Temperature behavior of optical absorption bands in colored LiF crystals

We measured the optical absorption spectra of thermally treated, gamma irradiated LiF crystals, as a function of temperature in the range 16–300 K. The temperature dependence of intensity, peak position and bandwidth of F and M absorption bands were obtained. Keywords: Lithium fluoride, Optical absorption, Low temperature, Color center

Resonances:tuning into the echoes of the ecological collective

Drawing on posthumanist and new materialism theorising, we take the concept of resonance for an a/r/tographic 'walk' to know, be and do differently, to challenge human-centric separatist ways that have resulted in our current socioecological crises. Beginning with Ingold's knotty thinking, we identify the notion of resonance as a node for exploring and thinking about interactions in the world. Guided by Barad's proposition of entangling ethico-onto-epistemic ways, our a/r/tographic thought experiments find resonances that echo through bodies, through connections as nature, through deep-time and modern spaces to notice and attend to intraactions within the ecological collective. Through art-full, thought-full scholartistic enquiry, we explore diffractive encounters to consider resonance as a conceptual tool for tuning into and harmonising with the entanglements of body-mind-space-time-matter. We pose this exploration of resonance as the start of a knotty theory conversation for shifting into a new 'common world' knowing, being and doing

The Vampire Spike in Text and Fandom: Unsettling Oppositions in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

First paragraph: This special issue examines a number of key issues in cultural theory through the development of, and reaction to, a popular television character, the vampire Spike from the cult television success Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As the latest in a long line of sympathetic vampires, Spike's textual construction rearticulates the dualities which fictional vampires have long embodied: the simultaneous expression of erotic repulsion and attraction; a fear of and desire for the 'Other'; the ambivalences of a troubling ontology figured through a creature that is neither dead nor alive. As Nina Auerbach has stated: 'Vampires are neither inhuman nor nonhuman nor all-too-human; they are simply more alive than they should be' (1995: 6). Like his fictional ancestors, Spike blurs boundaries and raises ambiguities, but he does so in a manner firmly located in today's cultural landscape. Spike joins Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Season 2 with a swagger and a vulnerability which alludes to the many oppositions that he will come to unsettle. Spike is polymorphous: he is both man and monster, both masculine and feminine; and his increasingly fractured self undermines the Manichaean struggle which is central to so much of today's popular culture