Binding Mechanisms in Selective Laser Sintering and Selective Laser Melting

Layer Manufacturing (LM) technologies like Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) were developed in the late 80’s as techniques for Rapid Prototyping (RP). Today, SLS - as well as its derived technology Selective Laser Melting (SLM) - is used as well for prototyping, tooling and manufacturing purposes. This widening of applications is caused mainly by the possibility to process a large variety of materials, resulting in a broad range of physical and mechanical properties. This paper presents a survey of the various binding mechanisms in SLS and SLM, which are responsible for the broad range of materials and applications. Basic binding mechanisms involve solid state sintering, chemically induced binding, liquid phase sintering, partial melting and full melting. Many subcategories can be distinguished based on the type of structural or binder powder composition: single component powder grains (single material or alloy), composite powder grains, mixtures of different powder grains, distinct binder material (sacrificial or permanent), etc. The paper will explain how these binding mechanisms apply for sintering various types of materials: plastics, metal, ceramics and composites (e.g. glass reinforced polymers, cermets, hardmetals, etc.). It gives a survey of research done at the University of Leuven, Belgium, as well as at other European and non-European organizations.Mechanical Engineerin

Point-charge electrostatics in disordered alloys

A simple analytic model of point-ion electrostatics has been previously proposed in which the magnitude of the net charge q_i on each atom in an ordered or random alloy depends linearly on the number N_i^(1) of unlike neighbors in its first coordination shell. Point charges extracted from recent large supercell (256-432 atom) local density approximation (LDA) calculations of Cu-Zn random alloys now enable an assessment of the physical validity and accuracy of the simple model. We find that this model accurately describes (i) the trends in q_i vs. N_i^(1), particularly for fcc alloys, (ii) the magnitudes of total electrostatic energies in random alloys, (iii) the relationships between constant-occupation-averaged charges and Coulomb shifts (i.e., the average over all sites occupied by either $A$ or $B$ atoms) in the random alloy, and (iv) the linear relation between the site charge q_i and the constant- charge-averaged Coulomb shift (i.e., the average over all sites with the same charge) for fcc alloys. However, for bcc alloys the fluctuations predicted by the model in the q_i vs. V_i relation exceed those found in the LDA supercell calculations. We find that (a) the fluctuations present in the model have a vanishing contribution to the electrostatic energy. (b) Generalizing the model to include a dependence of the charge on the atoms in the first three (two) shells in bcc (fcc) - rather than the first shell only - removes the fluctuations, in complete agreement with the LDA data. We also demonstrate an efficient way to extract charge transfer parameters of the generalized model from LDA calculations on small unit cells.Comment: 15 pages, ReVTeX galley format, 7 eps figures embedded using psfig, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Electric fields and valence band offsets at strained [111] heterojunctions

[111] ordered common atom strained layer superlattices (in particular the common anion GaSb/InSb system and the common cation InAs/InSb system) are investigated using the ab initio full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method. We have focused our attention on the potential line-up at the two sides of the homopolar isovalent heterojunctions considered, and in particular on its dependence on the strain conditions and on the strain induced electric fields. We propose a procedure to locate the interface plane where the band alignment could be evaluated; furthermore, we suggest that the polarization charges, due to piezoelectric effects, are approximately confined to a narrow region close to the interface and do not affect the potential discontinuity. We find that the interface contribution to the valence band offset is substantially unaffected by strain conditions, whereas the total band line-up is highly tunable, as a function of the strain conditions. Finally, we compare our results with those obtained for [001] heterojunctions.Comment: 18 pages, Latex-file, to appear in Phys.Rev.

Impaired oxidative stress response characterizes HUWE1-promoted X-linked intellectual disability.

Mutations in the HECT, UBA and WWE domain-containing 1 (HUWE1) E3 ubiquitin ligase cause neurodevelopmental disorder X-linked intellectual disability (XLID). HUWE1 regulates essential processes such as genome integrity maintenance. Alterations in the genome integrity and accumulation of mutations have been tightly associated with the onset of neurodevelopmental disorders. Though HUWE1 mutations are clearly implicated in XLID and HUWE1 regulatory functions well explored, currently much is unknown about the molecular basis of HUWE1-promoted XLID. Here we showed that the HUWE1 expression is altered and mutation frequency increased in three different XLID individual (HUWE1 p.R2981H, p.R4187C and HUWE1 duplication) cell lines. The effect was most prominent in HUWE1 p.R4187C XLID cells and was accompanied with decreased DNA repair capacity and hypersensitivity to oxidative stress. Analysis of HUWE1 substrates revealed XLID-specific down-regulation of oxidative stress response DNA polymerase (Pol) λ caused by hyperactive HUWE1 p.R4187C. The subsequent restoration of Polλ levels counteracted the oxidative hypersensitivity. The observed alterations in the genome integrity maintenance may be particularly relevant in the cortical progenitor zones of human brain, as suggested by HUWE1 immunofluorescence analysis of cerebral organoids. These results provide evidence that impairments of the fundamental cellular processes, like genome integrity maintenance, characterize HUWE1-promoted XLID

