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Notes: Single-phase Fe4N and (Fe1−xNix)4N compounds have been synthesized in a continuous form by heat treating iron and iron-nickel alloy sheets at various temperatures under NH3/H2 atmospheres. The Fe4N sheet has a high room-temperature magnetization value of 179 emu/g (2.14 μB/Fe), which is only slightly less than 218 emu/g (2.19 μB/Fe) observed in pure iron. The magnetic moments of the Fe-Ni alloy nitrides decreased monotonically as x was increased, in contrast to those for the starting alloys Fe1−xNix which exhibited a peak value around x=0.05. The decrease in magnetic moment with nickel content in the alloy nitrides was close to the value anticipated by magnetic dilution from nickel. The coercive force is about 5 Oe and is slightly decreased by the Ni substitution. The Fe-nitride offers a significantly improved corrosion resistance over pure iron. Even further improvement is obtained in the (Fe1−xNix)4N system with only slight sacrifice in magnetic moment. The addition of nickel has been found to noticeably improve the mechanical ductility of the normally brittle Fe4N compound. Theses nitrides also exhibit significantly increased electrical resistivity and wear resistance, and may be useful for a variety of technological applications.

Notes: We report here measurements of quasielastic neutron scattering from n-butane at temperatures of 90, 115, 125 and 190 K and in a momentum transfer range of 0.8–2.4 A(ring)−1. These measurements confirm that between 115 and 125 K butane forms a plastic crystal in which the centers of mass of the butane molecules form a crystalline structure, but the individual molecules are free to rotate. At these two intermediate temperatures, there exists both an elastic peak, characteristic of a solid structure, and quasielastic components arising from the rotational motions of the butane molecules. At 90 K, the butane scatters neutrons only elastically, while at 190 K, the butane scatters neutrons only quasielastically. In both the plastic and the liquid phases, the presence of at least two quasielastic processes must be assumed in order to explain the measurements. In the plastic crystal, we associate a broad Lorentzian component with intramolecular reorientations about the central carbon–carbon bond and a second, relatively narrow, Lorentzian component with whole molecule rotations.The latter process gives rise to a rotational quasielastic peak having a width of 400 μeV, which is constant to within the instrumental resolution of 70 μeV at both temperatures and at all measured momentum transfers. In a continuous diffusion model, this width corresponds to a rotational diffusion constant of 0.277 rad2/ps, a value which is about 3.5 times larger than one extracted from a molecular dynamics simulation of n-butane in the plastic phase recently published by Refson and Pawley [Mol. Phys. 61, 669 (1987); 61, 693 (1987)]. On the other hand, the first process, which corresponds to the carbon–carbon reorientation peak, is about 16 meV wide, indicating that this reorientation occurs on a time scale of about 0.1 ps. The absence of this broad peak in the solid butane at 90 K indicates that this fast carbon–carbon reorientation is coupled to an aspect of the structure or dynamics of the plastic phase. In the scattering from liquid butane at 190 K, there is a third, narrow quasielastic peak which also has a Lorentzian energy distribution. This peak width is about 200 μeV and corresponds to a translational diffusion constant of 0.23 A(ring)2/ps, a result in rough agreement with a recent molecular dynamics simulation of liquid butane by Ullo and Yip. [J. Chem. Phys. 85, 4056 (1986)].

Notes: The continuous inversion from a water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsion at low temperatures to an oil-in-water (o/w) microemulsion at higher temperatures within the one-phase channel of water (0.6% NaCl)–n-decane–AOT microemulsion system is investigated by small angle neutron scattering (SANS). At constant AOT (surfactant) weight fraction γ of 12%, the structural evolution as a function of temperature takes place in different forms as the oil-to-water weight fraction α is varied from 15 to 90 %. At low o-w weight fractions (α=15 and 20 %) the microemulsions transform from a water-internal, oil-continuous structure at lower temperatures to an oil-internal, water-continuous droplet structure at higher temperatures jumping across an intermediate region of a lamellar phase (Lα). However, at higher o-w weight fractions (α=80 and 90 %) the evolution goes through a stage of percolation of the water droplets first into extended water clusters, then the structural inversion takes place probably through a transition of these water clusters into an entangled tubular structure. At equal oil-to-water volume ration (α=40%), the structure can be described as bicontinuous at both low and high temperatures. In this case we are able to extract two lengths characterizing the structure from SANS data using different models for the scattering length density fluctuation correlation function of a bicontinuous microemulsion.

