Vapor phase tri-methyl-indium seeding system suitable for high temperature spectroscopy and thermometry.

Tri-methyl-indium (TMI) is used as an indium transport molecule to introduce indium atoms to reactive hot gas flows/combustion environments for spectroscopic diagnostics. A seeding system was constructed to allow the addition of an inert TMI laden carrier gas into an air/fuel mixture burning consequently on a burner. The amount of the seeded TMI in the carrier gas can be readily varied by controlling the vapor pressure through the temperature of the container. The seeding process was calibrated using the fluorescent emission intensity from the indium 6(2)S1/2 → 5(2)P1/2 and 6(2)S1/2 → 5(2)P3/2 transitions as a function of the calculated TMI seeding concentration over a range of 2-45 ppm. The response was found to be linear over the range 3-22.5 ppm; at concentrations above 25 ppm there is a loss of linearity attributable to self-absorption or loss of saturation of TMI vapor pressure in the carrier gas flow. When TMI was introduced into a post-combustion environment via an inert carrier gas, molecular transition from InH and InOH radicals were observed in the flame emission spectrum. Combined laser-induced fluorescence and absorption spectroscopy were applied to detect indium atoms in the TMI seeded flame and the measured atomic indium concentration was found to be at the ppm level. This method of seeding organometallic vapor like TMI to a reactive gas flow demonstrates the feasibility for quantitative spectroscopic investigations that may be applicable in various fields, e.g., chemical vapor deposition applications or temperature measurement in flames with two-line atomic fluorescence

Surface Core Level Shifts of Clean and Oxygen Covered Ru(0001)

We have performed high resolution XPS experiments of the Ru(0001) surface, both clean and covered with well-defined amounts of oxygen up to 1 ML coverage. For the clean surface we detected two distinct components in the Ru 3d_{5/2} core level spectra, for which a definite assignment was made using the high resolution Angle-Scan Photoelectron Diffraction approach. For the p(2x2), p(2x1), (2x2)-3O and (1x1)-O oxygen structures we found Ru 3d_{5/2} core level peaks which are shifted up to 1 eV to higher binding energies. Very good agreement with density functional theory calculations of these Surface Core Level Shifts (SCLS) is reported. The overriding parameter for the resulting Ru SCLSs turns out to be the number of directly coordinated O atoms. Since the calculations permit the separation of initial and final state effects, our results give valuable information for the understanding of bonding and screening at the surface, otherwise not accessible in the measurement of the core level energies alone.Comment: 16 pages including 10 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm

Comparative Toxicity of Nanoparticulate CuO and ZnO to Soil Bacterial Communities

The increasing industrial application of metal oxide Engineered Nano-Particles (ENPs) is likely to increase their environmental release to soils. While the potential of metal oxide ENPs as environmental toxicants has been shown, lack of suitable control treatments have compromised the power of many previous assessments. We evaluated the ecotoxicity of ENP (nano) forms of Zn and Cu oxides in two different soils by measuring their ability to inhibit bacterial growth. We could show a direct acute toxicity of nano-CuO acting on soil bacteria while the macroparticulate (bulk) form of CuO was not toxic. In comparison, CuSO4 was more toxic than either oxide form. Unlike Cu, all forms of Zn were toxic to soil bacteria, and the bulk-ZnO was more toxic than the nano-ZnO. The ZnSO4 addition was not consistently more toxic than the oxide forms. Consistently, we found a tight link between the dissolved concentration of metal in solution and the inhibition of bacterial growth. The inconsistent toxicological response between soils could be explained by different resulting concentrations of metals in soil solution. Our findings suggested that the principal mechanism of toxicity was dissolution of metal oxides and sulphates into a metal ion form known to be highly toxic to bacteria, and not a direct effect of nano-sized particles acting on bacteria. We propose that integrated efforts toward directly assessing bioavailable metal concentrations are more valuable than spending resources to reassess ecotoxicology of ENPs separately from general metal toxicity