Corrosion phenomena on evaporated metal layers under electric stress

The metallization of insulating materials has gained great importance during the last few years. Vaporization in a high vacuum is increasingly employed. Today, glass, ceramic materials, and also organic insulating materials can be coated with a metal layer. While the coating of inorganic insulating materials is comparatively simple, the coating of organic materials causes difficulties. However, organic insulating materials with a metal layer offer a great variety of interesting new technical applications, e.g. in foil-type capacitors which require very thin foils. Nevertheless, during operation several problems can arise.     

Bessel-beam-pumped tunable distributed-feedback laser

A distributed-feedback (DFB) dye laser that is pumped by a standing Bessel-beam wave is constructed. Because of the long line focus of the Bessel beam, the laser medium is pumped in only a very thin filament (a few micrometers) along the optical axis. At the same time, longitudinal-mode selection is achieved because of the DFB effect. It is demonstrated that when the effective wavelength of the Bessel pump beam is varied, the Bragg wavelength for DFB is altered, and as a result the output wavelength can be tuned.     

Infrastructure Federation Through Virtualized Delegation of Resources and Services

Infrastructure federation is becoming an increasingly important issue for modern Distributed Computing Infrastructures (DCIs): Dynamic elasticity of quasi-static Grid environments, incorporation of special-purpose resources into commoditized Cloud infrastructures, cross-community collaboration for increasingly diverging areas of modern e-Science, and Cloud Bursting pose major challenges on the technical level for many resource and middleware providers. Especially with respect to increasing costs of operating data centers, the intelligent yet automated and secure sharing of resources is a key factor for success. With the D-Grid Scheduler Interoperability (DGSI) project within the German D-Grid Initiative, we provide a strategic technology for the automatically negotiated, SLA-secured, dynamically provisioned federation of resources and services for Grid-and Cloud-type infrastructures. This goal is achieved by complementing current DCI schedulers with the ability to federate infrastructure for the temporary leasing of resources and rechanneling of workloads. In this work, we describe the overall architecture and SLA-secured negotiation protocols within DGSI and depict an advanced mechanism for resource delegation through means of dynamically provisioned, virtualized middleware. Through this methodology, we provide the technological foundation for intelligent capacity planning and workload management in a cross-infrastructure fashion.     

Enhancement in crystallinity of poly(3-hexylthiophene) thin films prepared by low-temperature drop casting

Low-temperature casting of high molecular weight (HMW > 40 kDa) regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is demonstrated to yield highly crystalline P3HT thin films with well defined and preferentially edge-on oriented [(100) contact plane] nanocrystallites on the pure and silanized Si/SiO₂ substrates. Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction provide evidence for the increase in preferential edge-on orientation of P3HT-conjugated backbone while decreasing the film preparation temperature below room temperature. The optimum growth temperature is about −12°C for the given concentration (2 mg/mL in CHCl₃). The reduced evaporation rate of the solvent results in a better selection of the thermodynamically stable orientation of nanocrystallites onto the substrate. The degree of preferential orientation and size of the crystallites can be further increased on n-octadecyltrichlorosilane-treated SiO₂ substrates as well as by annealing the films at 200°C for 1 h. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

Liquid Phase CO2-Analytics for Standardized Mass Transfer Characterization in Packed Columns

Mass transfer parameters are necessary for the design of absorption and desorption processes in packed columns. To determine the effective interfacial area and liquid side mass transfer parameters, CO₂ absorption and desorption are frequently used. Reliable analytics for concentration determination are essential to obtain correct results. In this work two methods of CO₂ liquid phase analysis are compared: first, the back titration of unreacted NaOH after prior precipitation of the bound CO₂; secondly, the inorganic carbon analysis with a commercial inorganic carbon analyzer.     

数字合成(上)

什么是数字合成?当我们讨论它的时候,首先我们试着把多个元素整合成一个单个的完整的整体图像,当大多数这些技术仍然适用于图像时,我们将关注有用的和合理的能处理大的图像序列的工具和方法。正如您所见的,一个技术很好的合成师是可以包括从技师到艺术家的,不只是需要基本了解“操作的工具”,这里包括多种软件,而且必须是一个能洞察视觉本质的人。记住这一点,当遇到“它看起来是否正确?”的问题时,所有技术考虑都是不重要了,很明显只是一个对主题的把握,同时一个好的合成师都应以高要求来做出每个决定。定义什么是合成?有一个基本的定义:把…     

ANTARES: The HTR/VHTR project at Framatome ANP

Framatome ANP is developing a very high temperature reactor (VHTR), relying on its previous experience with high temperature reactor concepts, from its participation in the MODUL and the GT-MHR designs. While being a major actor in the nuclear reactor business with proven light water technology, AREVA wishes to be ready to meet the new challenges calling for small grid requirements, high temperature process heat and cogeneration. The Framatome ANP VHTR design for electricity production is based on an indirect cycle coupled to an “off-the-shelf” combined cycle gas turbine. Although direct cycle HTRs are being promoted for their high efficiency, preliminary evaluations show that the Framatome ANP design efficiency is on par with a direct cycle while avoiding power generation system (PGS) developments and keeping the PGS contamination free. Moreover, the nuclear heat source of the indirect cycle could also be used to meet the heat supplies from a standard design for multiple applications.