We demonstrate a physical mechanism that enhances a splitting of diatomic Li-2 at cellulose surfaces. The origin of this splitting is a possible surface-induced diatomic-excited-state resonance repulsion. The atomic Li is then free to form either physical or chemical bonds with the cellulose surface and even diffuse into the cellulose layer structure. This allows for an enhanced storage capacity of atomic Li in nanoporous cellulose.

We present the theory for a retarded resonance interaction between two identical atoms near a dielectric surface. In free space the resonance interaction between isotropically excited atom pairs is attractive at all atom-atom separations. We illustrate numerically how this interaction between oxygen, sulphur, hydrogen, or nitrogen atom pairs may turn repulsive near water droplets. The results provide evidence of a mechanism causing excited state atom pair breakage to occur in the atmosphere near water droplets.

Co-ions are as essential in biological systems as they are ignored. The purpose of this letter is to demonstrate the importance of including ionic dispersion potentials acting between ions and interfaces in any realistic theoretical modeling of biological systems. We demonstrate through a well-known biological example that co-ion effects can be understood once these previously ignored forces are included. Experiments have in the past revealed that addition of salt solutions with different co-ions give fundamentally different results for the formation of meta 2 rhodopsin (which is involved in dim light vision). For systems with low salt concentrations, addition of salt favors the formation of meta 1 rhodopsin. Exactly the opposite is observed in high-concentration salt solutions. This is true even after surface pH. effects have been screened out with the addition of 0.5 M sodium acetate buffer. A theoretical explanation for the role of co-ions behind this effect is here given in terms of ionic dispersion potentials and ion specific surface pH.

A rectangular microwave resonator filled with ferrite with uniaxial magnetic anisotropy is considered. It is shown that this task can be reduced to an empty rhombus resonator with the vertex angle defined by an external magnetic field, provided that the magnetic anisotropy of the ferrite is strong. Therefore, the statistics of eigenfrequencies for TM modes is described by the Brody or semi-Poisson distribution with some exceptional cases.

The implantation damage build-up and optical activation of a-plane and c-plane GaN epitaxial films were compared upon 300 keV Eu implantation at room temperature. The implantation defects cause an expansion of the lattice normal to the surface, i.e. along the a-direction in a-plane and along the c-direction in c-plane GaN. The defect profile is bimodal with a pronounced surface damage peak and a second damage peak deeper in the bulk of the samples in both cases. For both surface orientations, the bulk damage saturates for high fluences. Interestingly, the saturation level for a-plane GaN is nearly three times lower than that for c-plane material suggesting very efficient dynamic annealing and strong resistance to radiation. a-plane GaN also shows superior damage recovery during post-implant annealing compared to c-plane GaN. For the lowest fluence, damage in a-plane GaN was fully removed and strong Eu-related red luminescence is observed. Although some residual damage remained after annealing for higher fluences as well as in all c-plane samples, optical activation was achieved in all samples revealing the red emission lines due to the ⁵D₀→⁷F₂transition in the Eu³⁺ ion. The presented results demonstrate a great promise for the use of ion beam processing for a-plane GaN based electronic devices as well as for the development of radiation tolerant electronics.

Magnetism and ferroelectricity at room temperature are observed in the NiBi2O4 ceramics. Both the time reversal and the inversion symmetry of the structure (space group F-43m) are broken. The saturation magnetization is 0.028 emu/g and the saturation polarization 2P(s) similar to 4.0 mu C/cm(2). NiBi2O4 also shows other room-temperature multiferroic properties, e. g. the piezoelectric coefficient (d(33)), the polarized dielectric character, the magneto-dielectric response and the magnetoelectric effect. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2010

new position-sensitive thermal neutron detector based on boron-coated converters has been developed as an alternative to todays standard He-3-based technology for application to thermal neutron scattering. The key element of the development is a novel 3D (B4C)-B-10 converter which has been ad hoc designed and realized with the aim of combining a high neutron conversion probability via the B-10(n, alpha)(7) Li reaction together with an efficient collection of the produced charged particles. The developed 3D converter is composed of thin aluminium grids made by a micro-waterjet technique and coated on both sides with a thin layer of( 10)B(4)C. When coupled to a GEM detector this converter allows reaching neutron detection efficiencies close to 50% at neutron wavelengths equal to 4 angstrom. In addition, the new detector features a spatial resolution of about 5 min and can sustain counting rates well in excess of 1 MHz/cm(2). The newly developed neutron detector will enable time-resolved measurements of different kind of samples in neutron scattering experiments at high flux spallation sources and can find a use in applications where large areas and custom geometries of thermal neutron detectors are foreseen. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2018

