Application of Photothermal and Photoacoustic Spectroscopy for the Monitoring of Aqueous Dispersions of Carbon Nanomaterials

Photothermal  and  optoacoustic  spectroscopy  in their  state-of-the-art  techniques—multiwavelength, scanning  and  transient—are  used  for  complex investigation  and analysis  (chemical  analysis  and the  estimation  of  physicochemical  properties and size)  of  novel  carbon  materials—fullerenes  and nanodiamonds—and  their aqueous  dispersions  as promising biomedical nanosystems. The estimation of the cluster size and the possibilities to determine subnanogram  amounts  of  both nanodiamonds  and fullerenes  by  these  techniques  are  shown.  The comparison  of fullerene  solutions  in  various solvents,  toluene, N-methylpyrrolydone and  water, is made.  The  advantages  of  the  photothermal  and optoacoustic  techniques  over conventional spectroscopies  and  the  current  limitation  are discussed. The necessity to develop robust  models for  transient  and  imaging  photothermal  techniques is outlined

Discreteness, periodicity, holomorphy, and factorization

The main topic of the paper is to establish some relations between the solvability of a special kind of discrete equations in certain canonical domains and holomorphy properties of their Fourier analogue

On the magnetism of Ln{2/3}Cu{3}Ti{4}O{12} (Ln = lanthanide)

The magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the complete Ln$_{2/3}$Cu$_3$Ti$_4$O$_{12}$ series were investigated. Here $Ln$ stands for the lanthanides La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, and Yb. %Most of the compounds were prepared as single phase polycrystalline powder %without any traces of impurities. Marginal amounts of %impurities $(< 2$ were detected $Ln=$ Gd, Er, and Tm. %Significant amounts of impurity phases were found for $Ln=$ Ce and Yb. All the samples investigated crystallize in the space group $Im\bar{3}$ with lattice constants that follow the lanthanide contraction. The lattice constant of the Ce compound reveals the presence of Ce$^{4+}$ leading to the composition Ce$_{1/2}$Cu$_3$Ti$_4$O$_{12}$. From magnetic susceptibility and electron-spin resonance experiments it can be concluded that the copper ions always carry a spin $S=1/2$ and order antiferromagnetically close to 25\,K. The Curie-Weiss temperatures can approximately be calculated assuming a two-sublattice model corresponding to the copper and lanthanide ions, respectively. It seems that the magnetic moments of the heavy rare earths are weakly coupled to the copper spins, while for the light lanthanides no such coupling was found. The $4f$ moments remain paramagnetic down to the lowest temperatures, with the exception of the Tm compound, which indicates enhanced Van-Vleck magnetism due to a non-magnetic singlet ground state of the crystal-field split $4f$ manifold. From specific-heat measurements we accurately determined the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature and obtained information on the crystal-field states of the rare-earth ions. The heat-capacity results also revealed the presence of a small fraction of Ce$^{3+}$ in a magnetic $4f^1$ state.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Schwinger-Dyson approach to non-equilibrium classical field theory

In this paper we discuss a Schwinger-Dyson [SD] approach for determining the time evolution of the unequal time correlation functions of a non-equilibrium classical field theory, where the classical system is described by an initial density matrix at time $t=0$. We focus on $\lambda \phi^4$ field theory in 1+1 space time dimensions where we can perform exact numerical simulations by sampling an ensemble of initial conditions specified by the initial density matrix. We discuss two approaches. The first, the bare vertex approximation [BVA], is based on ignoring vertex corrections to the SD equations in the auxiliary field formalism relevant for 1/N expansions. The second approximation is a related approximation made to the SD equations of the original formulation in terms of $\phi$ alone. We compare these SD approximations as well as a Hartree approximation with exact numerical simulations. We find that both approximations based on the SD equations yield good agreement with exact numerical simulations and cure the late time oscillation problem of the Hartree approximation. We also discuss the relationship between the quantum and classical SD equations.Comment: 36 pages, 5 figure

Correlations of structural, magnetic, and dielectric properties of undoped and doped CaCu3Ti4O12

The present work reports synthesis, as well as a detailed and careful characterization of structural, magnetic, and dielectric properties of differently tempered undoped and doped CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) ceramics. For this purpose, neutron and x-ray powder diffraction, SQUID measurements, and dielectric spectroscopy have been performed. Mn-, Fe-, and Ni-doped CCTO ceramics were investigated in great detail to document the influence of low-level doping with 3d metals on the antiferromagnetic structure and dielectric properties. In the light of possible magnetoelectric coupling in these doped ceramics, the dielectric measurements were also carried out in external magnetic fields up to 7 T, showing a minor but significant dependence of the dielectric constant on the applied magnetic field. Undoped CCTO is well-known for its colossal dielectric constant in a broad frequency and temperature range. With the present extended characterization of doped as well as undoped CCTO, we want to address the question why doping with only 1% Mn or 0.5% Fe decreases the room-temperature dielectric constant of CCTO by a factor of ~100 with a concomitant reduction of the conductivity, whereas 0.5% Ni doping changes the dielectric properties only slightly. In addition, diffraction experiments and magnetic investigations were undertaken to check for possible correlations of the magnitude of the colossal dielectric constants with structural details or with magnetic properties like the magnetic ordering, the Curie-Weiss temperatures, or the paramagnetic moment. It is revealed, that while the magnetic ordering temperature and the effective moment of all investigated CCTO ceramics are rather similar, there is a dramatic influence of doping and tempering time on the Curie-Weiss constant.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure