Bandgap behavior and singularity of the domain-induced light scattering through the pressure-induced ferroelectric transition in relaxor ferroelectric A(x)Ba(1-x)Nb(2)O(6) (A: Sr,Ca)

[EN] In this letter, we have investigated the electronic structure of A(x)Ba(1-x)Nb(2)O(6) relaxor ferroelectrics on the basis of optical absorption spectroscopy in unpoled single crystals with A = Sr and Ca under high pressure. The direct character of the fundamental transition could be established by fitting Urbach's rule to the photon energy dependence of the absorption edge yielding bandgaps of 3.44(1) eV and 3.57(1) eV for A = Sr and Ca, respectively. The light scattering by ferroelectric domains in the pre-edge spectral range has been studied as a function of composition and pressure. After confirming with x-ray diffraction the occurrence of the previously observed ferroelectric to paraelelectric phase transition at 4 GPa, the light scattering produced by micro-and nano-ferroelectric domains at 3.3 eV in Ca0.28Ba0.72Nb2O6 has been probed. The direct bandgap remains virtually constant under compression with a drop of only 0.01 eV around the phase transition. Interestingly, we have also found that light scattering by the polar nanoregions in the paraelectric phase is comparable to the dispersion due to ferroelectric microdomains in the ferroelectric state. Finally, we have obtained that the bulk modulus of the ferroelectric phase of Ca0.28Ba0.72Nb2O6 is B-0 = 222(9) GPa. Published by AIP Publishing.J.R.-F. acknowledges the Spanish MINECO for the Juan de la Cierva (IJCI-2014-20513) Program and Dr. Bayarjargal from the Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt for providing the CBN28 samples. This work was supported by Spanish MINECO under Grant No. MAT2016-75586-C4-1-P/2-P. The high pressure x-ray diffraction experiments were performed at MSPD beamline at ALBA Synchrotron (Project 2016021588) with the collaboration of ALBA staff.Ruiz-Fuertes, J.; Gomis, O.; Segura, A.; Bettinelli, M.; Burianek, M.; Muehlberg, M. (2018). Bandgap behavior and singularity of the domain-induced light scattering through the pressure-induced ferroelectric transition in relaxor ferroelectric A(x)Ba(1-x)Nb(2)O(6) (A: Sr,Ca). Applied Physics Letters. 112(4). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5012111S112

Toward Reliable Characterization of Sites With Pronounced Topography and Related Effects on Ground Motion

Here we present first results of a joint effort undertaken in ongoing European project NERA -JRA1, which aims at establishing scientifically solid and practically acceptable propositions to incorporate surface topography effects in seismic hazard estimates. We assembled a dataset of both ambient vibration and earthquake recordings acquired at 40 European sites with pronounced topography. It comprises a wide variety of sites including populated hills and even extreme cases of unstable rock slopes in Alpine regions. Results of the polarisation analysis for the two sites presented here show the peculiarity of the topographic site effects

Disruption of Arp2/3 results in asymmetric structural plasticity of dendritic spines and progressive synaptic and behavioral abnormalities

Despite evidence for a strong genetic contribution to several major psychiatric disorders, individual candidate genes account for only a small fraction of these disorders, leading to the suggestion that multigenetic pathways may be involved. Several known genetic risk factors for psychiatric disease are related to the regulation of actin polymerization, which plays a key role in synaptic plasticity. To gain insight into and test the possible pathogenetic role of this pathway, we designed a conditional knock-out of the Arp2/3 complex, a conserved final output for actin signaling pathways that orchestrates de novo actin polymerization. Here we report that postnatal loss of the Arp2/3 subunit ArpC3 in forebrain excitatory neurons leads to an asymmetric structural plasticity of dendritic spines, followed by a progressive loss of spine synapses. This progression of synaptic deficits corresponds with an evolution of distinct cognitive, psychomotor, and social disturbances as the mice age. Together, these results point to the dysfunction of actin signaling, specifically that which converges to regulate Arp2/3, as an important cellular pathway that may contribute to the etiology of complex psychiatric disorders

