Quantum corrections to the conductivity in a perovskite oxide: A low-temperature study of LaNi1-xCoxO3 (0?x?0.75)

In this paper we propose to study the evolution of the quantum corrections to the conductivity in an oxide system as we approach the metal-insulator (M-I) transition from the metallic side. We report here the measurement of the low-temperature (0.1 Ktemperatures, the conductivity (?) rises with temperature (T). Below 2 K, ? follows a power-law behavior, ?(T)=?(0)+?Tm. For samples in the metallic regime, away from the metal-insulator transition (x?0.4), m?0.3�0.4. As the transition is approached [i.e., ?(0)?0], m increases rapidly; and at the transition [?(0)=0, xc?0.65], m?1. On the insulating side (x>0.65), m takes on large values and ?(0)=0. We explain the temperature dependence of ?(T), for T<2 K, on the metallic side (x?0.4), as arising predominantly from electron-electron interactions, taking into account the diffusion-channel contribution (which gives m=0.5) as well as the Cooper-channel contribution. In this regime, the correction to conductivity, ??(T), is a small fraction of ?(T). However, as the M-I transition is approached (x?xc), ??(T) starts to dominate ?(T) and the above theories fail to explain the observed ?(T).

Tropical deep convection, convective available potential energy and sea surface temperature

The convective available potential energy (CAFE) based on monthly mean sounding has been shown to be relevant to deep convection in the tropics. The variation of CAFE with SST has been found to be similar to the variation of the frequency of deep convection at one station each in the tropical Atlantic and W. Pacific oceans. This suggests a strong link between the frequency of tropical convection and CAFE. It has been shown that CAFE so derived can be interpreted as the work potential of the atmosphere above the boundary layer with ascent in the convective region and subsidence in the surrounding cloud-free region.

Effect of wall emissivities on radiation heat transfer in glass tank forehearths

In an earlier work, we had proposed a two-band, non-grey radiative transfer model for heat transfer in forehearths with simultaneous optically thick and thin approximations for molten glass interiors and at boundaries. Here using the same model, the radiative interaction of the top-crown and bottom-refractory walls with interior layers of shallow molten glass is studied by varying the wall emissivities. The forehearth exit temperature profiles for higher wall emissivities (0.9) show better conditioning of the glass for white flint glasses (optically thin).

Estimation of surface temperature from MONTBLEX data

It is observed that the daily mean temperature of the soil is linear with depth and the variation of the temperature is sinusoidal with a period of a day. Based on these observations the one-dimensional heat conduction equation for the soil can be solved which gives the amplitude and phase variation of the temperature wave with depth. Given the temperature data at three levels below the surface, the amplitude and phase variation and hence the surface temperature variation over the day are estimated. The daily mean temperature of the surface is estimated from linear extrapolation of the daily means at the three levels below the surface. Estimated values of soil thermal diffusivity show a subtantial change after sudden and heavy rains.

Effect of Strain Rate on Ductile-to-Brittle Transition Temperature of a Free-Standing Pt-Aluminide Bond Coat

The ductile-to-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) of a free-standing Pt-aluminide (PtAl) bondcoat was determined using the microtensile testing method and the effect of strain rate variation, in the range 10(-5) to 10(-1) s(-1), on the DBTT studied. The DBTT increased appreciably with the increase in strain rate. The activation energy determined for brittle-to-ductile transition, suggested that such transition is most likely associated with vacancy diffusion. Climb of aOE (c) 100 > dislocations observed in analysis of dislocation structure using a transmission electron microscope (TEM) supported the preceding mechanism.

Reactions of cyanogen radical with alkanes and an explanation for negative temperature dependence of rate constants

Reactions of cyanide radicals with alkanes have been investigated by ab initio methods. It is found that the potential energy surface for reaction of CN with a primary C-H bond in methane has a small positive barrier while reactions of CN with a secondary and a tertiary C-H bond in alkanes are barrierless at the correlated level. A simple explanation for the obtained negative temperature dependence of rate constants for reactions of CN with a secondary and a tertiary C-H bond in alkanes are given in terms of the collision theory of bimolecular reactions. It is shown that for barrierless reactions the negative temperature dependence of the rate constants is attributed to the variation of the pre-exponential factor with temperature.

