Theoretical investigation of intrinsic point defects and the oxygen migration behavior in rare earth hafnates

In this work, the composition-dependent point defect types and formation energies of RE₂Hf₂O₇ (RE = La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu and Gd) as well as the oxygen diffusion behavior are systematically investigated by first-principles calculations. The possible defect reactions and dominant defect complexes under stoichiometric and non-stoichiometric conditions are revealed. It is found that O Frenkel pairs are the predominant defect in stoichiometric pyrochlore hafnates. Hf-RE cation anti-site defects, accompanied by RE vacancies and/or oxygen interstitials, are stable in the non-stoichiometric case of HfO₂ excess. On the other hand, RE-Hf anti-site defects together with oxygen vacancies and/or RE interstitials are preferable in the case of RE₂O₃ excess. The energy barriers for the migration along the V_O48f - V_O48f pathway of pyrochlore hafnates were calculated to be between 0.81 eV and 0.89 eV. Based on these results, a defect engineering strategy is proposed and the pyrochlore hafnates investigated here are predicted to exhibit potential oxygen ionic conductivity.     

Photophysical investigation of the formation of defect levels in P doped ZnO thin films

Zinc oxide (ZnO) offers a major disadvantage of asymmetry doping in terms of reliability, stability, and reproducibility of p-type doping, which is the main hindrance in realization of optoelectronic devices. The problem is even more complicated due to formation of various native defects in unintentionally doped n-type ZnO. The realization of p-type conductivity in doped ZnO requires an in-depth understanding of the formation of an effective shallow acceptor, as well as donor-acceptor compensation. Photophysical properties such as photoconductivity along with photoluminescence (PL) studies have unprecedentedly and effectively been utilized in this work to monitor the evolution of various in-gap defects. Phosphorus (P) doped ZnO thin films have been grown by RF magnetron sputtering under various Ar to O₂ gas ratios to investigate the effect of O₂ on the donor-acceptor compensation by comprehensive photoconductivity measurements supported by the PL studies. Initial elemental analyses indicate presence of abundant zinc vacancies (V_Zn) in O-rich ambience. The results predict that P sits in the zinc (Zn) site rather than the oxygen (O) site causing the formation of P_Zn–2V_Zn acceptor-like defects, which compensates the donor defects in P doped ZnO films. Photocurrent spectra uniquely reveal presence of more oxygen vacancies (V_O) defects states in lower O₂ flow, which gets compensated with an increase in the O₂ flow. Successive photocurrent transients indicate probable presence of more V_O in the films grown with lower O₂ flow and more V_Zn in higher O₂ flow. Overall the photosensitivity measurements clearly present that O-rich ambience expedites the formation of acceptor defects which are compensated, thereby lowering the dark current and enhancing the ultraviolet photosensitivity.     

Warm-white light performance of Dy3+, Eu3+: NaLa(WO4)2 phosphors excited with a 450-nm LED

Dy³⁺, Eu³⁺: NaLa(WO₄)₂ phosphors are successfully synthesized through the solid-state reaction technique. The phase-structure and morphology are measured via X-ray diffraction and energy dispersive spectrometry. The concentrations of Dy³⁺, Eu³⁺, La³⁺, and W⁶⁺ are measured via ICP. The absorption and excited spectra are presented, which indicate that a blue band ranging from 430 to 480 nm is suitable for excitation. Using a commercial blue LED with a wavelength of 450 nm as the excitation light source, emission spectra for samples with varying dopant concentration ratios of Dy³⁺ to Eu³⁺ are obtained, which show good tunable yellow and red emission. For the purpose of investigating white LED performance, CIE spectra and a white light photo are also presented. The results reveal that varying the dopant concentration ratio of Dy³⁺ to Eu³⁺ plays a key role in the warm-white performance. With increasing concentration of Eu³⁺, the correlated color temperature decreases from 4069 to 3172 K, which indicates good warm-white performance.     

Validation of performance of real-time kinematic PPP. A possible tool for deformation monitoring

Structural failures (bridge or building collapses) and geohazards (landslides, ground subsidence or earthquakes) are worldwide problems that often lead to significant economic and loss of life. Monitoring the deformation of both natural phenomena and man-made structures is a major key to assessing structural dynamic responses. Actually, this monitoring process is under real-time demand for developing warning and alert systems.One of the most used techniques for real-time deformation monitoring is the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) real-time procedure, where the relative positioning approach, using a well-known reference station, has been applied.This study was conducted to evaluate the actual quality of the real-time kinematic Precise Point Positioning (PPP) GNSS solution for deformation monitoring, where it can be concluded that a promise tool is under development and should be taken into account on actual and near future real-time deformation monitoring studies and applications.     

