A systematic typology for negative Poisson's ratio materials and the prediction of complete auxeticity in pure silica zeolite JST

© the Owner Societies 2015. Single crystals can commonly have negative Poisson's ratio in a few directions; however more generalised auxeticity is rarer. We propose a typology to distinguish auxetic materials. We characterise numerous single crystals and demonstrate that partial auxeticity occurs for around 37%. We find average auxeticity to be limited to α-cristobalite and no example of complete auxeticity. We simulate two hundreds pure silica zeolites with empirical potentials and quantum chemistry methods, and for the first time identify complete auxeticity in a zeolite network, JST

Application of the RMF mass model to the r-process and the influence of mass uncertainties

A new mass table calculated by the relativistic mean field approach with the state-dependent BCS method for the pairing correlation is applied for the first time to study r-process nucleosynthesis. The solar r-process abundance is well reproduced within a waiting-point approximation approach. Using an exponential fitting procedure to find the required astrophysical conditions, the influence of mass uncertainty is investigated. R-process calculations using the FRDM, ETFSI-Q and HFB-13 mass tables have been used for that purpose. It is found that the nuclear physical uncertainty can significantly influence the deduced astrophysical conditions for the r-process site. In addition, the influence of the shell closure and shape transition have been examined in detail in the r-process simulations.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev. C, 22 pages, 9 figure

Negative linear compressibility in common materials

© 2015 AIP Publishing LLC. Negative linear compressibility (NLC) is still considered an exotic property, only observed in a few obscure crystals. The vast majority of materials compress axially in all directions when loaded in hydrostatic compression. However, a few materials have been observed which expand in one or two directions under hydrostatic compression. At present, the list of materials demonstrating this unusual behaviour is confined to a small number of relatively rare crystal phases, biological materials, and designed structures, and the lack of widespread availability hinders promising technological applications. Using improved representations of elastic properties, this study revisits existing databases of elastic constants and identifies several crystals missed by previous reviews. More importantly, several common materials - drawn polymers, certain types of paper and wood, and carbon fibre laminates - are found to display NLC. We show that NLC in these materials originates from the misalignment of polymers/fibres. Using a beam model, we propose that maximum NLC is obtained for misalignment of 26°. The existence of such widely available materials increases significantly the prospects for applications of NLC

Modelling negative linear compressibility in tetragonal beam structures

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Mechanics of Materials. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Mechanics of Materials, Volume 46 (2012), DOI: 10.1016/j.mechmat.2011.12.007Most materials compress axially in all directions when loaded hydrostatically. Contrary to this, some materials have been discovered that exhibit negative linear compressibility and, as such, expand along a specific axis or plane. This paper analyses a fundamental mechanism by using a combination of finite element simulations and analytical derivations to show that negative linear compressibility can be found in a body-centred or face-centred tetragonal network of nodes connected by a network of beams. The magnitude and direction of this behaviour depends on the cross geometry in the network

Determination of the anisotropic elastic properties of rocksalt Ge2Sb2Te5 by XRD, residual stress, and DFT

© 2016 American Chemical Society. The chalcogenide material Ge2Sb2Te5 is the prototype phase-change material, with widespread applications for optical media and random access memory. However, the full set of its independent elastic properties has not yet been published. In this study, we determine the elastic constants of the rocksalt Ge2Sb2Te5, experimentally by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and residual stress and computationally by density functional theory (DFT). The stiffnesses (XRD-stress/DFT) in GPa are C11 = 41/58, C12 = 7/8, and C44 = 8/12, and the Zener ratio is 0.46/0.48. These values are important to understand the effect of elastic distortions and nonmelting processes on the performances of increasingly small phase change data bits

ElAM: A computer program for the analysis and representation of anisotropic elastic properties

Copyright © 2010 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communications. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Computer Physics Communications, Volume 181, Issue 12 (2010), DOI: 10.1016/j.cpc.2010.08.033The continuum theory of elasticity has been used for more than a century and has applications in many fields of science and engineering. It is very robust, well understood and mathematically elegant. In the isotropic case elastic properties are easily represented, but for non-isotropic materials, even in the simple cubic symmetry, it can be difficult to visualise how properties such as Young's modulus or Poisson's ratio vary with stress/strain orientation. The ElAM (Elastic Anisotropy Measures) code carries out the required tensorial operations (inversion, rotation, diagonalisation) and creates 3D models of an elastic property's anisotropy. It can also produce 2D cuts in any given plane, compute averages following diverse schemes and query a database of elastic constants to support meta-analyses. Program summary Program title: ElAM1.0 Catalogue identifier: AEHB_v1_0 Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEHB_v1_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.html No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 43 848 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 2 498 882 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: Fortran90 Computer: Any Operating system: Linux, Windows (XP, Vista) RAM: Depends chiefly on the size of the arrays representing elastic properties in 3D Classification: 7.7 Nature of problem: Representation of elastic moduli and ratios, and of wave velocities, in 3D; automatic discovery of unusual elastic properties. Solution method: Stiffness matrix (6×6)(6×6) inversion and conversion to compliance tensor (3×3×3×3)(3×3×3×3), tensor rotation, dynamic matrix diagonalisation, simple optimisation, postscript and VRML output preparation. Running time: Dependent on angular accuracy and size of elastic constant database (from a few seconds to a few hours). The tests provided take from a few seconds for test0 to approximately 1 hour for test4