We demonstrate that the magnetoconductance of small lateral quantum dots in the strongly coupled regime (i.e. when the leads can support one or more propagating modes) shows a pronounced splitting of the conductance peaks and dips which persists over a wide range of magnetic fields (from zero field to the edge-state regime) and is virtually independent of the magnetic field strength. Our numerical analysis of the conductance based on the Hubbard Hamiltonian demonstrates that this is essentially a many-body/spin effect that can be traced to a splitting of degenerate levels in the corresponding closed dot. The above effect in open dots can be regarded as a counterpart of the Coulomb-blockade effect in weakly coupled dots, with the difference, however, that the splitting of the peaks originates from interactions between electrons of opposite spin.

Recently, it has been shown that a large variety of different networks have power law (scale-free) distributions of connectivities. We investigate the robustness of such a distribution in discrete threshold networks under neutral evolution. The guiding principle for this is robustness in the resulting phenotype. The numerical results show that a power law distribution is not stable under such an evolution, and the network approaches a homogeneous form where the overall distribution of connectivities is given by a Poisson distribution.

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By probabilistic means, the concept of contextuality is extended so that it can be used in non-ideal situations. An inequality is presented, which at least in principle enables a test to discard non-contextual hidden-variable models at low error rates, in the spirit of the Kochen-Specker theorem. Assuming that the errors are independent, an explicit error bound of 1.42% is derived, below which a Kochen-Specker contradiction occurs.

This paper analyzes effects of time dependence in the Bell inequality. A generalized inequality is derived for the case when coincidence and non-coincidence (and hence whether or not a pair contributes to the actual data) is controlled by timing that depends on the detector settings. Needless to say, this inequality is violated by quantum mechanics and could be violated by experimental data provided that the loss of measurement pairs through failure of coincidence is small enough, but the quantitative bound is more restrictive in this case than in the previously analyzed "efficiency loophole".

The spin transition in LaCoO₃ is investigated by temperature-dependent resonant soft X-ray emission spectroscopy near the Co 2p absorption edges. This element-specific technique is more bulk sensitive with respect to the temperature-induced spin state of the Co³⁺ ions in LaCoO₃ than other high-energy spectroscopic methods. The spin transition is interpreted and discussed with ab initio density-functional theory within the fixed-spin moment method, which is found to yield consistent spectral functions to the experimental data. The spectral changes for LaCoO₃ as a function of temperature suggest a change in spin state as the temperature is raised from 85 to 300 K, while the system remains in the same spin state as the temperature is further increased to 510 K.

The phase correlation function for the complex random Gaussian field (x)=(x)exp[i(x)] is derived. It is compared to the numerical scattering wave function in the open Sinai billiard. © Europhysics Letters Association.

An increase of the magnetic moment in superconductor/ferromagnet (S/F) bilayers V(40 nm)/F (F = Fe(1, 3 nm), Co(3 nm), Ni(3 nm)) was observed using SQUID magnetometry upon cooling below the superconducting transition temperature TC in magnetic fields of 10 Oe to 50 Oe applied parallel to the sample surface. A similar increase, often called the paramagnetic Meissner effect (PME), was observed before in various superconductors and superconductor/ferromagnet systems. To explain the PME effect in the presented S/F bilayers a model based on a row of vortices located at the S/F interface is proposed. According to the model the magnetic moment induced below TC consists of the paramagnetic contribution of the vortex cores and the diamagnetic contribution of the vortex-free region of the S layer. Since the thickness of the S layer is found to be 3-4 times less than the magnetic-field penetration depth, this latter diamagnetic contribution is negligible. The model correctly accounts for the sign, the approximate magnitude and the field dependence of the paramagnetic and the Meissner contributions of the induced magnetic moment upon passing the superconducting transition of a ferromagnet/superconductor bilayer. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2016.

Recurrence networks, which are derived from recurrence plots of nonlinear time series, enable the extraction of hidden features of complex dynamical systems. Because fuzzy recurrence plots are represented as grayscale images, this paper presents a variety of texture features that can be extracted from fuzzy recurrence plots. Based on the notion of fuzzy recurrence plots, defuzzified, undirected, and unweighted recurrence networks are introduced. Network measures can be computed for defuzzified recurrence networks that are scalable to meet the demand for the network-based analysis of big data.

