The humidity present in ambient atmosphere affects the adhesion of small particles by causing capillary bridge formation between the particle and the surface. Even in moderate relative humidities this, usually attractive, force can have a significant effect on adhesion behaviour of micro and sub-micro particles. We have directly measured the pull-off forces of initially adhered oxide particles ...

The intrinsic dc conductivity of long, individual lambda phage dsDNA molecules has been investigated by ultrasensitive low current-voltage-spectroscopy (IV) under ambient conditions and controlled low humidity inert gas atmosphere on microfabricated metal-insulator-metal gap structures. We found a strong dependence of the measured conductivity on the apparent humidity, which we attribute to cap...

Observation and appreciation of scenic landscape features, airport runway visibility, and the earth’s radiation balance are all dependent on the radiative properties of the atmosphere, which in turn are dependent on the scattering and absorption characteristics of ambient aerosols. Atmospheric scattering and, to a lesser degree, absorption characteristics are highly dependent on the amount of w...

A molecular exciton signature is established and investigated under different ambient conditions in rubrene single crystals. An oxygen-related band gap state is found to form in the ambient atmosphere. This state acts as an acceptor center and assists in the fast dissociation of excitons, resulting in a higher dark and photoconductivity of oxidized rubrene. The band gap state produces a well-de...

Simple analytical approximations for aerosol radiative forcing generally contain the aerosol upscatter fraction (the fraction of scattered light that is scattered into the upper hemisphere), while ambient measurements generally yield the backscatter fraction, and theoretical calculations of scattering phase functions often yield the asymmetry parameter. Therefore, simple analytical relationship...

The effect of ambient gas on the dynamics of the plasma generated by laser ablation of a carbon target using 1.06 mm radiation from a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser has been investigated using a spectroscopic technique. The emission characteristics of the carbon plasma produced in argon, helium and air atmospheres are found to depend strongly on the nature and pressure of the surrounding gas. It has b...

This work describes a pilot study for the investigation of the chemical composition of organic species present in PM10 collected at a residential site in New Delhi during December 2001–March 2002, and in TSP emissions from in-use twostroke vehicles. Both ambient and emissions samples were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS), with an emphasis on quantification of non-volat...

Background: nitrogen oxides occur in the atmosphere in Six forms of namely: N2O , NO , NO2 , N2O3, N2O4 and N2O5 .Among these oxides NO2 is the most important air pollutant because of its relatively high toxicity and its ubiquity in ambient air. In this research Griess-Saltzman method was utilized for determination of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere of different laboratori...

The influence of temperature on the indentation size effect is explored experimentally. Copper is indented on a custom-built high-temperature nanoindenter, at temperatures between ambient and 200 0C, in an inert atmosphere that precludes oxidation. Over this range of temperatures, the size effect is reduced considerably, suggesting that thermal activation plays a major role in determining the l...

Devices made from graphene encapsulated in hexagonal boron-nitride exhibit pronounced negative bend resistance and an anomalous Hall effect, which are a direct consequence of room-temperature ballistic transport at a micrometer scale for a wide range of carrier concentrations. The encapsulation makes graphene practically insusceptible to the ambient atmosphere and, simultaneously, allows the us...