Phase transformations such as freezing typically start with heterogeneous nucleation. Heterogeneous nucleation near a wetting transition, of a crystalline phase is studied. The wetting transition occurs at or near a vapour-liquid transition which occurs in a metastable fluid. The fluid is metastable with respect to crystallisation, and it is the crystallisation of this fluid phase that we are i...

The transient reflectivity response of phase-change Ge2Sb2Te5 films to intense femtosecond laser pulses is studied by ultrafast coherent phonon spectroscopy. The three different phases amorphous, fcc-, and hcp-crystalline , as well as laser-crystallized films, are investigated, featuring different photoexcited carrier and coherent optical phonon dynamics. At least two main phonon frequencies ar...

The deformation behavior of self-ion-implanted amorphous-Si (a-Si) has been studied using spherical nanoindentation in both relaxed (annealed) and unrelaxed (as-implanted) a-Si. Interestingly, phase transformations were clearly observed in the relaxed state, with the load–unload curves from these samples displaying characteristic discontinuities and cross-sectional transmission electron microsc...

Europium doped transparent lead fluorophosphate glass ceramics successfully were prepared with heat treatment of precourse glasses at temperature above glass transition (Tg). X-ray diffraction (XRD) experiment evidenced the formation of PbF2 nanocrystals in glassy matrix. The emission spectra investigation indicate that considerable amount of Eu3+ ions were trapped in crystalline phase, and the...

The liquid crystalline phases of matter each possess distinct types of defects that have drawn great interest in areas such as topology, self-assembly and material micropatterning. However, relatively little is known about how defects in one liquid crystalline phase arise from defects or deformations in another phase upon crossing a phase transition. Here, we directly examine defects in the in ...

Temperature-induced phase transitions estimated by electron spin resonance (ESR) technique were ohscrved in the lipids of several nematode species. In both Meloidogyne javanica and Caenorhahditis elegans, there was a phase transition in their phospholipids from a liquid-crystalline state to a solid gel state at about 10 C. Aphelenchus avenae also had a phase transition, but at about 20 C. With ...

the perovskite-structured la2cuo4 nanoparticles (lco nps) have been synthesized via an ultrasonic-assisted co-precipitation route using octanoic acidas organic surfactant, and the phase composition, morphology, lattice parameters and size of nanoparticles  are characterized through fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ft-ir), x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron microscopy (sem) and t...

Human betaB1-crystallin is a major eye-lens protein that undergoes in vivo truncation at the N-terminus with aging. By studying native betaB1 and truncated betaB1DeltaN41, which mimics an age-related in vivo truncation, we have determined quantitatively the effect of truncation on the oligomerization and phase transition properties of betaB1 aqueous solutions. The oligomerization studies show t...

Si is a promising candidate anode material for the next generation Li-ion battery because of its high capacity. However, Si inherently suffers from its large volume change (~300%) when alloyed with Li during the typical charge/discharge cycles, which degrades battery performance and causes potential safety issues. Understanding of microstructural evolutions of Si in the lithiation/delithiation ...