Effects of Nanoparticle Geometry and Size Distribution on Diffusion Impedance of Battery Electrodes

The short diffusion lengths in insertion battery nanoparticles render the capacitive behavior of bounded diffusion, which is rarely observable with conventional larger particles, now accessible to impedance measurements. Coupled with improved geometrical characterization, this presents an opportunity to measure solid diffusion more accurately than the traditional approach of fitting Warburg circuit elements, by properly taking into account the particle geometry and size distribution. We revisit bounded diffusion impedance models and incorporate them into an overall impedance model for different electrode configurations. The theoretical models are then applied to experimental data of a silicon nanowire electrode to show the effects of including the actual nanowire geometry and radius distribution in interpreting the impedance data. From these results, we show that it is essential to account for the particle shape and size distribution to correctly interpret impedance data for battery electrodes. Conversely, it is also possible to solve the inverse problem and use the theoretical "impedance image" to infer the nanoparticle shape and/or size distribution, in some cases, more accurately than by direct image analysis. This capability could be useful, for example, in detecting battery degradation in situ by simple electrical measurements, without the need for any imaging.Comment: 30 page

CP Phases in Supersymmetric Tri-lepton Signals at the Tevatron

We have analyzed the supersymmetric tri-lepton signals for sparticle searches at the Tevatron in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with general CP phases without generational mixing. The CP phases may affect very strongly the chargino and neutralino mass spectrums and $\sigma(p\bar{p}\to\tilde{\chi}^-_1\tilde{\chi}^0_2)$ as well as ${\cal B}(\tilde{\chi}^-_1\to\tilde{\chi}^0_1\ell^-\nu)$ and ${\cal B}(\tilde{\chi}^0_2\to\tilde{\chi}^0_1\ell^+\ell^-)$. Even under the stringent constraints from the electron electric dipole moment the CP phases can lead to a minimum of the tri-lepton event rate for their non-trivial values.Comment: 10 pages, 3 eps figures, largely revised by including the electron EDM constraint

Strategies for balancing exploration and exploitation in electromagnetic optimisation

The paper focuses on the advantages and drawbacks of different strategies which may be used to assist kriging surrogate modelling with the purpose of selecting multiple design vectors for evaluation when stepping forward in optimisation routines. The combined criteria include the efficiency of finding the global optimum but also the quality of the approximation of the shape of the objective function; the latter may be used to make judgements about the robustness of the optimised design