The interaction between hexavalent chromium Cr(VI), as K(2)CrO(4), and standard humic acids (HAs) in bulk solution was studied using three complementary analytical methods: UV-Visible spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy and differential pulse stripping voltammetry. The observed UV-Vis and X-ray absorption spectra showed that, under our experimental conditions, HAs did not induce reducti...

We have built a 36-pixel high-resolution superconducting tunnel junction (STJ) soft X-ray spectrometer for chemical analysis of dilute metals by fluorescence-detected X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron. Soft X-ray absorption edges are preferred over traditional hard X-ray spectroscopy at the K-edges, since they have narrower natural linewidths and exhib...

Multicomponent TeO2–Bi2O3–ZnO (TBZ) glass thin films were prepared using RF magnetron sputtering under different oxygen flow rates. The influences of oxygen flow rate on the structural and optical properties of the resulting thin films were investigated. We observed that thin films sputtered in an oxygen-rich environment are optically transparent while those sputtered in an oxygen-deficient env...

The correlation between sub-band gap absorption and the chemical states and electronic and atomic structures of S-hyperdoped Si have been extensively studied, using synchrotron-based x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), x-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES), extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), valence-band photoemission spectroscopy (VB-PES) and first-principles calcu...

Although a minor constituent of cell and tissues, sulfur is an essential element to fulfil a wide range of biological processes, and it is present in the functional groups of many biomolecules that participate to redox reactions in vivo. Cysteine, one of the two S-containing aminoacids present in proteins, contains sulfur in fully reduced form and its thiol group can undergo a range of reaction...

Depth sensitivities: Research into the initial stages of hydrogenation in a material necessitates the use of a variety of methods that provide the capabilities for characterization of structure and bonding with distinct depth sensitivities. This study makes extensive use of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), and soft x-r...

cadmium sulfide nanoparticles were grown using wet chemical method by dissolving the reactants ofcadmium acetate and sodium sulfide in the presence of thioglycerol (tg) as capping agent in ethanolsolvent. different nanoparticle sizes and size distribution were obtained through varying the molaritiesof thioglycerol. at higher tg concentration, synthesis provides a nearly monodisperse nanoparticl...

In the generic phase diagram of heavy fermion systems, tuning an external parameter such as hydrostatic or chemical pressure modifies the superconducting transition temperature. The superconducting phase forms a dome in the temperature-tuning parameter phase diagram, which is associated with a maximum of the superconducting pairing interaction. Proximity to antiferromagnetism suggests a relatio...

The interaction of light with materials is an intensively studied research forefront, in which the coupling of radiation energy to selective degrees of freedom offers contact-free tuning of functionalities on ultrafast time scales. Capturing the fundamental processes and understanding the mechanism of photoinduced structural rearrangement are essential to applications such as photo-active actua...