Thermal and transport properties of as-grown Ni-rich TiNi shape memory alloys

Electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, specific heat and thermal conductivity measurements on the Ti_50−xNi_50+x (x = 0.0–1.6 at.%) shape memory alloys are performed to investigate their thermal and transport properties. In this study, anomalous features are observed in both cooling and heating cycles in all measured physical properties of the slightly Ni-rich TiNi alloys (x ≤ 1.0), corresponds to the transformation between the B19′ martensite and B2 austenite phases. Besides, the transition temperature is found to decrease gradually with increasing Ni content, and the driving force for the transition is also found to diminish slowly with the addition of excess Ni, as revealed by specific heat measurements. While the signature of martensitic transformation vanishes for the Ni-rich TiNi alloys with x ≥ 1.3, the characteristics of strain glass transition start to appear. The Seebeck coefficients of these TiNi alloys were found to be positive, suggesting the hole-type carriers dominate the thermoelectric transport. From the high-temperature Seebeck coefficients, the estimated value of Fermi energy ranges from ∼1.5 eV (Ti_48.4Ni_51.6) to ∼2.1 eV (Ti₅₀Ni₅₀), indicating the metallic nature of these alloys. In addition, the thermal conductivity of the slightly Ni-rich TiNi alloys with x ≤ 1.0 shows a distinct anomalous feature at the B19′ → B2 transition, likely due to the variation in lattice thermal conductivity.     

Application of higher order spectral features and support vector machines for bearing faults classification

Condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of rolling element bearings timely and accurately are very important to ensure the reliability of rotating machinery. This paper presents a novel pattern classification approach for bearings diagnostics, which combines the higher order spectra analysis features and support vector machine classifier. The use of non-linear features motivated by the higher order spectra has been reported to be a promising approach to analyze the non-linear and non-Gaussian characteristics of the mechanical vibration signals. The vibration bi-spectrum (third order spectrum) patterns are extracted as the feature vectors presenting different bearing faults. The extracted bi-spectrum features are subjected to principal component analysis for dimensionality reduction. These principal components were fed to support vector machine to distinguish four kinds of bearing faults covering different levels of severity for each fault type, which were measured in the experimental test bench running under different working conditions. In order to find the optimal parameters for the multi-class support vector machine model, a grid-search method in combination with 10-fold cross-validation has been used. Based on the correct classification of bearing patterns in the test set, in each fold the performance measures are computed. The average of these performance measures is computed to report the overall performance of the support vector machine classifier. In addition, in fault detection problems, the performance of a detection algorithm usually depends on the trade-off between robustness and sensitivity. The sensitivity and robustness of the proposed method are explored by running a series of experiments. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve made the results more convincing. The results indicated that the proposed method can reliably identify different fault patterns of rolling element bearings based on vibration signals.     

基于可靠性评价的含缺陷核压力管道疲劳寿命预测方法

含缺陷压力管道经缺陷评定合乎使用后,其疲劳寿命的估计具有重要的工程意义。将整个含缺陷压力管道作为一个整体,分析了含缺陷压力管道的疲劳裂纹扩展特点,提出了相应的含缺陷压力管道疲劳寿命的计算过程,并在基于可靠性评价的基础上,给出了核压力管道的可接受失效概率,最终得到了含缺陷核压力管道疲劳寿命预测方法。     

激光晶体Nd:YVO4的形貌及生长缺陷

本文报道了应用环境扫描电镜（ESEM）和同步辐射X射线白光形貌术对采用提拉法生长出的Nd:YVO4晶体进行的形貌及生长缺陷的分析,获得了该晶体的开裂表面的ESEM形貌像以及取自晶体肩部和中间部位的（001）面的同步辐射白光形貌像,观察到了位错、包裹物等缺陷,可为生长高质量的Nd:YVO4晶体提供重要的启示.     

Thermodynamic modeling of native point defects and dopants of GaN semiconductors

A thermodynamic modeling of GaN was carried out to describe the thermodynamic behavior of native defects, dopants, and carriers (free electrons and holes) in GaN semiconductors. The compound energy model (CEM) was used. An unintentionally doped GaN was taken as an example. Oxygen was introduced into the model as the unintentionally doped impurity, according to the practical experimental phenomena. The energies of component compounds in the model were defined based on the results of the ab initio calculations and adjusted to fit experimental data. The thermodynamic properties of the defects and the oxygen doped were calculated to show the facility of the model.     

Highly oriented star-like patterns observed on GaSe epilayers grown on Si(111)

Epitaxial lamellar gallium selenide (GaSe) semiconductors have been grown on trench-patterned silicon (Si) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. An intriguing star-like patterned morphology was identified by atomic force microscopy on these epilayers. This non-trivial feature can be correlated with the accumulation of stacking faults of two concurrent epitaxial domains around self-oriented triangular pits developed earlier on the Si(111) surface by the chemical etching. Crystallographic considerations show how the stars can be formed.