Statistical evolution of isotope composition of nuclear fragments

Calculations within the statistical multifragmentation model show that the neutron content of intermediate mass fragments can increase in the region of liquid-gas phase transition in finite nuclei. The model predicts also inhomogeneous distributions of fragments and their isospin in the freeze-out volume caused by an angular momentum and external long-range Coulomb field. These effects can take place in peripheral nucleus-nucleus collisions at intermediate energies and lead to neutron-rich isotopes produced in the midrapidity kinematic region.Comment: 14 pages with 4 figures. GSI preprint, Darmstadt, 200

Phase-change technologies: from PCRAM to probe-storage to processors

Phase-change materials based on chalcogenide alloys, for example GeSbTe and AgInSbTe, show remarkable properties such as: the ability to be crystallized by pulses in the (hundreds of) femtoseconds region while at the same time withstanding spontaneous crystallization for many years; the ability to be cycled between phases 1012 times or more; the existence of a huge contrast between the refractive index of the phases; the existence of a huge electrical contrast between phases. These remarkable properties make phase-change materials suitable for a wide range of optical and electrical applications, for optical and electrical memories, for optical routers, for optical and electrical processors. In this paper we describe theoretical and experimental investigations of some of the key application areas, with a view to providing insights into the possible future use of phase-change materials

The CORALIE survey for southern extrasolar planets. XVI. Discovery of a planetary system around HD 147018 and of two long period and massive planets orbiting HD 171238 and HD 204313

We report the detection of a double planetary system around HD 140718 as well as the discovery of two long period and massive planets orbiting HD 171238 and HD 204313. Those discoveries were made with the CORALIE Echelle spectrograph mounted on the 1.2-m Euler Swiss telescope located at La Silla Observatory, Chile. The planetary system orbiting the nearby G9 dwarf HD 147018 is composed of an eccentric inner planet (e=0.47) with twice the mass of Jupiter (2.1 MJup ) and with an orbital period of 44.24 days. The outer planet is even more massive (6.6 MJup) with a slightly eccentric orbit (e=0.13) and a period of 1008 days. The planet orbiting HD 171238 has a minimum mass of 2.6 MJup, a period of 1523 days and an eccentricity of 0.40. It orbits a G8 dwarfs at 2.5 AU. The last planet, HD 204313 b, is a 4.0 MJup -planet with a period of 5.3 years and has a low eccentricity (e = 0.13). It orbits a G5 dwarfs at 3.1 AU. The three parent stars are metal rich, which further strengthened the case that massive planets tend to form around metal rich stars.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&

The CORALIE survey for southern extra-solar planets XV. Discovery of two eccentric planets orbiting HD4113 and HD156846

We report the detection of two very eccentric planets orbiting HD4113 and HD156846 with the CORALIE Echelle spectrograph mounted on the 1.2-m Euler Swiss telescope at La Silla. The first planet, HD4113b, has minimum mass of $m\sin{i}=1.6\pm0.2 M_{\rm Jup}$, a period of $P=526.59\pm0.21$ days and an eccentricity of $e=0.903\pm0.02$. It orbits a metal rich G5V star at $a=1.28$ AU which displays an additional radial velocity drift of 28 m s$^{-1}$/yr observed during 8 years. The combination of the radial-velocity data and the non-detection of any main sequence stellar companion in our high contrast images taken at the VLT with NACO/SDI, characterizes the companion as a probable brown dwarf or as a faint white dwarf. The second planet, \object{HD 156846 b}, has minimum mass of $m\sin{i}=10.45\pm0.05$ M$_{\rm Jup}$, a period of $P=359.51\pm0.09$ days, an eccentricity of $e=0.847\pm0.002$ and is located at $a=1.0$ AU from its parent star. HD156846 is a metal rich G0 dwarf and is also the primary of a wide binary system ($a>250$ AU, $P>4000$ years). Its stellar companion, \object{IDS 17147-1914 B}, is a M4 dwarf. The very high eccentricities of both planets can be explained by Kozai oscillations induced by the presence of a third object.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, A&A Letter accepte