Upgraded sublimation energy determination procedure for icy films

“NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in . 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 VACUUM, [VOL 86, ISSUE 12, (2012-06)] DOI10.1016/j.vacuum.2012.05.010¨A method to determine the sublimation energy of a bulk ice in high vacuum systems, allowing other simultaneous analysis techniques, is presented. Variation in frequency of a quartz crystal microbalance, due to sublimating material, during a zeroth-order desorption consents to obtain this energy. CO 2 sublimation energy is obtained to check this method, its value is coherent with that reported in the literature. Our method permits to simplify the setup used so far by other authors, and to obtain relevant parameters for ices simultaneously. The procedure explained here corrects the temperature frequency dependence of the microbalance and the effect of contaminants by using a unique microbalance. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (Co-financed by FEDER funds) AYA 2004-05382 and AYA 2007-65899.Luna Molina, R.; Millán Verdú, C.; Domingo Beltran, M.; Santonja Moltó, MDC.; Satorre Aznar, MÁ. (2012). Upgraded sublimation energy determination procedure for icy films. Vacuum. 86(12):1969-1973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vacuum.2012.05.010S19691973861

Thixotropy in macroscopic suspensions of spheres

An experimental study of the viscosity of a macroscopic suspension, i.e. a suspension for which Brownian motion can be neglected, under steady shear is presented. The suspension is prepared with a high packing fraction and is density-matched in a Newtonian carrier fluid. The viscosity of the suspension depends on the shear rate and the time of shearing. It is shown for the first time that a macroscopic suspension shows thixotropic viscosity, i.e. shear-thinning with a long relaxation time as a unique function of shear. The relaxation times show a systematic decrease with increasing shear rate. These relaxation times are larger when decreasing the shear rates, compared to those observed after increasing the shear. The time scales involved are about 10000 times larger than the viscous time scale and about 1000 times smaller than the thermodynamic time scale. The structure of the suspension at the outer cylinder of a viscometer is monitored with a camera, showing the formation of a hexagonal structure. The temporal decrease of the viscosity under shear coincides with the formation of this hexagonal pattern

On measuring colloidal volume fractions

Hard-sphere colloids are popular as models for testing fundamental theories in condensed matter and statistical physics, from crystal nucleation to the glass transition. A single parameter, the volume fraction (phi), characterizes an ideal, monodisperse hard-sphere suspension. In comparing experiments with theories and simulation, researchers to date have paid little attention to likely uncertainties in experimentally-quoted phi values. We critically review the experimental measurement of phi in hard-sphere colloids, and show that while statistical uncertainties in comparing relative values of phi can be as low as 0.0001, systematic errors of 3-6% are probably unavoidable. The consequences of this are illustrated by way of a case study comparing literature data sets on hard-sphere viscosity and diffusion.Comment: 11 page

The interlayer cohesive energy of graphite from thermal desorption of polyaromatic hydrocarbons

We have studied the interaction of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with the basal plane of graphite using thermal desorption spectroscopy. Desorption kinetics of benzene, naphthalene, coronene and ovalene at sub-monolayer coverages yield activation energies of 0.50 eV, 0.85 eV, 1.40 eV and 2.1 eV, respectively. Benzene and naphthalene follow simple first order desorption kinetics while coronene and ovalene exhibit fractional order kinetics owing to the stability of 2-D adsorbate islands up to the desorption temperature. Pre-exponential frequency factors are found to be in the range $10^{14}$-$10^{21} s^{-1}$ as obtained from both Falconer--Madix (isothermal desorption) analysis and Antoine's fit to vapour pressure data. The resulting binding energy per carbon atom of the PAH is $52\pm$5 meV and can be identified with the interlayer cohesive energy of graphite. The resulting cleavage energy of graphite is $61\pm5$~meV/atom which is considerably larger than previously reported experimental values.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 2 table