The thermal fatigue resistance of vermicular cast iron coupling with H13 steel units by cast-in process

This paper focuses on improving the thermal fatigue resistance on the surface of vermicular cast iron coupling with inserted H13 steel blocks that had different cross sections, by cast-in processing. The microstructure of bionic units was examined by scanning electron microscope. Micro-hardness and thermal fatigue resistance of bionic samples with varied cross sections and spacings were investigated, respectively. Results show that a marked metallurgical bonding zone was produced at interface between the inserted H13 steel block and the parent material - a unique feature of the bionic structure in the vermicular cast iron samples. The micro-hardness of the bionic samples has been significantly improved. Thermal resistance of the samples with the circular cross section was the highest and the bionics sample with spacing of 2 mm spacing had a much longer thermal fatigue life, thus resulting in the improvement for the thermal fatigue life of the bionic samples, due to the efficient preclusion for the generation and propagation of crack at the interface of H13 block and the matrix. Crown Copyright (c) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Behavior of crystalline silicon under huge electronic excitations: A transient thermal spike description

Recent experimental works devoted to the phenomena of mixing observed at metallic multilayers Ni/Si irradiated by swift heavy ions irradiations make it necessary to revisit the insensibility of crystalline Si under huge electronic excitations. Knowing that Ni is an insensitive material, such observed mixing would exist only if Si is a sensitive material. In order to extend the study of swift heavy ion effects to semiconductor materials, the experimental results obtained in bulk silicon have been analyzed within the framework of the inelastic thermal spike model. Provided the quenching of a boiling ( or vapor) phase is taken as the criterion of amorphization, the calculations with an electron-phonon coupling constant g(300 K) = 1.8 x 10(12) W/cm(3)/K and an electronic diffusivity D-e(300 K) = 80 cm(2)/s nicely reproduce the size of observed amorphous tracks as well as the electronic energy loss threshold value for their creation, assuming that they result from the quenching of the appearance of a boiling phase along the ion path. Using these parameters for Si in the case of a Ni/Si multilayer, the mixing observed experimentally can be well simulated by the inelastic thermal spike model extended to multilayers, assuming that this occurs in the molten phase created at the Ni interface by energy transfer from Si. (C) 2009 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

Electronic and magnetic properties of YBa2Fe3O8 from a first-principles study

The electronic and magnetic properties of YBa2Fe3O8 have been systematically investigated within the framework of density-functional theory using the standard generalized gradient approximation (GGA) as well as the GGA plus Hubbard U(GGA + U) method. The GGA results show that the G-type antiferromagnetic (AFM) state is preferred among the considered magnetic configurations. The striking ionic character is shown for Y and Ba atoms while very strong hybridization is found between Fe 3d and O 2p orbitals

DFT/TDDFT Studies on the Electronic Structures and Spectral Properties of Rhenium(I) Pyridinybenzoimidazole Complexes

The electronic structures and spectral properties of three Re(I) complexes [Re(CO)(3)XL] (X = Br, Cl; L = 1-(4-5 '-phenyl-1.3,4-oxadiazolylbenzyl)-2-pyridinylbenzoimidazole (1), 1-(4-carbazolylbutyl)-2-pyridinylbenzoimidazole (2), and 2-(1-ethyl benzimidazol-2-yl)pyridi ne (3)) were investigated theoretically. The ground and the lowest lying triplet excited states were full optimized at the B3LYP/LANL2DZ and CIS/LANL2DZ levels, respectively. TDDFT/PCM calculations have been employed to predict the absorption and emission spectra starting from the ground and excited state geometries, respectively.

All-organic tunnel junctions as connecting units in tandem organic solar cell

We employed organic heterojunction films as all-organic connecting units to fabricate tandem organic photovoltaic cells by continuous deposition. The all-organic connecting units with a better transparence and a lower sublimation temperature became an effective recombination center for electrons and holes photogenerated in front cell and back cell, respectively. Tunnel mechanism was proposed to explain the combination of photogenerated carrier.

Blue electroluminescent polymers with dopant-host systems and molecular dispersion features: polyfluorene as the deep blue host and 1,8-naphthalimide derivative units as the light blue dopants

We developed a series of highly efficient blue electroluminescent polymers with dopant-host systems and molecular dispersion features by selecting 1,8-naphthalimide derivatives as the light blue emissive dopant units, choosing polyfluorene as the deep blue emissive polymer host and covalently attaching the dopant units to the side chain of the polymer host. The polymers' EL spectra exhibited both deep blue emission from the polymer host and light blue emission from the dopant units because of the energy transfer and charge trapping from the polymer host to the dopant units.