Single crystals of MoSe2−xTex (x = 0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 1.75) were grown by chemical vapor transport technique. The stoichiometric composition of grown crystals was confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Transport properties like electrical resistivity, Seebeck co-efficient measurements at high temperature and Hall effect at room temperature were studied on these samples. The obtained results are discussed in details in this paper.

In this work, electric properties of two matrices based on nematic epoxy monomers with azoxy groups are compared. The process of curing the monomers with DDM amine was monitored by means of dielectric spectroscopy at temperatures of 110 °C and 120 °C. In the next step, measurements of direct current conductivity were performed for the epoxy matrices cured at the temperature of 120 °C. The conductivity in the studied matrices was of the order of 10−9–10−7 S/m at temperatures between 150 °C and 170 °C. The conductivity of both the samples was of activation nature and their resistance grew rapidly below the temperature of 140 °C. Dielectric studies were also carried out for both the materials in a broad range of frequency and temperature. A relaxation process with similar activation energy was observed in both the cases. This process can be connected with the motion of polar azoxy groups present in the mesogen. An additional relaxation process appeared at higher temperatures in one of the cases, it was probably related to some structural change in the material.

We have studied the structural, morphological and optical properties of In2S3 layers deposited on glass substrate by the spray pyrolysis method with the molar ratio S/In varies from 1 to 4. The substrate temperature was maintained at 613 K. The characteristics of these films have been determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), optical absorption-transmission and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Their structure is strongly dependent on the molar ratio. The deposit is mainly constituted by the β phase towards (4 0 0) direction. No characteristic peaks were observed for other impurities such as In2O3, S or In2(OH)3. The best crystallinity and surface morphology are obtained at molar ratio equal to 2.5. At this ratio, the crystallites coalesce and the local roughness is of the order of 1 nm. Optical transmission of 80% has been achieved in the visible spectrum. In2S3 band gap energy reached 2.63 eV from layers with x = 2 and deposited at Ts = 613 K.

The crystallization of amorphous silicon thin films by electron beam exposure was studied. Amorphous silicon and silicon dioxide layers were deposited on glass substrate by PECVD at 360 °C. The optimization to crystallize 300 nm thick amorphous silicon film was carried out at a RF power of 300 W, DC voltage of 1500 V, Argon gas flow rate of 3 sccm and a distance between electron beam mesh and sample of 40 mm. High quality nano-crystalline silicon films with an activation energy of 0.47 eV from conductivity, a grain size of 15–45 nm from SEM and Raman crystalline volume fraction of 93.1% were fabricated. We expect that e-beam exposure will be applied to crystallization of amorphous silicon films.

Series of CoxCr1−x thin films have been evaporated under vacuum onto monocrystalline silicon substrate, x being atomic percent of cobalt. The thickness ranges from 17 to 220 nm, values measured by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. The samples have been annealed under vacuum for one hour at 700 °C. The as deposited films show a hexagonal close packed (hcp) structure while the annealed films show both hexagonal close packed and face centered cubic (fcc) structures. While the as deposited films are under a compressive stress, the annealed films, on the contrary, are under a tensile stress. The hysteresis loops present the same features for the as deposited and annealed films concerning the in-plane and out-of-plane anisotropies. Nevertheless, the coercive field is strongly improved for the annealed films. Moreover, these latter films present very high values of the squareness. A squareness value up to 0.96 has been measured. All these results and others are analyzed and discussed.

Nanosilver solution, prepared by anodic dissolution with high DC voltage in doubly distilled water, is free of undesirable chemicals and forms a highly pure product which is suitable for different applications, especially in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. In this study high DC voltage electrolysis was implemented to form nanosilver solutions with varying electrode diameters, anode-cathode distances, and electrolysis duration. The process was monitored while the cell was in operation, and the characteristics of the resulting solution were analysed afterwards. Cell reactions included: colour changes in the solution bulk due to the reduction of silver ions forming nanoparticles, anodic dissolution of silver, intense gas evolution at both electrodes, and chemical reactions in the solution causing nanosilver formation. UV-Vis characteristics, particle size distribution, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images, solution concentrations, conductivities, and ζ-potentials were all found to depend on the electrode’s distances, temperature, electrolysis duration, and current density. Nanosilver preparation can thus be considered a combination of electrochemical reactions (such as silver dissolution at anode and water decomposition to generate hydrogen and oxygen), and chemical reactions between the electrolytic products from the solution bulk.

Light propagation in a coupled system of Tamm plasmon-polariton and nonlinear cavity mode is theoretically investigated through the nonlinear transfer matrix method. It is found that the asymmetric layered structure exhibits both pronounced unidirectionality and high transmission. This leads to all-optical diode actions. Compared with other similar studies, the designed structure is much simple only with seven periods. The unique feature is that the direction of on-off can be reversed depending on the working frequencies. The effect of metal loss is also considered in this study.

Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an elemental analytical technique with various applications. The paper demonstrates the first LIBS measurements of human liver samples for the purpose of detecting the higher copper content related with the advanced stage of Wilson’s disease. These measurements were implemented using a Nd:YAG laser working at the wavelength of 532 nm and an echelle type spectrometer equipped with an intensified CCD camera allowing for a wide spectral range coverage (200–950 nm) and rapid camera gating (minimum gating time of 5 ns). Seven liver samples with suspected Wilson’s disease and five reference samples were investigated. The main parameter of interest was the Cu/C ratio obtained at first from spectra and secondly directly from an iCCD image. Our experiment is a pilot study, which shows LIBS analysis of human liver samples for the purpose of detecting the normal and higher copper content for the first time. The method proved to be a quick and a low-cost approach for the detection of pathological accumulation of copper in the affected tissue.