Room temperature giant magnetoresistance in La1-xPbxMnO3

Oxides of the La1-xPbxMnO3 system show giant magnetoresistance around 300 K. In La1-xPbxMnO3 the magnitude of the magnetoresistance (MR) at 320 K is 85% at 6 T and it is nearly temperature independent over a temperature range 40-320 K. All the compositions (0.1 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 0.5) show a peak in resistivity around 300-340 K and the magnitude of the MR also shows a peak around the same temperatures. This investigation suggests how to hole dope LaMnO3 in order to achieve maximum MR around 300 K so that these materials can have practical applications.

ChemInform Abstract: Slicing the Perovskite Structure into Layers: Synthesis of Novel Three- Dimensional and Layered Perovskite Oxides, ALaSrNb2M(II)O9 (A: Na, Cs)

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

Stability of spatially developing boundary layers in pressure gradients

A new formulation of the stability of boundary-layer flows in pressure gradients is presented, taking into account the spatial development of the flow and utilizing a special coordinate transformation. The formulation assumes that disturbance wavelength and eigenfunction vary downstream no more rapidly than the boundary-layer thickness, and includes all terms nominally of order R(-1) in the boundary-layer Reynolds number R. In Blasius flow, the present approach is consistent with that of Bertolotti et al. (1992) to O(R(-1)) but simpler (i.e. has fewer terms), and may best be seen as providing a parametric differential equation which can be solved without having to march in space. The computed neutral boundaries depend strongly on distance from the surface, but the one corresponding to the inner maximum of the streamwise velocity perturbation happens to be close to the parallel flow (Orr-Sommerfeld) boundary. For this quantity, solutions for the Falkner-Skan flows show the effects of spatial growth to be striking only in the presence of strong adverse pressure gradients. As a rational analysis to O(R(-1)) demands inclusion of higher-order corrections on the mean flow, an illustrative calculation of one such correction, due to the displacement effect of the boundary layer, is made, and shown to have a significant destabilizing influence on the stability boundary in strong adverse pressure gradients. The effect of non-parallelism on the growth of relatively high frequencies can be significant at low Reynolds numbers, but is marginal in other cases. As an extension of the present approach, a method of dealing with non-similar flows is also presented and illustrated. However, inherent in the transformation underlying the present approach is a lower-order non-parallel theory, which is obtained by dropping all terms of nominal order R(-1) except those required for obtaining the lowest-order solution in the critical and wall layers. It is shown that a reduced Orr-Sommerfeld equation (in transformed coordinates) already contains the major effects of non-parallelism.

The energy balance in the Ramdas layer

On calm clear nights, air at a height of a few decimetres above bare soil can be cooler than the surface by several degrees in what we shall call the Ramdas layer (Ramdas and Atmanathan, 1932). The authors have recently offered a logical explanation for such a lifted temperature minimum, together with a detailed numerical model. In this paper, we provide physical insight into the phenomenon by a detailed discussion of the energy budget in four typical cases, including one with a lifted minimum. It is shown that the net cooling rate near ground is the small difference between two dominant terms, representing respectively radiative upflux from the ground and from the air layers just above ground. The delicate energy balance that leads to the lifted minimum is upset by turbulent transport, by surface emissivity approaching unity, or by high ground cooling rates. The rapid variation of the flux emissivity of humid air is shown to dominate radiative transport near the ground.

Unsteady laminar compressible swirling flow with massive blowing

THE study of swirling boundary layers is of considerable importance in many rotodynamic machines such as rockets, jet engines, swirl generators, swirl atomizers, arc heaters, etc. For example, the introduction of swirl in a flow acceleration device such as a nozzle in a rocket engine promises efficient mass flow control. In nuclear rockets, swirl is used to retain the uranium atoms in the rocket chamber. With these applications in mind, Back1 and Muthanna and Nath2 have obtained the similarity solutions for a low-speed three-dimensional steady laminar compressible boundary layer with swirl inside an axisymmetric surface of variable cross section. The aim of the present analysis is to study the effect of massive blowing rates on the unsteady laminar swirling compressible boundary-layer flow of an axisymmetric body of arbitrary cross section when the freestream velocity and blowing rate vary with time. The type of swirl considered here is that of a free vortex superimposed on the longitudinal flow of a compressible fluid with variable properties. The analysis is applicable to external flow over a body as well as internal flow along a surface. For the case of external flow, strong blowing can have significant use in cooling the surface of hypervelocity vehicles, particularly when ablation occurs under large aerodynamic or radiative heating, but there may not be such an important application of strong blowing in the case of internal flow. The governing partial differential equations have been solved numerically using an implicit finite difference scheme with a quasilinearization technique.3 High temperature gas effects, such as radiation, dissociation, and ionization, etc., are not investigated. The nomenclature is usually that of Ref. 4 and is listed in the full paper.

