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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Influence of tunnel ionization to third-harmonic generation of infrared femtosecond laser pulses in air
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2020) Tamulienė, Viktorija; Juškevičiūtė, Greta; Buožius, Danas; Vaičaitis, Virgilijus; Babushkin, Ihar; Morgner, Uwe
    Here we present an experimental as well as theoretical study of third-harmonic generation in tightly focused femtosecond filaments in air at the wavelength of 1.5μm. At low intensities, longitudinal phase matching is dominating in the formation of 3rd harmonics, whereas at higher intensities locked X-waves are formed. We provide the arguments that the X-wave formation is governed mainly by the tunnel-like ionization dynamics rather than by the multiphoton one. Despite of this fact, the impact of the ionization-induced nonlinearity is lower than the one from bound–bound transitions at all intensities. © 2020, The Author(s).
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    Improved kinetic behaviour of Mg(NH2)2-2LiH doped with nanostructured K-modified-LixTiyOz for hydrogen storage
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Gizer, G.; Puszkiel, J.; Riglos, M.V.C.; Pistidda, C.; Ramallo-López, J.M.; Mizrahi, M.; Santoru, A.; Gemming, T.; Tseng, J.-C.; Klassen, T.; Dornheim, M.
    The system Mg(NH2)2 + 2LiH is considered as an interesting solid-state hydrogen storage material owing to its low thermodynamic stability of ca. 40 kJ/mol H2 and high gravimetric hydrogen capacity of 5.6 wt.%. However, high kinetic barriers lead to slow absorption/desorption rates even at relatively high temperatures (>180 °C). In this work, we investigate the effects of the addition of K-modified LixTiyOz on the absorption/desorption behaviour of the Mg(NH2)2 + 2LiH system. In comparison with the pristine Mg(NH2)2 + 2LiH, the system containing a tiny amount of nanostructured K-modified LixTiyOz shows enhanced absorption/desorption behaviour. The doped material presents a sensibly reduced (∼30 °C) desorption onset temperature, notably shorter hydrogen absorption/desorption times and reversible hydrogen capacity of about 3 wt.% H2 upon cycling. Studies on the absorption/desorption processes and micro/nanostructural characterizations of the Mg(NH2)2 + 2LiH + K-modified LixTiyOz system hint to the fact that the presence of in situ formed nanostructure K2TiO3 is the main responsible for the observed improved kinetic behaviour.
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    Replication and Refinement of an Algorithm for Automated Drusen Segmentation on Optical Coherence Tomography
    (Berlin : Springer Nature, 2020) Wintergerst, M.W.M.; Gorgi Zadeh, S.; Wiens, V.; Thiele, S.; Schmitz-Valckenberg, S.; Holz, F.G.; Finger, R.P.; Schultz, T.
    Here, we investigate the extent to which re-implementing a previously published algorithm for OCT-based drusen quantification permits replicating the reported accuracy on an independent dataset. We refined that algorithm so that its accuracy is increased. Following a systematic literature search, an algorithm was selected based on its reported excellent results. Several steps were added to improve its accuracy. The replicated and refined algorithms were evaluated on an independent dataset with the same metrics as in the original publication. Accuracy of the refined algorithm (overlap ratio 36–52%) was significantly greater than the replicated one (overlap ratio 25–39%). In particular, separation of the retinal pigment epithelium and the ellipsoid zone could be improved by the refinement. However, accuracy was still lower than reported previously on different data (overlap ratio 67–76%). This is the first replication study of an algorithm for OCT image analysis. Its results indicate that current standards for algorithm validation do not provide a reliable estimate of algorithm performance on images that differ with respect to patient selection and image quality. In order to contribute to an improved reproducibility in this field, we publish both our replication and the refinement, as well as an exemplary dataset.
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    Calcite incorporated in silica/collagen xerogels mediates calcium release and enhances osteoblast proliferation and differentiation
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Rößler, S.; Unbehau, R.; Gemming, T.; Kruppke, B.; Wiesmann, H.-P.; Hanke, T.
    Multiphasic silica/collagen xerogels are biomaterials designed for bone regeneration. Biphasic silica/collagen xerogels (B30) and triphasic xerogels (B30H20 or B30CK20) additionally containing hydroxyapatite or calcite were demonstrated to exhibit several structural levels. On the first level, low fibrillar collagen serves as template for silica nanoparticle agglomerates. On second level, this silica-enriched matrix phase is fiber-reinforced by collagen fibrils. In case of hydroxyapatite incorporation in B30H20, resulting xerogels exhibit a hydroxyapatite-enriched phase consisting of hydroxyapatite particle agglomerates next to silica and low fibrillar collagen. Calcite in B30CK20 is incorporated as single non-agglomerated crystal into the silica/collagen matrix phase with embedded collagen fibrils. Both the structure of multiphasic xerogels and the manner of hydroxyapatite or calcite incorporation have an influence on the release of calcium from the xerogels. B30CK20 released a significantly higher amount of calcium into a calcium-free solution over a three-week period than B30H20. In calcium containing incubation media, all xerogels caused a decrease in calcium concentration as a result of their bioactivity, which was superimposed by the calcium release for B30CK20 and B30H20. Proliferation of human bone marrow stromal cells in direct contact to the materials was enhanced on B30CK20 compared to cells on both plain B30 and B30H20.