Recurrence plots display binary texture of time series from dynamical systems with single dots and line structures. Using fuzzy recurrence plots, recurrences of the phase-space states can be visualized as grayscale texture, which is more informative for pattern analysis. The proposed method replaces the crucial similarity threshold required by symmetrical recurrence plots with the number of cluster centers, where the estimate of the latter parameter is less critical than the estimate of the former.

The upgraded version of the GEM side-on thermal neutron detector was successfully tested in a neutron diffraction experiment on a reference sample using the INES diffractometer at the ISIS spallation neutron source, UK. The performance of the new (B4C)-B-10-based detector is compared to that of a standard He-3 tube, operating at the instrument as a part of the detectors assembly. The results show that the upgraded detector has a better resolution and an efficiency of the same order of magnitude of a He-3-based detector. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2018

Implementing the quantum-mechanical Kubo-Greenwood formalism for the numerical calculation of dc conductivity, we demonstrate that the electron transport properties of a graphene layer can be tailored through the combined effect of defects (point and line scatterers) and strains (uniaxial tension and shear), which are commonly present in a graphene sample due to the features of its growth procedure and when the sample is used in devices. Motivated by two experimental works (He X. et al. Appl. Phys. Lett., 104 (2014) 243108; 105 (2014) 083108), where authors did not observe the transport gap even at large (22.5% of tensile and 16.7% of shear) deformations, we explain possible reasons, emphasizing on graphenes strain and defect sensing. The strain- and defect-induced electron-hole asymmetry and anisotropy of conductivity, and its nonmonotony as a function of deformation suggest perspectives for the strain-defect engineering of electrotransport properties of graphene and related 2D materials.

We have studied non-thermal effects of microwave radiation on the forces between objects. This is the first step in a study of possible effects of microwave radiation from cellular phones on biological tissue. We have used a simplified model for human blood cells in blood. We find for the normal radiation level of cellular phones an enhancement of the attractive force with ten orders of magnitude as compared to the corresponding effect at thermal radiation.

The non-retarded Casimir interaction (van der Waals interaction) between two freestanding graphene sheets as well as between a graphene sheet and a substrate is determined. We present several different derivations of the interaction. An exact analytical expression is given for the dielectric function of graphene along the imaginary frequency axis within the random phase approximation for arbitrary frequency, wave vector, and doping.

A theory for large-amplitude Alfvenic shocks across the external magnetic field in a collisional magnetoplasma is presented. For this purpose, we use the continuity and momentum equations for the electrons and ions, together with Amperes and Faradays laws, to derive the governing nonlinear equations for large-amplitude compressional Alfvenic waves. It is found that the latter can appear in the form of large-amplitude Alfvenic shocks that propagate with the super-Alfvenic speed.

A non-expanded theory is used for dispersion potentials between atoms and ions dissolved in a medium. The first-order dispersion interaction between two atoms in an excited state must account for the fact that the two atoms are coupled via the electromagnetic field and must include effects from background media, retardation and finite size. We show that finite-size corrections when two particles are close change the dispersion interactions in water by several orders of magnitude. We consider as four illustrative examples helium atoms, krypton atoms, phosphate ions, and iodide ions. We demonstrate that, due to large cancellation effects, retardation dominates the interaction for helium atom pairs in an isotropic excited state down to the very small atom-atom separations where finite-size corrections are also important.

α-alumina coatings have been deposited directly onto cemented-carbide and Mo substrates at a temperature as low as 650 ^°C using reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) of Al in an Ar/O₂ gas mixture. The coatings consisted of plate-like crystallites, as revealed by scanning electron microscopy. α phase growth was retained over the studied range of substrate bias voltages (from floating potential up to -100 V), with films exhibiting a slightly denser microstructure at higher bias voltages. X-ray diffraction indicated that the α-alumina grains had a preferred orientation of (0001)-planes perpendicular to the substrate surface. X-ray analysis of films deposited at 575 ^°C indicated the presence of γ-alumina, whereas films grown at 500 ^°C or lower were X-ray amorphous.

The magnetoconductance of graphene nanoribbons with rough zigzag and armchair edges is studied by numerical simulations. Nanoribbons with sufficiently small bulk disorder show a pronounced magnetoconductance minimum at cyclotron radii close to the ribbon width, in close analogy to the wire peak observed in conventional semiconductor quantum wires. In zigzag nanoribbons, this feature becomes visible only above a threshold amplitude of the edge roughness, as a consequence of the reduced current density close to the edges.