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Controllable direction of liquid jets generated by thermocavitation within a droplet.
A high-velocity fluid stream ejected from an orifice or nozzle is a common mechanism to produce liquid jets in inkjet printers or to produce sprays among other applications. In the present research, we show the generation of liquid jets of controllable direction produced within a sessile water droplet by thermocavitation. The jets are driven by an acoustic shock wave emitted by the collapse of a hemispherical vapor bubble at the liquid-solid/substrate interface. The generated shock wave is reflected at the liquid-air interface due to acoustic impedance mismatch generating multiple reflections inside the droplet. During each reflection, a force is exerted on the interface driving the jets. Depending on the position of the generation of the bubble within the droplet, the mechanical energy of the shock wave is focused on different regions at the liquid-air interface, ejecting cylindrical liquid jets at different angles. The ejected jet angle dependence is explained by a simple ray tracing model of the propagation of the acoustic shock wave inside the droplet
Phased electromagnetic acoustic transducer array for Rayleigh wave surface defect detection
A phased electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) array system has been developed for detection and characterisation of surface breaking defects. An array of four linear coils which are individually controlled are used to generate a Rayleigh wave. The high current electronics combined with the coil designs enables the array to generate either narrowband or broadband signals, and controlling the phase delay between the channels makes it possible to change the ultrasound wavelength without requiring the physical separation of the coils to be changed. Experimental results show that the four-coil phased array is able to generate a wavelength range from 3.0 mm to 11.7 mm. Surface breaking defects were characterised using a transmit-receive set-up with a broadband EMAT detector being used to detect the Rayleigh wave. Machined surface slots with different depths were used for technique validation. The results show that the array is sensitive to surface defects and that a wide depth sensitivity range for defect sizing can be easily achieved by applying phasing to tune the wavelength of operation. A large increase in detection flexibility is immediately shown
Public exhibit for demonstrating the quantum of electrical conductance
We present a new robust setup that explains and demonstrates the quantum of
electrical conductance for a general audience and which is continuously
available in a public space. The setup allows users to manually thin a gold
wire of several atoms in diameter while monitoring its conductance in real
time. During the experiment, a characteristic step-like conductance decrease
due to rearrangements of atoms in the cross-section of the wire is observed.
Just before the wire breaks, a contact consisting of a single atom with a
characteristic conductance close to the quantum of conductance can be
maintained up to several seconds. The setup is operated full-time, needs
practically no maintenance and is used on different educational levels
Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in sliding nanotubes
We discovered in simulations of sliding coaxial nanotubes an unanticipated
example of dynamical symmetry breaking taking place at the nanoscale. While
both nanotubes are perfectly left-right symmetric and nonchiral, a nonzero
angular momentum of phonon origin appears spontaneously at a series of critical
sliding velocities, in correspondence with large peaks of the sliding friction.
The non-linear equations governing this phenomenon resemble the rotational
instability of a forced string. However, several new elements, exquisitely
"nano" appear here, with the crucial involvement of Umklapp and of sliding
nanofriction.Comment: To appear in PR
Calibration of the length of a chain of single gold atoms
Using a scanning tunneling microscope or mechanically controllable break
junctions it has been shown that it is possible to control the formation of a
wire made of single gold atoms. In these experiments an interatomic distance
between atoms in the chain of ~3.6 Angstrom was reported which is not
consistent with recent theoretical calculations. Here, using precise
calibration procedures for both techniques, we measure length of the atomic
chains. Based on the distance between the peaks observed in the chain length
histogram we find the mean value of the inter-atomic distance before chain
rupture to be 2.6 +/- 0.2 A . This value agrees with the theoretical
calculations for the bond length. The discrepancy with the previous
experimental measurements was due to the presence of He gas, that was used to
promote the thermal contact, and which affects the value of the work function
that is commonly used to calibrate distances in scanning tunnelling microscopy
and mechanically controllable break junctions at low temperatures.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Justification of Leading Order Quasicontinuum Approximations of Strongly Nonlinear Lattices
We consider the leading order quasicontinuum limits of a one-dimensional
granular medium governed by the Hertz contact law under precompression. The
approximate model which is derived in this limit is justified by establishing
asymptotic bounds for the error with the help of energy estimates. The
continuum model predicts the development of shock waves, which are also studied
in the full system with the aid of numerical simulations. We also show that
existing results concerning the Nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) and Korteweg
de-Vries (KdV) approximation of FPU models apply directly to a precompressed
granular medium in the weakly nonlinear regime
Gravity wave turbulence in a laboratory flume
We present an experimental study of the statistics of surface gravity wave turbulence in a flume of a horizontal size 12×6 m. For a wide range of amplitudes the wave energy spectrum was found to scale as Eω∼ω-ν in a frequency range of up to one decade. However, ν appears to be nonuniversal: it depends on the wave intensity and ranges from about 6 to 4. We discuss our results in the context of existing theories and argue that at low wave amplitudes the wave statistics is affected by the flume finite size, and at high amplitudes the wave breaking effect dominates
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