Introduction Amorphous materials have no long-range order at the atomic length scale and show different properties as compared to typical crystalline materials. Among of them, amorphous alloys are in thermodynamically nonequilibrium, crystallized by heating and used as catalysts and catalyst precursors. Investigations on the relationships between their catalytic performances and structural chan...

We study theoretically the equilibrium structure, as well as the response under external load, of characteristic carbon-based materials. The materials considered include diamond, amorphous carbon (a-C), “amorphous diamond” and nanocomposite amorphous carbon (na-C). A universal bulk-modulus versus density curve is obeyed by all structures we consider. We calculate the dependence of elastic const...

Defect states in different dielectric materials with crystalline and amorphous structures were investigated with two models, the Broer model and the Bloch model. For crystalline structures as in hafnium oxide, defects were found to fit well with the Broer model due to strong local magnetic-field-orientation dependency. In amorphous materials, for example, organosilicate glass, defects were foun...

UNLABELLED The solar cell structure of n-type poly-silicon/5-nm-diameter silicon nanocrystals embedded in an amorphous silicon oxycarbide matrix (30 layers)/p-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon/Al electrode was fabricated on a quartz substrate. An open-circuit voltage and a fill factor of 518 mV and 0.51 in the solar cell were obtained, respectively. The absorption edge of the solar cell was 1...

Properties of glasses are typically controlled by judicious selection of the glass-forming and glass-modifying constituents. Through an experimental and computational study of the crystalline, molten, and amorphous [Ca12Al14O32](2+) ⋅ (e(-))2, we demonstrate that electron anions in this system behave as glass modifiers that strongly affect solidification dynamics, the glass transition temperatu...

We have investigated the use of aluminum based amorphous metallic glass as the anode in lithium ion rechargeable batteries. Amorphous metallic glasses have no long-range ordered microstructure; the atoms are less closely packed compared to the crystalline alloys of the same compositions; they usually have higher ionic conductivity than crystalline materials, which make rapid lithium diffusion p...

In the first-order Raman spectrum of amorphous carbon (a-C) there is a low-frequency feature in the 200—900-cm ' region. This feature is characteristic of the highly disordered amorphous-carbon materials. We note that the intensity of this feature is very sensitive to the thermal history of samples, thus suggesting that it is an important measure of the degree of disorder of the a-C materials. ...

In contrast with amorphous alloys, nanocrystalline soft magnetic materials show improved thermal stability and higher soft magnetic properties. The nanocrystalline soft magnetic composites are usually fabricated by partially crystallizing from parent amorphous alloys. This paper reports our experimental observation on the sequence of crystallization in metallic glass under a high magnetic field...

Research in evolutionary robotics has traditionally been limited to morphologies comprising rigid and discrete components, such as links connected with rotational or linear joints and actuators. Here, we demonstrate the evolution of robots with continuous and amorphous morphologies composed of multiple materials. Actuation is accomplished by periodic volumetric expansion and contraction of one ...

Memory based on phase change materials is currently the most promising candidate for bridging the gap in access time between memory and storage in traditional memory hierarchy. However, multilevel storage is still hindered by the so-called resistance drift commonly related to structural relaxation of the amorphous phase. Here, we present the temporal evolution of infrared spectra measured on am...