Electromagnetic (EM) analysis of hydropower generators is common practice but rotor whirling is little studied. This paper suggests a novel semi-analytical method for estimating the steady state unbalanced magnetic pull (UMP) when the rotor centre is undergoing mixed eccentricities motion. The ability to estimate the UMP for mixed eccentricities motion in finite element method (FEM)-based modelling software packages is rare. The proposed methodology in its formulation takes advantage of the fact that a purely dynamic eccentricity motion including non-synchronous whirling and a purely static eccentricity motion can be more amenable to implement in existing FEM-based EM modelling software products for UMP estimation. After these initial separate UMP results are obtained, the proposed method can be applied for virtually any mixed eccentricities motion cases up to sufficiently large eccentricities for quick analysis instead of running the mixed eccentricities simulations directly in a FEM-based software package. Good agreement between the UMP from the actual EM mixed eccentricities motion simulations in a commercial FEM-based software package and the UMP estimations by the novel method is made for a wide range of eccentricities that may commonly occur in practice. A modified feature selective validation (FSV) method, the FSV-UPC, is applied to assess the similarities and the differences in the UMP computations.

Tunably controlling waveguide behaviors are always desirable for various kinds of applications. In this work, we theoretically propose the possibility to realize a tunable high-pass waveguide by magnetically controlling magnetorheological fluids inside. Through computer simulations and numerical calculations, we find that the low-pass or high-pass behavior of such waveguides can be manually switched. Furthermore, the cutoff frequency and transmission band of the waveguides can be smoothly controlled by an applied magnetic field. It is revealed that the underlying mechanism lies in the field-induced anisotropic structure of magnetorheological fluids. By combining soft materials, this work shows a way to obtain magnetocontrollable properties of waveguides, which may help to achieve tunable properties for other metamaterial-based devices like invisible cloaks and photonic crystals.

Low density polyethylene (LDPE) blends with different percentages of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) irradiated with 10 MeV electron beam in the range of 50–250 kGy at room temperature. The effect of irradiation and EVA content on the mechanical and thermal properties of LDPE was studied. It was revealed that for all blends increasing the applied dose up to 150 kGy would result in decrease in the specific heat capacity (cp) and thermal conductivity (k) of LDPE and then raised slightly with further increased in radiation doses. The gel content showed that under the irradiation, the crosslinking density at each irradiation dose depends almost on the amorphous portions of the LDPE/EVA. The mechanical properties of LDPE/EVA blends were found to be influenced by the electron beam irradiation and EVA content. It can be deduced that the mechanical properties of LDPE are improved by blending with EVA and irradiated by electron beam. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to characterize the structure of LDPE. Result indicates small variation in crystalline content, which could be increased or decreased on the formation of important bond groups.

This paper concentrates on the effect of the AC and DC magnetic fields on plant growth. The effect of AC magnetic field with intensities of 2.25, 1.66 and 1.49 mT and DC magnetic field with intensities of 3.6, 2.41 and 2.05 mT in exposure durations of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 min on two groups of dry and wet Pisum sativum seedlings was studied. In each experiment 10 seeds were used; the experiments were repeated three times for each group and there was a sham exposed group for comparison purposes. The light cycle was 12 h light/12 h darkness and the temperature was 25 ± 1° C. The index of growth is considered to be the root and stem elongation on the sixth day. It was observed that AC magnetic field has a positive effect on the growth in all durations and intensities. Moreover, it is highlighted that during the experiments, the mean growth of dry seedlings significantly increased by a factor of 11 in AC magnetic field with the lowest intensity of 1.49 mT (p < 0.05). It was also shown that AC magnetic fields had a more positive effect on the growth of plants in comparison to DC magnetic fields.

Magnetoelectric properties of layered heterostructures (FM/PZT/FM)n (n≤ 3) obtained by ion-beam sputtering deposition of ferromagnetic metal (FM), where FM is the cobalt (Co) or permalloy Ni78Fe22, onto ferroelectric ceramic based on lead zirconate titanate (PZT) have been studied. The polished ferroelectric plates in thickness from 400 to 20 μm were subjected to finished treatment by ion-beam sputtering. After plasma activation they were covered by the ferromagnetic films from 1 to 6 μm in thickness. Enhanced characteristics of these structures were reached by means of both the thickness optimization of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic layers and obtaining of ferromagnetic/ferroelectric interfaces being free from defects and foreign impurities. Assuming on the basis of analysis of elastic stresses in the ferromagnetic film that the magnetoelectric effect forms within ferromagnetic/ferroelectric interface, the structures with 2–3 ferromagnetic layers were obtained. In layered heterostructure (Py/PZT/Py)3, the optimal thickness of ferromagnetic film was 2 μm, and outer and inner ferroelectric layers had 20 μm and 80 μm in thickness, respectively. For such structure the maximal magnetoelectric voltage coefficient of 250 mV/(cm Oe) was reached at a frequency 100 Hz in magnetic field of 0.25 T at room temperature. The structures studied can serve as energy-independent elements detecting the change of magnetic or electric fields in electronic devices based on magnetoelectric effect.