Low temperature H-1 NMR relaxation studies of phase transitions in dicalcium barium propionate

The two low-temperature phase transitions in dicalcium barium propionate have been investigated by H-1 NMR relaxation (T-1,T-2,T-1 rho) studies carried out at a Larmor frequency of 300 MHz. The T-1 and T-1 rho results indicate the presence of C2H5 dynamics near these two transitions. We infer from the T-1 rho results that the slow motions of the C2H5 groups are responsible for the II-III transition.

Low-temperature magnetoresistance of ?-phase FexNi80-xCr20 alloys near the critical composition for ferromagnetism

We present a comprehensive study of magnetoresistance (MR) of the crystalline pseudobinary ?-phase Fe alloy series FexNi80-xCr20 (50?x?66). This alloy series shows exotic magnetic phases as the composition (x) is varied. It has a critical composition for ferromagnetism at x=xc?59�60. MR was measured in the temperature range 1.7�110 K and up to a field of 7 T. The observed MR was small and the change was ?1%. The temperature dependence of MR was found to contain a positive and a negative contribution. The positive term was found to be ?H2 and it dominates at high field and high temperatures. We explain this as a manifestation of Kohler�s rule. The negative MR was found to have a quadratic dependence on magnetization M. The magnitude of the negative MR reaches a maximum as x?xc.

Low-temperature specific heat of antiferromagnetic EuNi5P3 and mixed-valent EuNi2P2 in magnetic fields to 7 T

he specific heats of EUNi(5)P(3), an antiferromagnet, and EuNi2P2, a mixed-valence compound, have been measured between 0.4 and 30 K in magnetic fields of, respectively, 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2.5, 5, and 7 T, and 0 and 7 T. In zero field the specific heat of EuNi5P3 shows a h-like anomaly with a maximum at 8.3 K. With increasing field in the range 0-2.5 T, the maximum shifts to lower temperatures, as expected for an antiferromagnet. In higher fields the antiferromagnetic ordering is destroyed and the magnetic part of the specific heat approaches a Schottky anomaly that is consistent with expectations for the crystal-field/Zeeman levels. In low fields and for temperatures between 1.5 acid 5 K the magnetic contribution to the specific heat is proportional to the temperature, indicating a high density of excited states with an energy dependence that is very unusual for an antiferromagnet. The entropy associated with the magnetic ordering is similar to R In8, confirming that only the Eu2+-with J=7/2, S=7/2, L=0-orders below 30 R. In zero field approximately 20% of the entropy occurs above the Neel temperature, consistent. with the usual amount of short-range order observed in antiferromagnets. The hyperfine magnetic field at the Eu nuclei in EUNi(5)P(3) is 33.3 T, in good agreement with a value calculated from electron-nuclear double resonance measurements. For EuNi2P2 the specific heat is nearly field independent and shows no evidence of magnetic ordering or hyperfine fields. The coefficient of the electron contribution to the specific heat is similar to 100 mJ/mol K-2.

Modelling plane mixing layers using vortex points and sheets

We present here a critical assessment of two vortex approaches (both two-dimensional) to the modelling of turbulent mixing layers. In the first approach the flow is represented by point vortices, and in the second it is simulated as the evolution of a continuous vortex sheet composed of short linear elements or ''panels''. The comparison is based on fresh simulations using approximately the same number of elements in either model, paying due attention in both to the boundary conditions far downstream as well as those on the splitter plate from which the mixing layer issues. The comparisons show that, while both models satisfy the well-known invariants of vortex dynamics approximately to the same accuracy, the vortex panel model, although ultimately not convergent, leads to smoother roll-up and values of stresses and moments that are in closer agreement with the experiment, and has a higher computational efficiency for a given degree of convergence on moments. The point vortex model, while faster for a given number of elements, produces an unsatisfactory roll-up which (for the number of elements used) is rendered worse by the incorporation of the Van der Vooren correction for sheet curvature.