Notes: High-resolution, fast optical hole-burning results are reported for the amorphous system cresyl violet in ethanol glass at 1.3 K. Holes are burned and detected using a novel technique which allows precise detection of narrow (∼0.03 cm−1 ), shallow (∼1%) holes 10 μs to 50 ms after their generation. The technique is described in detail along with careful tests demonstrating the validity of its results. The hole width is observed to increase linearly with time when plotted against log time. Using the four time correlation function description of optical hole burning, the time-dependent increase in hole width (spectral diffusion) is shown to arise from a broad distribution of fluctuation rates in the glass with the probability of having a fluctuation at rate R proportional to 1/R. The 10 μs to 50 ms data is combined with hole-width data spanning the range 100 ms to 10 000 s and with two-pulse picosecond photon echo data. The two-pulse photon echo linewidth is calculated by extrapolating the fluctuation rate distribution obtained from the hole-width data to short times. The results are in excellent agreement with experimental echo results. The combined data from the two sets of hole-burning experiments provides a detailed description of the glass dynamics over nine decades of time, 10 000 s to 10 μs. Together with the two-pulse photon echo results, the data provide information on the glass dynamical behavior over seven decades faster in time as well. The net result is a description of the dynamics in low-temperature ethanol glass on time scales spanning 16 decades.

Notes: Extensive light scattering measurements, including the intensity, turbidity, and linewidth, on a three-component microemulsion system consisting of mixtures of water, decane, and a surfactant sodium di-2 ethylhexylsulfosuccinate (AOT) (WDA), have been made. The critical and several off-critical mixtures have been studied along constant microemulsion droplet volume fraction lines in the one-phase region over a very large temperature range. In the vicinity of the lower phase separation temperature Tp the intensity data are very well accounted for by the standard theory of critical binary fluids using a single value for the short range correlation length ξ0=(13.5±1.5) A(ring). By combining a mode-coupling theory including the background effects and a linear model equation of state applicable in the critical region, we have been able to fit the dynamic light scattering data using a Debye cutoff length q−1D which is equal to the constant average diameter of microemulsion droplets. Furthermore, we find clear evidence for a crossover from critical to single particle behavior in both static and dynamic light scattering data. A crossover temperature Tx has been identified at which qDξ(Tx)=1. Analyses of the dynamic light scattering data show that qD, which can only be measured far away from Tp, in fact plays a decisive role in controlling the critical dynamics in the whole temperature range.

Notes: Thermodynamics of protein solubilization in water-in-oil microemulsions is analyzed in terms of the shell-and-core model for reverse micelles. The electrostatic contribution to the free energy of transfer of the protein from the aqueous solution to the microemulsion is determined via the solution of the nonlinear Poisson–Boltzmann equation for the protein/reverse micelle complex, for the protein-free micelle, and for the cell model of aqueous protein solution in equilibrium with the microemulsion. The electrolyte effect on the protein solubility in the microemulsion is studied. A good agreement between the predictions of the model and the known salting out effect of cytochrome-c in sodium di-2-ethylhexylsulfosuccinate AOT-water-in-isooctane microemulsion is observed.

Notes: A lattice Boltzmann model for reaction-diffusion systems is developed. The method provides an efficient computational scheme for simulating a variety of problems described by the reaction-diffusion equations. Diffusion phenomena, the decay to a limit cycle, and the formation of Turing patterns are studied. The results of lattice Boltzmann calculations are compared with the lattice gas method and with theoretical predictions, showing quantitative agreement. The model is extended to include velocity convection in chemically reacting fluid flows.

Notes: Using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) we have determined the crystallographic orientation of a tantalum single crystal from a measurement of its mechanical resonance spectrum. This accomplishment is significant not only because it reduces the sample requirements for RUS but also because it is the simplest method for simultaneous determination of a crystal's elastic constants and microscopic crystallographic orientation.