Electron Density Dependence of in-plane Spin Relaxation Anisotropy in GaAs/AlGaAs Two-Dimensional Electron Gas

We investigated the spin dynamics of two-dimensional electrons in (001) GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure using the time resolved Kerr rotation technique under a transverse magnetic field. The in-plane spin lifetime is found to be anisotropic below 150k due to the interference of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling and D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation. The ratio of in-plane spin lifetimes is measured directly as a function of temperature and pump power, showing that the electron density in 2DEG channel strongly affects the Rashba spin-orbit coupling.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. crude oil pipeline accidents:1968 to 2020

Abstract Crude oil pipelines are considered as the lifelines of energy industry. However, accidents of the pipelines can lead to severe public health and environmental concerns, in which greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, primarily methane, are frequently overlooked. While previous studies examined fugitive emissions in normal operation of crude oil pipelines, emissions resulting from accidents were typically managed separately and were therefore not included in the emission account of oil systems. To bridge this knowledge gap, we employed a bottom-up approach to conducted the first-ever inventory of GHG emissions resulting from crude oil pipeline accidents in the United States at the state level from 1968 to 2020, and leveraged Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the associated uncertainties. Our results reveal that GHG emissions from accidents in gathering pipelines (~720,000 tCO2e) exceed those from transmission pipelines (~290,000 tCO2e), although significantly more accidents have occurred in transmission pipelines (6883 cases) than gathering pipelines (773 cases). Texas accounted for over 40% of total accident-related GHG emissions nationwide. Our study contributes to enhanced accuracy of the GHG account associated with crude oil transport and implementing the data-driven climate mitigation strategies

Aridity-driven shift in biodiversity–soil multifunctionality relationships

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2021-01-07, accepted 2021-08-12, registration 2021-08-25, pub-electronic 2021-09-09, online 2021-09-09, collection 2021-12Publication status: PublishedFunder: National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001809; Grant(s): 31770430Abstract: Relationships between biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions (that is, ecosystem multifunctionality) are context-dependent. Both plant and soil microbial diversity have been reported to regulate ecosystem multifunctionality, but how their relative importance varies along environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Here, we relate plant and microbial diversity to soil multifunctionality across 130 dryland sites along a 4,000 km aridity gradient in northern China. Our results show a strong positive association between plant species richness and soil multifunctionality in less arid regions, whereas microbial diversity, in particular of fungi, is positively associated with multifunctionality in more arid regions. This shift in the relationships between plant or microbial diversity and soil multifunctionality occur at an aridity level of ∼0.8, the boundary between semiarid and arid climates, which is predicted to advance geographically ∼28% by the end of the current century. Our study highlights that biodiversity loss of plants and soil microorganisms may have especially strong consequences under low and high aridity conditions, respectively, which calls for climate-specific biodiversity conservation strategies to mitigate the effects of aridification

Comparison of Grinding Characteristics of Converter Steel Slag with and without Pretreatment and Grinding Aids

The converter steel slag cannot be widely used in building materials for its poor grindability. In this paper, the grinding characteristics of untreated and pretreated (i.e., magnetic separation) steel slag were compared. Additionally, the grinding property of pretreated steel slag was also studied after adding grinding aids. The results show that the residues (i.e., oversize substance) that passed a 0.9 mm square-hole screen can be considered as the hardly grinding phases (HGP) and its proportion is about 1.5%. After the initial 20 min grinding, the RO phase (RO phase is a continuous solid solution which is composed of some divalent metal oxides, such as FeO, MgO, MnO, CaO, etc.), calcium ferrite, and metallic iron phase made up most of the proportion of the HGP, while the metallic iron made up the most component after 70 min grinding. The D50 of untreated steel slag could only reach 32.89 μm after 50 min grinding, but that of pretreated steel slag could reach 18.16 μm after the same grinding time. The grinding efficiency of steel slag was obviously increased and the particle characteristics were improved after using grinding aids (GA), especially the particle proportions of 3–32 μm were obviously increased by 7.24%, 7.22%, and 10.63% after 40 min, 50 min, and 60 min grinding, respectively. This is mainly because of the reduction of agglomeration and this effect of GA was evidenced by SEM (scanning electron microscope) images

Confinement effect on scattering states in a thin lead film: Field-induced resonance states in the high-bias regime of scanning tunneling microscopy

Field-induced resonance states in the high-bias regime of scanning tunneling microscopy are used to couple and probe the scattering states above the vacuum level in a thin lead film. The resonance energies show a bilayer oscillation as a function of film thickness. Theoretical modeling unveils that the oscillation results from the confinement of the highly excited scattering states by the quantum well, yielding a bilayer phase modulation at the boundaries where they are coherently coupled to the external states

An Optimal Domestic Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy for Reducing Network Transmission Loss While Taking Seasonal Factors into Consideration

With the rapid growth of domestic electric vehicle charging loads, the peak-valley gap and power fluctuation rate of power systems increase sharply, which can lead to the increase of network losses and energy efficiency reduction. This paper tries to regulate network loads and reduce power system transmission loss by optimizing domestic electric vehicle charging loads. In this paper, a domestic electric vehicle charging loads model is first developed by analyzing the key factors that can affect users’ charging behavior. Subsequently, the Monte Carlo method is proposed to simulate the power consumption of a cluster of domestic electric vehicles. After that, an optimal electric vehicle charging strategy based on the 0-1 integer programming is presented to regulate network daily loads. Finally, by taking the IEEE33 distributed power system as an example, this paper tries to verify the efficacy of the proposed optimal charging strategy and the necessity for considering seasonal factors when scheduling electric vehicle charging loads. Simulation results show that the proposed 0-1 integer programming method does have good performance in reducing the network peak-valley gap, voltage fluctuation rate, and transmission loss. Moreover, it has some potential to further reduce power system transmission loss when seasonal factors are considered