Solvent‐Mediated Plasmon Tuning in a Gold‐Nanoparticle–Poly(Ionic Liquid) Composite

The design, synthesis, and characterization of a hierarchically ordered composite whose structure and optical properties can be reversibly switched by adjustment of solvent conditions are described. Solvent‐induced swelling and de‐swelling is shown to provide control over the internal packing arrangement and hence, optical properties of in situ synthesized metal nanoparticles. Specifically, a gold‐nanoparticle‐containing ionic‐liquid‐derived polymer is synthesized in a single step by UV irradiation of a metal‐ion‐precursor‐doped, self‐assembled ionic liquid gel, 1‐decyl‐3‐vinylimidazolium chloride. Small‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS) studies indicate that in the de‐swollen state, the freestanding polymer adopts a perforated lamellar structure. Optical spectroscopy of the dried composite reveals plasmon resonances positioned in the near‐IR. Strong particle–particle interactions arise from matrix‐promoted formation of aggregated 1D clusters or chains of gold nanoparticles. Upon swelling in alcohol, the composite undergoes a structural conversion to a disordered structure, which is accompanied by a color change from purple to pale pink and a shift in the surface plasmon resonance to 527 nm, consistent with isolated, non‐interacting particles. These results demonstrate the far‐field tuning of the plasmonic spectrum of gold nanoparticles by solvent‐mediated changes in its encapsulating matrix, offering a straightforward, low‐cost strategy for the fabrication of nanophotonic materials.     

Impedance studies of polycrystalline tin oxide

Polycrystalline SnO₂ samples prepared in the laboratory were irradiated with 2 MeV He ions having doses of 3.62 × 10¹⁵ ion/cm². The ac small-signal electrical data acquired for the polycrystalline SnO₂ in the frequency (f) range 100 Hz ≤ f ≤ 1 MHz and temperature (T) range 26°C ≤ T ≤ 100°C revealed one semicircular relaxation in the impedance plane for the He implanted sample. However, two semicircular relaxations were obtained in the same plane for the samples without He implantation. The He implantation indicated enhancement in the donor density in the polycrystalline SnO₂ as depicted via terminal conductance (or resistance). An erratum to this article can be found at     

Computing Optimal Steiner Trees in Polynomial Space

Given an n-node edge-weighted graph and a subset of k terminal nodes, the NP-hard (weighted) Steiner tree problem is to compute a minimum-weight tree which spans the terminals. All the known algorithms for this problem which improve on trivial O(1.62 ⁿ )-time enumeration are based on dynamic programming, and require exponential space. Motivated by the fact that exponential-space algorithms are typically impractical, in this paper we address the problem of designing faster polynomial-space algorithms. Our first contribution is a simple O((27/4) ^k n ^O(logk))-time polynomial-space algorithm for the problem. This algorithm is based on a variant of the classical tree-separator theorem: every Steiner tree has a node whose removal partitions the tree in two forests, containing at most 2k/3 terminals each. Exploiting separators of logarithmic size which evenly partition the terminals, we are able to reduce the running time to $O(4^{k}n^{O(\log^{2} k)})$ . This improves on trivial enumeration for roughly k<n/3, which covers most of the cases of practical interest. Combining the latter algorithm (for small k) with trivial enumeration (for large k) we obtain a O(1.59 ⁿ )-time polynomial-space algorithm for the weighted Steiner tree problem. As a second contribution of this paper, we present a O(1.55 ⁿ )-time polynomial-space algorithm for the cardinality version of the problem, where all edge weights are one. This result is based on a improved branching strategy. The refined branching is based on a charging mechanism which shows that, for large values of k, convenient local configurations of terminals and non-terminals exist. The analysis of the algorithm relies on the Measure & Conquer approach: the non-standard measure used here is a linear combination of the number of nodes and number of non-terminals. Using a recent result in Nederlof (International colloquium on automata, languages and programming (ICALP), pp. 713–725, 2009), the running time can be reduced to O(1.36 ⁿ ). The previous best algorithm for the cardinality case runs in O(1.42 ⁿ ) time and exponential space.     

