National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

The possibility to do surface measurements on sample containing Eu-151 by detection of Auger electrons delivered in the decay process of the Mossbauer nucleus is briefly presented herein. The test measurements have been carried out on Eu2O3 powder sample. A higher resonance effect and a lower line width have been obtained in backscattering geometry compared with transmission geometry.

The influence of mobile ions on the results of impedance spectroscopy (dielectric spectroscopy) measurements performed on a liquid crystal cell using the new mathematical model recently described was investigated. This mathematical model reformulates the fundamental equation system of continuity for mobile charge carriers and the Poisson equation using new variables. One makes the following assumptions: ions have different mobilities and diffusion coefficients, there is no generation-recombination process, the equilibrium carrier concentrations are uniform and equal each other, the electrodes are either completely blocking or blocked with adsorption-desorption processes. The final result is the analytical expression of the equivalent admittance for the system, allowing to have a clearer picture of the mobile ions and of the processes that occur at the electrode interface influencing the dielectric behavior.

The Bose glass theory for the vortex matter in superconductors with correlated disorder predicts the depinning of vortices due to the renormalization of the vortex pinning barriers by thermal fluctuations. For YB2Cu3O7 (YBCO) in external magnetic fields H oriented along the columnar pins generated by various techniques theoretical estimates give a depinning temperature T (dp) very close to the critical temperature T (c) (T (dp)similar to 0.95T (c)), whereas the results of standard magnetization relaxation experiments are repeatedly interpreted in terms of a much lower T (dp) (similar to 0.5T (c)). We investigated the temperature T variation of the normalized magnetization relaxation rate S for YBCO thin films containing BaZrO3 (BZO) nanorods preferentially oriented along the c axis, with H along the nanorods. The nonmonotonous S(T) variation below the matching field observed up to close to T (c) does not support a low T (dp). The often considered S(T) maximum occurring at relatively low T (which was connected to a disappointing T (dp)) is related to the occurrence of thermomagnetic instabilities. We show that the accommodation of vortices to the columnar pins in the presence of the T dependent macroscopic currents induced in the sample is signaled by a pronounced S(T) deep located at high T, in agreement with a T (dp) close to T (c). By increasing the film thickness and using the substrate decoration the BZO nanorods splay out, leading to the inhibition of (detrimental) vortex excitations involving double vortex kink or superkink formation, characteristic for high-quality thin films and single crystals with columnar pins along the c axis.

Spectrophotometric behavior of riboflavin (RF) adsorbed on silver nanoparticles as well as its interaction with two serum albumins, BSA and HSA, respectively, has been evidenced. The time evolution of the plasmonic features of the complexes formed by RF/BSA/HSA and Ag(0) nanoparticles having an average diameter of 10.0 +/- 2.0 nm have been investigated by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. Using steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, the structure, stability, and dynamics of the serum albumins have been studied. The efficiency of energy transfer process between RF and serum albumins on silver nanoparticles has been estimated. A reaction mechanism of RF with silver nanoparticles is also proposed and the results are discussed with relevance to the involvement of the silver nanoparticles to the redox process of RF and to the RF-serum albumins interaction into a silver nanoparticles complex.

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONs) coated with different biological (dextran, sucrose) polymers have been synthesized by the coprecipitation method. Biological polymers coated iron oxide nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Zero field cooled and field cooled magnetizations measurements are also reported. We present a preliminary study of the influence of biological polymer on the interaction effects in powders. The temperature, T (max), of the maximum, increased from 25 K (dextran) to 52 K (sucrose). These values are due to the decrease of interparticle interactions, mainly as a result of the interparticle distance increase.

TiO2-Au aerogels containing different amounts of gold nanoparticles of different sizes (5 and 16 nm) were successfully synthesized using a sol-gel procedure, and were tested for salicylic acid photo-degradation under UV irradiation. The structure and morphology of the obtained materials were investigated using X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and N-2 adsorption-desorption measurements. UV-Vis spectroscopy was used to study the optical properties. The effects of the gold nanoparticles on the TiO2 crystallization process were twofold, as follows: (i) the number of crystallized zones was strongly related to the concentration of the gold nanoparticles, and (ii) the smaller gold particles increased the time taken for the crystallization of the samples. It was found that the noble metal-doped samples exhibited higher degradation rates compared with bare titania. It was found that the most active photocatalyst in each studied system was the sample with the highest concentration of gold nanoparticles. Additionally, the highest degradation rate value was obtained with the smallest Au nanoparticles (46.4 x 10(-3) mu mol/(L.s). (C) 2013, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier By. All rights reserved.

We investigated the effect of tritium upload in the dense, polycrystalline MgB2 superconductor for 2 and 216 h. One basic property, the critical temperature T-c, slowly changes in time but is independent of the duration of tritium uptake. Immediately after tritiation, T-c shows a slight increase to 39.1 K but decreases to the critical temperature of the untritiated (pristine) sample, T-c = 38.8 K, after 370 days. The critical current density is strongly dependent on the tritium upload time, mainly at high magnetic fields. The underlying physics is discussed. This behaviour makes the use of MgB2 based conductors advantageous in tritium environments like fusion reactors.

The structure and electronic properties of the system resulted by epitaxial growth of a single atomic Au layer on a heated Ge(001) surface featured by (2 x 1) reconstruction are studied. The deposition at similar to 750 K results in a well-ordered Au surface featured by ripples separated by four times the theoretical distance between two neighboring Au atoms. As revealed by valence-band photoemission studies, the Au/Ge(001) system has metallic character. Correlating X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results with first-principles calculations we derive the implications on the covalent bonding of Au on the Ge dimer surface. (C) 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

The cryogenic detectors in the form of bolometers are presently used for different applications, in particular for very rare or hypothetical events associated with new forms of matter, specifically related to searches for dark matter. In the detection of particles with a semiconductor as target and detector, usually two signals are measured: ionization and heat. The amplification of the thermal signal is obtained with the prescriptions from the Luke-Neganov effect. The energy deposited in the semiconductor lattice as stable defects in the form of Frenkel pairs at cryogenic temperatures, following the interaction of a dark matter particle, is evaluated and consequences for measured quantities are discussed. This contribution is included in the energy balance of the Luke effect. Applying the present model to germanium and silicon, we found that for the same incident weakly interacting massive particle the energy deposited in defects in germanium is about twice the value for silicon. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The specific topology of the line-centered square lattice (known also as the Lieb lattice) induces remarkable spectral properties such as the macroscopically degenerated zero-energy flat band, the Dirac cone in the low-energy spectrum, and the peculiar Hofstadter-type spectrum in a magnetic field. We study here the properties of the finite Lieb lattice with periodic and vanishing boundary conditions. We investigate the behavior of the flat band induced by disorder and external magnetic and electric fields. We show that in the confined Lieb plaquette threaded by a perpendicular magnetic flux there are edge states with nontrivial behavior. The specific class of twisted edge states, which have alternating chirality, are sensitive to disorder and do not support integer quantum Hall effect (IQHE), but contribute to the longitudinal resistance. The symmetry of the transmittance matrix in the energy range where these states are located is revealed. The diamagnetic moments of the bulk and edge states in the Dirac-Landau domain, and also of the flat states in crossed magnetic and electric fields are shown. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.125428