The effect of a localized SiO2 codoping on the conversion of polycrystalline, MgO-doped Al2O3 tubes to single-crystal sapphire was investigated. Codoping with SiO2 before sintering intentionally triggered abnormal grain growth, which resulted in the full conversion of tube surfaces to single crystal without adversely affecting densification to a almost pore-free, translucent state. The degree o...

The magnetoresistance (MR) in polycrystalline colossal magnetoresistive compounds follows a behavior different from single crystals below the ferromagnetic transition temperature. This difference is usually attributed to spin polarized tunneling at the grain boundaries of the polycrystalline sample. Here we derive a theoretical expression for the contribution of spin polarized tunneling to the ...

Utilizing Co/Al(2)O(3)/Co magnetic tunnel junctions with Co electrodes of different crystalline phases, a clear relationship between electrode crystal structure and junction transport properties is presented. For junctions with one fcc(111) textured and one polycrystalline (polyphase and polydirectional) Co electrode, a strong asymmetry is observed in the magnetotransport properties, while when...

Vibration damping in polycrystalline TbDy alloys was studied at cryogenic temperatures. Mechanical hysteretic losses were measured at various strains, frequencies, and loading configurations at 77 K. Some textured TbDy materials demonstrated 22.6% energy dissipation in mechanical measurements at low frequency ~0.01 Hz! and a mean logarithmic decrement of 0.23 at a higher frequency ~25 kHz!. Ult...

Measurements of positron lifetime and hydrogen solubility were made in deformed polycrystalline Pd to investigate thermally-activated recovery. A strong correlation as a function of isochronal annealing temperature was observed between trapped-positron lifetime and the enhancement of hydrogen solubility due to solute binding at dislocations. This correlation is attributed to the simultaneous re...

The role of proteins in biomineralization and the mechanism of eggshell formation are not well understood. We have isolated and purified the major protein, ansocalcin from goose eggshell matrix. The amino acid sequence study indicates that ansocalcin is homologous to the chicken eggshell protein, ovocleidin 17, and C-type lectins. Ansocalcin nucleates polycrystalline aggregates of calcite cryst...

Many issues in forming are influenced to some degree by the internal structure of the material which is commonly referred to by the materials science community as microstructure. Although the term microstructure is commonly only thought of in the context of grain size, it more properly encompasses all relevant aspects of internal material structure. For the purposes of forming, the most relevan...

The propagation of shock waves through polycrystalline iron is explored by large-scale atomistic simulations. For large enough shock strengths the passage of the wave causes the body-centered-cubic phase to transform into a close-packed phase with most structure being isotropic hexagonal-close-packed (hcp) and, depending on shock strength and grain orientation, some fraction of face-centered-cu...

A Ti–46Al(at.%) polysynthetically twinned alloy, which contained a characteristic lamellar spacing of k 1⁄4 1:3 lm, was converted to a polycrystalline fully-lamellar microstructure with k 1⁄4 19:9 nm using an a-phase solution treatment followed by a2 þ c aging. Tensile experiments, performed on microsamples extracted from within single grains of the polycrystalline material, illustrated that ul...

Ni–Mn–Ga polycrystalline alloy fibers with diameters of 33 μm are reported to exhibit significantly improved ductility and huge superelastic and shape memory strains in comparison to conventional brittle bulk polycrystalline alloys. Particularly, the recoverable strain of the Ni54.9–Mn23.5–Ga21.6 fiber can be as high as 10% at 40 ◦C. Such optimized behavior has been achieved by a suitable fabri...