate MIM capacitor can provide high capacitance density of 12.8 fF//spl mu/m/sup 2/ from 10 kHz up to 20 GHz, very low leakage current of 3.2 /spl times/ 10/sup -8/ A/cm/sup 2/ at 3.3 V, small linear voltage coefficient of capacitance of 240 ppm/V together with quadratic one of 1830 ppm/V/sup 2/, temperature coefficient of capacitance of 182 ppm//spl deg/C, and high breakdown field of /spl sim/6 MV/cm as well as promising reliability. As a result, the HfO/sub 2/-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ laminate is a very promising candidate for next generation MIM capacitor for radio frequency and mixed signal integrated circuit applications.     

Breakup of Unstable Drops and Bubbles at a Vibrating Cylindrical Nozzle

A condition for the formation of unstable drops of an ideal liquid in a gas and bubbles in an ideal liquid at a cylindrical nozzle executing longitudinal vibrations is considered. Expressions are derived for the particle size as functions of the parameters of the nozzle and the characteristics of vibration. A necessary and sufficient condition for the formation of a stable particle at the vibrating nozzle is determined. The theoretical and experimental data are in satisfactory agreement.     

Overlapping Schwarz and Spectral Element Methods for Linear Elasticity and Elastic Waves

The classical overlapping Schwarz algorithm is here extended to the spectral element discretization of linear elastic problems, for both homogeneous and heterogeneous compressible materials. The algorithm solves iteratively the resulting preconditioned system of linear equations by the conjugate gradient or GMRES methods. The overlapping Schwarz preconditioned technique is then applied to the numerical approximation of elastic waves with spectral elements methods in space and implicit Newmark time advancing schemes. The results of several numerical experiments, for both elastostatic and elastodynamic problems, show that the convergence rate of the proposed preconditioning algorithm is independent of the number of spectral elements (scalability), is independent of the spectral degree in case of generous overlap, otherwise it depends inversely on the overlap size. Some results on the convergence properties of the spectral element approximation combined with Newmark schemes for elastic waves are also presented.     

The influence of oxygen partial pressure on growth of the (Hg,Re)-1223 intergrain junction

Hg/sub 0.82/Re/sub 0.18/Ba/sub 2/Ca/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 8+/spl delta// polycrystalline samples were successfully obtained by using different oxygen partial pressure in the annealing treatment of the precursor ceramic. The doping state was confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction pattern analysis and by observing distinct thermopower values at room temperature. Also, the intergrain regions have shown an improvement in the critical current density when using the precursor preparation with 10% O/sub 2/ and 90% Ar (optimal doped). The optimal doped sample has presented the highest /spl alpha/ exponent of the J/sub c//spl prop/[1-(T/T/sub c/)/sup 2/]/sup /spl alpha// dependence. For the case of (Hg,Re)-1223 polycrystalline superconductor applications, the /spl alpha/ exponent can be used as a junction quality parameter.     

The Influence and Interpretation of Surface Parameters for Wetting Transitions in Ternary Mixtures

Starting from a microscopic Hamiltonian defined on a semi-infinite cubic lattice, and employing a mean-field approximation, the surface parameters relevant for wetting in confined ternary mixtures are derived. These are found in terms of the microscopic coupling constants, and yield a physical interpretation of their origins. In comparison with the standard expression for the surface free-energy density, several new terms arising from the derivation are identified. The influence of the surface parameters on a predicted unbinding transition in a mixture of oil, water, and amphiphile demonstrate that existing results are robust to the addition of the extra surface terms.