National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

We report on the synthesis of novel ovine and bovine derived hydroxyapatite thin films on titanium substrates by pulsed laser deposition for a new generation of implants. The calcination treatment applied to produce the hydroxyapatite powders from ovine/bovine bones was intended to induce crystallization and to prohibit the transmission of diseases. The deposited films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Pull-off adherence and profilometry measurements were also carried out. X-ray diffraction ascertained the polycrystalline hydroxyapatite nature of the powders and films. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy evidenced the vibrational bands characteristic to a hydroxyapatite material slightly carbonated. The micrographs of the films showed a uniform distribution of spheroidal particulates with a mean diameter of similar to 2 mu m. Pull-off measurements demonstrated excellent bonding strength values between the hydroxyapatite films and the titanium substrates. Because of their physical-chemical properties and low cost fabrication from renewable resources, we think that these new coating materials could be considered as a prospective competitor to synthetic hydroxyapatite used for implantology applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We have investigated the impact of the self-consistent coaction of carrier-phonon and Coulomb interactions on the scattering efficiency in a quantum-dot system within a quantum kinetic theory. While there is a substantial effect on the scattering between discrete quantum-dot states due to the interplay of both interactions, the capture of carriers from a wetting layer is only slightly enhanced by the coaction. For the carrier capture due to the electron-phonon interaction, results of the quantum kinetic treatment are compared to those of a perturbative approach. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.035301

ZnO uniform films were deposited on polymer sphere arrays by an electroless technique. The low-dimensional ZnO particles were grown from an aqueous solution of zinc nitrate and dimethylamineborane. The X-ray diffraction studies demonstrate that the ZnO crystallites have a hexagonal wurtzite structure. The scanning electron microscopy images prove that ZnO hexagonal prisms are synthesized with a fairly uniform diameter of around 200 nm. From the contact angle measurements it was found that the electroless deposition on polymer sphere arrays of semiconductor hexagonal prisms leads to an improvement of ZnO hydrophobic properties.

Dense superconducting composites with magnetic nanoparticles were prepared by spark plasma sintering. In addition to structure and magnetic properties, we focused on the pinning properties as described by the field and temperature dependence of the scaled pinning force analyzed. We found that the pinning force does not obey any scaling law and attributed this effect to the anisotropy of the MgB2 and the almost random distribution of the orientation of the superconducting grains within the polycrystalline sample.

A combined chemical-electrochemical method was used for covalent functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) with polydiphenylamine (PDPA) doped with heteropolyanions of H3PMo12O40 center dot xH(2)O. The functionalization process induces in Raman spectra of SWNTs the following changes: (i) an increase in relative intensity of the D band, accompanied a gradual up-shift of the G band in the case of the semiconducting tubes and a decrease in the relative intensity of band peaked at 1540 cm(-1) is remarked in the case of the metallic tubes; (ii) in the anti-Stokes Raman spectrum an increase in the relative intensity of Raman line of metallic tubes peaked at -1560 cm(-1) is remarked when the cycles number increases. The additional down-shift of the FTIR bands belonging to H3PMo12O40 heteropolyanions (at 881, 943 and 1055 cm(-1)) and PDPA (at 688, 736 and 1016 cm(-1)) originates in hindrance steric effects induced the covalent functionalization of SWNTs with polymer molecules. Using Raman scattering and FTIR spectroscopy we demonstrate that chemical polymerization of diphenylamine in the presence of H3PMo12O40 center dot xH(2)O and SWNTs results in a composite of the type blend based on PDPA in un-doped state and SWNTs doped with H3PMo12O40 heteropolyanions. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

We investigated the synthesis of CdS nanoparticles via an optimized water-in-oil microemulsion route that used the non-ionic surfactantbased system H2O-n-octane-Brij30/1-octanol. For that purpose, a microemulsion that contained Cd(II) ions (mu e1) and another microemulsion that contained S2- ions (mu e2) were combined. To investigate the ways in which the non-ionic microemulsion characteristics controlled the size and emission properties of colloidal CdS quantum dots, mu e1 and mu e2 with tunable and robust similar structure were prepared. This requirement was fulfilled by matching the water emulsification failure boundary (wefb) of the two microemulsions and carrying out synthesis along this boundary. Dynamic light scattering and fluorescence probe techniques were used to investigate the size and interfacial organization of the microemulsion water droplets, and the CdS nanoparticles were characterized by UV-Vis and static fluorescence spectrometry, TEM and HRTEM. Nanoparticles of diameter 4.5-5.5 nm exhibiting enhanced band edge emission were produced by increasing the water content of the precursor microemulsions. The experimental results were combined with a Monte Carlo simulation approach to demonstrate that growth via coagulation of seed nuclei represented the driving mechanism for the CdS nanoparticle formation in the water-in-oil microemulsion.

In this paper we report on the stability of CNW layers, synthesized by a radiofrequency plasma jet, against the chemical attack with different acid solutions (sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, and hydrofluoric acid). We present the changes of the morphology and structure of the CNW caused by the post-growth chemical treatments. We demonstrate that self-sustaining and transferable CNW layers can be obtained, by chemically dissolving the substrates, while the initial characteristics of the material are well preserved. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nanocrystalline Tm3+(5%)-doped BaTiO3 (BT-Tm) has been synthesized by the sol-gel method. The morphology, structure, and optical properties of powders and ceramics were characterized. The average grain size of the gel precursor annealed at 700 and 900 degrees C was 20 nm and 30 nm, respectively. These powders were single phase and crystallized with a cubic structure while the BT-Tm sintered ceramics were crystallized with the tetragonal BaTiO3 structure. The photoluminescence spectra showed typical transitions of Tm3+ ions and a structure consistent with the Tm3+ ions incorporation in the BaTiO3 crystalline lattice. Thermoluminescence peaks recorded at 300 degrees C (for annealed samples) or at 230 degrees C for the ceramic sample were assigned to the recombination of the Tm2+-electron traps located mainly at the surface of the nano-crystals or inside the microcrystals, respectively. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Polarized Raman scattering studies on stiff layered structure of surfactant intercalated with trilayer graphene were performed at different intensities and excitation wavelengths. The D and 2D Raman bands reach the highest and lowest intensity when the polarization of laser excitation light is oriented along and perpendicular on the edges. The 2D band discloses two lorentzian components, separated by similar to 40 cm(-1), which result from the action of interplanar forces, of Casimir nature. The value of similar to 40 cm(-1) is close to the energy value associated with E-2g interplanar layer shear mode evidenced so far only by neutron spectrometry. A new result regards the opposite variation of the intensities of D and 2D bands with the increase of the wavelength of the excitation light. This originates in the different origin of the D and 2D bands; the former is dependent on disorder including also the graphene edges while the latter, results from in a double resonant mechanism combined with a Casimir effect. One demonstrates that the magnitude of Casimir force, which activates interlayer vibration modes, depends on the carrier density on the graphene sheets which can be varied both by the intensity and the wavelength of the excitation laser light. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Buried waveguides have been realized in a 0.7 at.% Nd:YAG single crystal using the direct-writing technique with a femtosecond laser. Efficient laser emission at 1.06 and 1.32 mu m is demonstrated and laser action at 0.94 mu m is obtained using the pump with fiber-coupled diode laser at 807 nm, the first demonstration of such devices.