Object Recognition using the Invariant Pixel-Set Signature

The paper describes the Invariant Pixel Set Signature (IPSS) method for object recognition. Test are carried out on COIL-20, a publicly available database of 72 views of 20 natural object taken on a rotating turntable. With a model built from a single view, recognition performance measured by the average match percentile is above 98% in the ( 20; +20) interval and above 96% for 30 degrees. For some object, 100% first rank is achieved for all 72 views. Robustness to occlusion is demonstrated using test images with half of the test image covered. For a small change of viewpoint (10) recognition of the occluded object is perfect, deteriorating gracefully with the increase in viewpoint change. 1 Introduction In this paper a novel appearance-based object recognition (ABOR) method is proposed. Appearance-based (or view-based) methods, i.e. approaches that represent objects by descriptors computed from images without building an explicit model of 3D shape, have a number of attrac..

The sedimentary environment of Devonian siliciclastics in the Babí lom locality (Brunovistulian Platform cover, Southern Moravia, Czech Republic)

Sandstones and conglomerates, which northwards of Brno agglomeration build a hill (ridge) named Babí lom are strongly diagenezed (anchi-metamorphozed) and tectonically deformed. Their regional distribution and stratigraphic position between the Cambrian(?) clastics and Upper Devonian limestones, as well as their appearance meant that they age is considering as Middle Devonian. They are distinguished as the so-called „Basal Devonian Clastics“. Almost all primary sedimentary features are well preserved and distinct. In the metasediments of the Babí lom hill were distinguished both the facies and structures typical of alluvial fans and rivers. Among others they are channel lags with imbricated grains, cross beddings and debrites. Within sedimentary association was established the way-up direction what clearly evidences a coarsening upwards sequence. Assuming the lack of rotation of series of sediments in the X-Y plane, the palaeotrasport was toward the north while major supply with material was from the east

Thermally induced structural changes in incommensurate calcium barium niobate Ca0.28Ba0.72Nb2O6 (CBN28)

The incommensurately modulated crystal structure of relaxor ferroelectric CBN28 was refined at elevated temperatures up to 330 degrees C in the 3+2 dimensional superspace group P4bm(alpha alpha 1/2, -alpha alpha 1/2). The structural modulations mainly consisting of cooperative tilting of NbO6 octahedra and an occupational modulation of the large cation site Me2 persist beyond the diffuse ferroelectric transition with slightly reduced amplitudes. A change of symmetry was not observed. Both symmetrically non-equivalent NbO6 octahedra are distorted by off center shifts of the Nb atoms in the same direction along the tetragonal c-axis. The displacements of the Nb atoms are gradually reduced with increasing temperatures until one of the Nb atoms crosses the center of its coordination polyhedron near the transition temperature T-M adopting an uncompensated anti-ferroelectric configuration. This change is accompanied by enhanced thermal motions of the Nb atoms along the c-axis. Structural distortions and electric polarization do not completely vanish at TM but may persist in fluctuating polar nanodomains. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Using the torsional plastometer for examining phase transformations in microalloy steels

24.00; Translated from Czech. (Hutn. Listy 1989 v. 44(4) p. 282-284)Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:9023.19(VR-Trans--4382)T / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Relaxor Behavior of Pure and Cerium Doped CaxBa1-xNb2O6

Here we report the relaxor behavior of pure and cerium doped Czochralski grown lead free relaxor ferroelectric single crystals CaxBa1-xNb2O6 (CBN-x) (0.18 <= x <= 0.35) using temperature dependent elastic behavior. We observed that the dynamic relaxor behavior strongly varies with the variation of Ca content as well as with doping. Evidence is found for a more pronounced relaxor behavior with increasing Ca content and doping. Characteristic temperature T* (temperature at which static behavior of the polar nanoregions begins to appear) found to be unaffected with Ca content variation as well as doping