Electronic states and optical properties of GaAs/AlAs and GaAs/vacuum superlattices by the linear combination of bulk bands method

The linear combination of bulk bands method recently introduced by Wang, Franceschetti and Zunger [Phys. Rev. Lett.78, 2819 (1997)] is applied to a calculation of energy bands and optical constants of (GaAs)$_n$/(AlAs)$_n$ and (GaAs)$_n$/(vacuum)$_n$ (001) superlattices with n ranging from 4 to 20. Empirical pseudopotentials are used for the calculation of the bulk energy bands. Quantum-confined induced shifts of critical point energies are calculated and are found to be larger for the GaAs/vacuum system. The $E_1$ peak in the absorption spectra has a blue shift and splits into two peaks for decreasing superlattice period; the $E_2$ transition instead is found to be split for large-period GaAs/AlAs superlattices. The band contribution to linear birefringence of GaAs/AlAs superlattices is calculated and compared with recent experimental results of Sirenko et al. [Phys. Rev. B 60, 8253 (1999)]. The frequency-dependent part reproduces the observed increase with decreasing superlattice period, while the calculated zero-frequency birefringence does not account for the experimental results and points to the importance of local-field effects.Comment: 10 pages, 11 .eps figures, 1 tabl

Electronic structure of the strongly hybridized ferromagnet CeFe2

We report on results from high-energy spectroscopic measurements on CeFe2, a system of particular interest due to its anomalous ferromagnetism with an unusually low Curie temperature and small magnetization compared to the other rare earth-iron Laves phase compounds. Our experimental results indicate very strong hybridization of the Ce 4f states with the delocalized band states, mainly the Fe 3d states. In the interpretation and analysis of our measured spectra, we have made use of two different theoretical approaches: The first one is based on the Anderson impurity model, with surface contributions explicitly taken into account. The second method consists of band-structure calculations for bulk CeFe2. The analysis based on the Anderson impurity model gives calculated spectra in good agreement with the whole range of measured spectra, and reveals that the Ce 4f -- Fe 3d hybridization is considerably reduced at the surface, resulting in even stronger hybridization in the bulk than previously thought. The band-structure calculations are ab initio full-potential linear muffin-tin orbital calculations within the local-spin-density approximation of the density functional. The Ce 4f electrons were treated as itinerant band electrons. Interestingly, the Ce 4f partial density of states obtained from the band-structure calculations also agree well with the experimental spectra concerning both the 4f peak position and the 4f bandwidth, if the surface effects are properly taken into account. In addition, results, notably the partial spin magnetic moments, from the band-structure calculations are discussed in some detail and compared to experimental findings and earlier calculations.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B in December 200

A noncoding, regulatory mutation implicates HCFC1 in nonsyndromic intellectual disability

The discovery of mutations causing human disease has so far been biased toward protein-coding regions. Having excluded all annotated coding regions, we performed targeted massively parallel resequencing of the nonrepetitive genomic linkage interval at Xq28 of family MRX3. We identified in the binding site of transcription factor YY1 a regulatory mutation that leads to overexpression of the chromatin-associated transcriptional regulator HCFC1. When tested on embryonic murine neural stem cells and embryonic hippocampal neurons, HCFC1 overexpression led to a significant increase of the production of astrocytes and a considerable reduction in neurite growth. Two other nonsynonymous, potentially deleterious changes have been identified by X-exome sequencing in individuals with intellectual disability, implicating HCFC1 in normal brain function

Effects of macroscopic polarization in III-V nitride multi-quantum-wells

Huge built-in electric fields have been predicted to exist in wurtzite III-V nitrides thin films and multilayers. Such fields originate from heterointerface discontinuities of the macroscopic bulk polarization of the nitrides. Here we discuss the background theory, the role of spontaneous polarization in this context, and the practical implications of built-in polarization fields in nitride nanostructures. To support our arguments, we present detailed self-consistent tight-binding simulations of typical nitride QW structures in which polarization effects are dominant.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, uses revtex/epsf. submitted to PR