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    Increased static dielectric constant in ZnMnO and ZnCoO thin films with bound magnetic polarons
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Vegesna, S.V.; Bhat, V.J.; Bürger, D.; Dellith, J.; Skorupa, I.; Schmidt, O.G.; Schmidt, H.
    A novel small signal equivalent circuit model is proposed in the inversion regime of metal/(ZnO, ZnMnO, and ZnCoO) semiconductor/Si3N4 insulator/p-Si semiconductor (MSIS) structures to describe the distinctive nonlinear frequency dependent capacitance (C-F) and conductance (G-F) behaviour in the frequency range from 50 Hz to 1 MHz. We modelled the fully depleted ZnO thin films to extract the static dielectric constant (εr) of ZnO, ZnMnO, and ZnCoO. The extracted enhancement of static dielectric constant in magnetic n-type conducting ZnCoO (εr ≥ 13.0) and ZnMnO (εr ≥ 25.8) in comparison to unmagnetic ZnO (εr = 8.3–9.3) is related to the electrical polarizability of donor-type bound magnetic polarons (BMP) in the several hundred GHz range (120 GHz for CdMnTe). The formation of donor-BMP is enabled in n-type conducting, magnetic ZnO by the s-d exchange interaction between the electron spin of positively charged oxygen vacancies Vo+ in the BMP center and the electron spins of substitutional Mn2+ and Co2+ ions in ZnMnO and ZnCoO, respectively. The BMP radius scales with the Bohr radius which is proportional to the static dielectric constant. Here we show how BMP overlap can be realized in magnetic n-ZnO by increasing its static dielectric constant and guide researchers in the field of transparent spintronics towards ferromagnetism in magnetic, n-ZnO.
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    The Influence of Cu-Additions on the Microstructure, Mechanical and Magnetic Properties of MnAl-C Alloys
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Jürries, F.; Freudenberger, J.; Nielsch, K.; Woodcock, T.G.
    Alloys of the form (Mn54Al44C2)100-xCux (with x = 0, 1, 2, 4 and 6) were produced by induction melting. After homogenisation and quenching, most of the alloys consist entirely of the retained ε-phase, except for x = 6, in which the κ-phase was additionally present. After subsequent annealing, the alloys with x ≤ 2 consist entirely of a Cu-doped, ferromagnetic τ-phase, whereas the alloys with x > 2 additionally contain the κ-phase. The polarisation of the alloys at an applied field of 14 T decreases with increasing Cu-content, which is attributed i) to the dilution of the magnetic moment of the τ-phase unit cell by the Cu atoms, which do not carry a magnetic moment, and ii) at higher Cu-contents, to the formation of the κ-phase, which has a much lower polarisation than the τ-phase and therefore dilutes the net polarisation of the alloys. The Curie temperature was not affected by the Cu-additions. The stress needed to die-upset the alloys with x ≤ 2 was similar to that of the undoped alloy, whereas it was much lower for x = 4 and 6, due to the presence of intergranular layers of the κ-phase. The extrinsic magnetic properties of alloys with x ≤ 2 were improved by die-upsetting, whereas decomposition of the τ-phase during processing had a deleterious effect on the magnetic properties for higher Cu-additions.
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    Unravelling colloid filter cake motions in membrane cleaning procedures
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Lüken, Arne; Linkhorst, John; Fröhlingsdorf, Robin; Lippert, Laura; Rommel, Dirk; De Laporte, Laura; Wessling, Matthias
    The filtration performance of soft colloid suspensions suffers from the agglomeration of the colloids on the membrane surface as filter cakes.Backflushing of fluid through the membrane and cross-flow flushing across the membrane are widely used methods to temporally remove the filter cake and restore the flux through the membrane. However, the phenomena occurring during the recovery of the filtration performance are not yet fully described. In this study, we filtrate poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgels and analyze the filter cake in terms of its composition and its dynamic mobility during removal using on-line laser scanning confocal microscopy. First, we observe uniform cake build-up that displays highly ordered and amorphous regions in the cake layer. Second, backflushing removes the cake in coherent pieces and their sizes depend on the previous cake build-up. And third, cross-flow flushing along the cake induces a pattern of longitudinal ridges on the cake surface, which depends on the cross-flow velocity and accelerates cake removal. These observations give insight into soft colloid filter cake arrangement and reveal the cake’s unique behaviour exposed to shear-stress. © 2020, The Author(s).
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    Routes to control diffusive pathways and thermal expansion in Ti-alloys
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Bönisch, M.; Stoica, M.; Calin, M.
    β-stabilized Ti-alloys present several unexplored and intriguing surprises in relation to orthorhombic α″ phases. Among them are (i) the diffusion-controlled formation of transitional α″iso, α″lean and α″rich phases and ii) the highly anisotropic thermal expansion of martensitic α″. Using the prototypical Ti-Nb system, we demonstrate that the thermodynamic energy landscape reveals formation pathways for the diffusional forms of α″ and may lead to a stable β-phase miscibility gap. In this way, we derive temperature-composition criteria for the occurrence of α″iso and resolve reaction sequences during thermal cycling. Moreover, we show that the thermal expansion anisotropy of martensitic α″ gives rise to directions of zero thermal strain depending on Nb content. Utilizing this knowledge, we propose processing routes to achieve null linear expansion in α″ containing Ti-alloys. These concepts are expected to be transferable to other Ti-alloys and offer new avenues for their tailoring and technological exploitation.