Liquid encapsulated-melt zone processing of GaAs

A liquid encapsulated melt Bone process has been developed for single crystal growth of GaAs. Single crystals of 40 mm long have been grown with this technique. To avoid unwanted nucleation events and maintain a constant crystal diameter, from top to bottom growth using a short zone with a convex zone surface was found to give the best results. An arsenic overpressure was used to in conjunction with a B2O3 encapsulant in order to suppress arsenic dissociation from the melt and maintain the stoichiometry of the crystal.

Shear transformation zone volume determining ductile–brittle transition of bulk metallic glasses

Three-point bending experiments were performed on as-cast and annealed samples of Zr52.5Cu17.9Ni14.6Al10Ti5 (Vit105) bulk metallic glasses over a wide range of temperatures varying from room temperature (293 K) to liquid nitrogen temperature (77 K). The results demonstrated that the free volume decrease due to annealing and/or cryogenic temperature can reduce the propensity for the formation of multiple shear bands and hence deteriorate plastic deformation ability. We clearly observed a sharp ductile-to-brittle transition (DBT), across which microscopic fracture feature transfers from micro-scale vein patterns to nano-scale periodic corrugations. Macroscopically, the corresponding fracture mode changes from ductile shear fracture to brittle tensile fracture. The shear transformation zone volume, taking into account free volume, temperature and strain rate, is proposed to quantitatively characterize the DBT behavior in fracture of metallic glasses.

Evolution of Localized Damage Zone in Heterogeneous Media

Evolution of localized damage zone is a key to catastrophic rupture in heterogeneous materials. In the present article, the evolutions of strain fields of rock specimens are investigated experimentally. The observed evolution of fluctuations and autocorrelations of strain fields under uniaxial compression demonstrates that the localization of deformation always appears ahead of catastrophic rupture. In particular, the localization evolves pronouncedly with increasing deformation in the rock experiments. By means of the definition of the zone with high strain rate and likely damage localization, it is found that the size of the localized zone decreases from the sample size at peak load to an eventual value. Actually, the deformation field beyond peak load is bound to suffer bifurcation, namely an elastic unloading part and a continuing but localized damage part will co-exist in series in a specimen. To describe this continuous bifurcation and localization process observed in experiments, a model on continuum mechanics is developed. The model can explain why the decreasing width of localized zone can lead stable deformation to unstable, but it still has not provided the complete equations governing the evolution of the localized zone.

Effects of Magnetohydrodynamic Interaction-Zone Position on Shock-Wave/Boundary-Layer Interaction

A third-order weighted essentially nonoscillatory and non-free-parameter difference scheme magnetohydrodynamic solver has been established to investigate the mechanisms of magnetohydrodynamics controlling separation induced by an oblique shock wave impinging on a flat plate. The effects of magnetohydrodynamic interaction-zone location on the separation point, reattachment point, separation-bubble size, and boundary-layer velocity profiles are analyzed. The results show that there exists a best location for the magnetohydrodynamic zone to be applied, where the separation point is delayed the farthest, and the separation bubble is decreased up to about 50% in size compared to the case without magnetohydrodynamic control, which demonstrated the promising of magnetohydrodynamics suppressing the separation induced by shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions.

Period-doubling bifurcations of the thermocapillary convection in a floating half zone

This study experimentally explored the fine structures of the successive period-doubling bifurcations of the time-dependent thermocapillary convection in a floating half zone of 10 cSt silicone oil with the diameter d (0)=3.00 mm and the aspect ratio A=l/d (0)=0.72 in terrestrial conditions. The onset of time-dependent thermocapillary convection predominated in this experimental configuration and its subsequent evolution were experimentally detected through the local temperature measurements. The experimental results revealed a sequence of period-doubling bifurcations of the time-dependent thermocapillary convection, similar in some way to one of the routes to chaos for buoyant natural convection. The critical frequencies and the corresponding fractal frequencies were extracted through the real-time analysis of the frequency spectra by Fast-Fourier-Transformation (FFT). The projections of the trajectory onto the reconstructed phase-space were also provided. Furthermore, the experimentally predicted Feigenbaum constants were quite close to the theoretical asymptotic value of 4.669 [Feigenbaum M J. Phys Lett A, 1979, 74: 375-378].

Capillary zone electrophoresis investigation of the interaction between heparin and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor

The interaction between standard heparin, low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH), and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) was studied by capillary zone electrophoresis. Both qualitative and quantitative characterizations of the heparin-protein binding were determined. The binding constants of the two different groups of heparins with G-CSF, calculated from the Scatchard plot by regression, were 4.805 x 10(5) m(-1) and 4.579 x 10(5) m(-1), respectively. The two binding constants measured are of the same order of magnitude at 10(5) m(-1), indicating that LMWH contains most of the functional groups bound to G-CSF by standard heparin.

Evaluation of the interaction between netropsin and double stranded DNA by capillary zone electrophoresis

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) was applied to study the interaction between netropsin and a 14mer double stranded DNA (dsDNA). The binding constant of this interaction calculated from Scatchard plot was (1.07+/-0.10) X 10(5) (mol/L)(-1). The binding stoichiometry was 1:1. The use of polyacrylamide coated capillary showed better effect in the analysis of DNA than noncoated capillary.