Double auction-inspired meta-scheduling of parallel applications on global grids

Meta-schedulers map jobs to computational resources that are part of a Grid, such as clusters, that in turn have their own local job schedulers. Existing Grid meta-schedulers either target system-centric metrics, such as utilisation and throughput, or prioritise jobs based on utility metrics provided by the users. The system-centric approach gives less importance to users’ individual utility, while the user-centric approach may have adverse effects such as poor system performance and unfair treatment of users. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel meta-scheduler, based on the well-known double auction mechanism that aims to satisfy users’ service requirements as well as ensuring balanced utilisation of resources across a Grid. We have designed valuation metrics that commodify both the complex resource requirements of users and the capabilities of available computational resources. Through simulation using real traces, we compare our scheduling mechanism with other common mechanisms widely used by both existing market-based and traditional meta-schedulers. The results show that our meta-scheduling mechanism not only satisfies up to 15% more user requirements than others, but also improves system utilisation through load balancing.     

A study of austenitization of SG iron

Austenitization process of three SG irons with varying compositions and as cast matrix microstructure has been studied at three austenitization temperatures of 850, 900 and 950C for different time periods. Microstructure, hardness and X-ray diffraction have been used to reveal the nature of dependence of the process on austenitization temperature, time and as cast structure. The optimum austenitization time is maximum for ferritic and minimum for pearlitic matrix.     

Adiabatic shear banding in a thick-walled steel tube

We analyze the initiation and propagation of adiabatic shear bands in a thick-walled 4340 steel tube with a V-notch in the middle. The material is modeled as strain hardening, strain-rate hardening and thermal softening. The deformations are assumed to be locally adiabatic and the effect of inertia forces is considered. Two different loadings, i.e., torsional, and combined torsional and axial pressure are considered. In each case, the load generally increases linearly from zero to the final value, is kept steady there for some time, then decreases to zero and is kept at zero; thus a finite amount of energy is input into the body. For the combined loading, the magnitude of the torsional loading pulse is kept fixed and the effect of varying the magnitude of the axial pressure preload is investigated. A shear band first initiates in the element adjoining the notch tip and propagates radially inwards. By recording the time when a shear band initiates at the centroids of different elements we determine its speed of propagation in the radial direction to vary from approximately 50 m/s at the instant of its initiation in an element abutting the notch tip, to nearly 90 m/s by the time it reaches the innermost surface of the tube; the speed also depends upon the overall loading rate, and whether or not the loading is multiaxial. The drop in the torque required to twist the tube at the initiation of a shear band is not as sharp as that in a thin-walled steel tube. We compute the distance through which a shear band propagates as a function of the energy input into the body and thus ascertain the energy required to drive a shear band through a unit distance. We also study torsional deformations of a thick-walled CR-300 steel tube, model its thermal softening by a relation proposed by Zhou et al. and use material properties derived from their data. In this case, the speed of a shear band initiating from an element abutting the notch tip is found to vary between 750 m/s and 1,000 m/s at different points on a radial line through the notch tip; this agrees with that observed by Zhou et al. in their experiments on single-notched plates.     

Growth and electrical characterization of the lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate (PMN-PT) single crystals for piezoelectric devices

The lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate is one of the new generations of piezoelectric materials with outstanding properties. Single crystals of 0.67Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-0.33PbTiO₃ (PMN-PT) show superior properties as compared to piezoelectric ceramics and piezoelectric films in device applications. Large size crystals are required for specific applications. Previously, transparent and high quality PMN-PT single crystals have been grown in our laboratory using the high temperature flux method. The size of the obtained crystals was small and varied from 2 to 8 mm³, mostly showing regular prismatic shape. In present attempt, PMN-PT crystals are grown from the vertical gradient freeze method with no flux using congruent melt. Processing conditions and growth parameters have been optimized to increase the size and yield of the perovskite crystals including cooling rate, soak time and soak temperature. The size of the grown crystals obtained by this method is very large relatively and varied from 5 to 30 mm³. The microstructure of the as grown single crystals is investigated by scanning electron microscopy. Piezoelectric properties of the grown crystals are also investigated. PMN-PT plates show excellent piezoelectric properties. Samples were poled under an applied electric field of 5 kV/cm. Dielectric properties at a frequency of 1 kHz are examined. Finally, the variation of pyroelectric coefficient with temperature is studied. The grown PMN-PT crystals show typical relaxor dielectric properties.